In about half a year, the doctor taught his little dumb pupil first to know his letters, then to name anything whatsoever, to leave off some savage motions which he had taken of his own accord before, to signify his mind by, and to impart his thoughts by his fingers and his pen, in a manner as intelligible, and almost as swift through the eyes, as that is of conveying our ideas to one another, by our voices, through the conduits and portholes of the ears. But in little more than two years he could write and read as well as anybody. Because a great many people cannot conceive this, and others pretend it is not to be done in nature, I will a little discourse upon Doctor Wallis's foundation, and show in a manner obvious to the most ignorant, how this hitherto mysterious help may be easily administered to the deaf and the dumb, which shall be the subject of the ensuing chapter.
But I cannot conclude this without telling the handsome saying with which this child, when not quite six years old, as soon as he thought he could express himself well, paid his first acknowledgment to his master, and which promised how great his future genius was to be, when so witty a child ripened into man. The words he wrote to him were these, only altered into English from the Scotch.
Sir,
It is no little work you have accomplished. My thanks are too poor amends; the world, sir, shall give you thanks; for as I could not have expressed myself without your teaching me, so those that can talk, though they have eyes, cannot see the things which I can see, and shall tell them; so that in doing me this, you have done a general service to mankind.
CHAPTER III.
THE METHOD OF TEACHING DEAF AND DUMB PERSONS TO WRITE, READ, AND UNDERSTAND A LANGUAGE.
It is, I must confess, in some measure, amazing to me that men, of any moderate share of learning, should not naturally conceive of themselves a plain reason for this art, and know how to account for the practicability of it, the moment they hear the proposition advanced; the reasons for it are so obvious to the very first consideration we can make about it. It will be likewise as amazing to me that the most ignorant should not conceive it, after so plain a reason is given them for it, as I am now going to set down.
To begin: how are children at first taught a language that can hear? are they not taught by sounds? and what are those sounds, but tokens and signs to the ear, importing and signifying such and such a thing? If, then, there can be signs made to the eye, agreed by the party teaching the child, that they signify such and such a thing, will not the eye of the child convey them to the mind, as well as the ear? They are indeed different marks to different senses, but both the one and the other do equally signify the same things or notions, according to the will of the teacher, and consequently must have an equal effect with the person who is to be instructed, for though the manners signifying are different, the things signified are the same.
For example; if, after having invented an alphabet upon the fingers, a master always keeps company with a deaf child, and teaches it to call for whatsoever it wants by such motions of the fingers which, if put down by letters, according to each invented motion of each finger, would form in writing a word of a thing which it wanted; might not he by these regular motions teach its eye the same notions of things, as sounds do to the ears of children that hear? The manner of teaching the alphabet by fingers, is plainly set down in the following table.
When the deaf child has learned by these motions a good stock of words, as children that hear first learn by sounds, we may, methinks, call not improperly, the fingers of such a dumb infant, its mouth, and the eye of such a deaf child, its ear. When he has learnt thus far, he must be taught to write the alphabet, according as it was adapted to the motions of his fingers; as for instance, the five vowels, a, e, i, o, u, by pointing to the top of the five fingers, and the other letters, b, c, d, &c., by such other place or posture of a finger, as in the above-mentioned table is set forth, or otherwise, it shall be agreed upon. When this is done, the marks B, R, E, A, D, and so of all other words, corresponding with such fingers, conveys through his eyes, unto his head, the same notion, viz., the thing signified, as the sound we give to those same letters, making the word 'bread,' do into our head, through the ears.