The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-09-12 00:00:00

which they ar

carried but,

are well described below

And we believe that there is no similar establishment in
the kingdom which has advanced so rapidly in

public es

mation as the school in Liverpool. One gratifying evidence
of this is the article which we subjoin. It is taken from
the " Churchman's Companion," for the present month,
published by Masters and Co., London ; and is entitled

THE EDUCATION OP THE DEAF AND DUMB.
It is believed that the number of the deaf and dumb in
this country is not less than fourteen thousand. The pro-
portion of these who are actually under instruction is
considerably less than one-tenth of the whole. Before
Institutions for their education were so numerous, or so
well known as they are at present, great numbers now
living must have grown up without instruction ; and
from want of means, and other causes, many are now
growing up past the eligible age, who, unless rescued in
time, must also remain in the darkness of perpetual igno-
rance. But besides these, there must be a large proportion
of adult persons, who, having pupils in their youth, have
then gone forth to the performance of the duties which
devolved upon them in their own sphere and rank of life.
Yet, until a century ago, not one of this afflicted class,
in any country of the world, had any opportunity of
obtaining education. At that time, private enterprise
originated a school in Great Britain ; personal benevolence
set another on foot in France ; and a third grew into ex-
istence in Germany. From these beginnings have arisen
the various schools, which are now to be found, in so many
of the larger cities and towns of Europe and America.
We propose describing, in the present article, a visit
recently paid to the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in
Liverpool. The pupils there,— sixty in number,—of both
sexes,—are between the ages of eight and sixteen years,
and are in every stage of advancement—from the earliest
quickening of the torpid intelligence by the first inlet of
knowledge, up to very creditable degrees of acquirement
in the ordinary topics of instruction, and in the knowledge
of revealed truth.

It must be obvious that a child who never heard sounds
can have no knowledge of words, either spoken or written.
He will at once recognise a multitude of common objects,
when he sees them represented in a picture, and he may
be familiar with their uses,—but he can have no know-
ledge of their names ; for if you tell him, he cannot hear
you, and if you show him the written or printed word, he
cannot read it. How then would you begin to convey
instruction to a mind so entombed— so painfully isolated,—
in its utter, helpless ignorance ? This question at once
suggests the whole difficulty of the work, and reveals the
nature of the very curious and interesting process which
is being carried on daily in our schools for the deaf and
dumb.

The first thing to be done is to teach the pupil that
written characters have the same signification and value
for us which pictures or imitative gestures have for him;
that the word "cow," for instance, calls up to our minds
the idea of that animal as effectually as a picture would do.
You teach him, therefore, that his imitative sign is to be
associated with words, as well as with pictures. To his
vocabulary of nouns, thus acquired, and constantly in-
creasing, he proceeds to add a knowledge of those words
which describe the qualities of objects ; and at first, these
too are confined to the representation of what is visible.
The "cow" is said to be—a brown cow—a black cow—or
a large, a quiet, or a lazy one. From adjectives, he goes
on to verbs, and supposing the same noun to be the nomi-
native, he is taught to say that the "cow" walks, or eats,