Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1884-06-03
For the SPECTATOR.
The Sign-Language.

certain papers of Col. James III. Skinner
makes some unjust and erroneous imnres
sions in regard to the sign-language as :
medium Of instruction for the deaf.
He begins by assailing COL Skinner az ,
"one-sided partisan and as an assum nt;v.
instructor of the Board of Visitors: but q
Mr.. Poyntz's -sidedness, uerbuu sot.
1t is not my purpose to depict or portray
model man to be Principal here, sim
ply propose to show that the sien-languaof
is indispensable in teaching the deaf. anc
to show that articulation is not so much as
Mr.. Poyntz has been led to believe it is.
Mr.. Poyntz endeavors to indicate tha,
the era of this oral method of teaching the
deaf has just been inaugurated, while, in
fact, 1t dates back many years prior to the
sign system, the system adopted at this In.
stitution and every other State Institution
in the land.
Livery man OF any consequence and
prominence in the education of the deaf
knows that signs are still used in Germany
and France as of old. 1t seems as if Mr.
Poyntz has given his attention exclusively
to the oralists, who have once more trimmed
and lit their candle, and are working with
vigor akin to that of the Roman Catho.
lies of the Jesuit order of old, who used
every agency to win friends and crush foes.
to gain supremacy in this country, while
the true friends of the education for the
deaf-those who uphold the COMBINED
SYSTEM, .. e., articulation for those whom
it will benefit and signs for all, the system
which has been the rule of this school al
most from the time of its foundation
complacently back, knowing, by expert.
ments tried, that this articulation craze
will, ere many years, when it shall have
reached its zenith of glory, with one blow
OF the sign-language fall to the ground in
pieces, like the image of Nebuchadnezzar' s
great vision of which the Bible speaks
the sign-language being the "stone that
smote the image and became great noun
tain.'
To show that am not in error in stating
that signs are still used in Europe as here.
extract the following from Mr.. Moritz
Hill, of Weissenfels, Prussia, a man of the
widest experience and highest standing
among the oral teachers Of Europe. In
speaking of abolishing signs, he says;
''Such an idea must be attributed to ma
levolence or to objectionable levity. This
pretence is contrary to nature and repug-
nant to the rules of sound educational
science. If this system were to be put into
execution, the moral life, the intellectual
development of the deaf and dumb, would
be inhumanly hampered. 1t would be
acting contrary to nature to forbid the
deaf-mute means of expression employed
by even the hearing persons. Even in
teaching itself we cannot lay aside the
language of gestures, the language which
the deaf-mute brings with him to school,
and which ought to serve IS a basis for his
education. To Danish the sign-language
from the school-room and limit ourselves
to articulation, is like employing gold key
which does not fit the lock of the door we
would open; and refusing to use the iron
one made for it; at the best, it would be
drilling the deaf-mute, and not moulding
him intellectually and morally"
Miss Sarah Porter, one of the best artic-
ulation teachers that Northampton has had,
says:
''Every oral teacher knows that fighting
signs is like fighting original sin. Put the
children together and they will make signs
secretly, if not openly, in their intercourse
with each other."
The Report of this school for the year
ending September 30th, 1881, contains an
able and unbiased statement in regard to
and instead of referring the
Board to many other arguments on the
subject, l simply refer them to the Report
believing it sufficient in itself
to convince the Board that articulation has
been given thorough trial here, and of
the fact that it is not the best method of
the deaf.
1t surprises us beyond imagination that
there is a man in this house who would be
so ridiculous.as to compare our sign-lan-
guage with the pennsylvania Dutch" l
have no doubt but that he will be glad to
change his opinion when he reads this ex-
tract from Mr.. Gilbert o. Fay, M. A., who
has been engaged in teaching and superin-
tending the deaf for over fifty years and is
known to have taken great interest in ar
ticulation:
SIT is not necessary, nor is it desirable,
in any system to omit, to prohibit, to ex-
tirpate the language of pantomime, spring
ing up and ripening as it does in the social
and overtures, the mental life of
every deaf person. Hearing gone, shall we
refuse, shall we hesitate to extend to the
drifting, drowning mute the poor, perhaps,
but effective, temporary assistance of an
other language, already his-a language
which, latent in every human being, has
in the human constitution the
existence and protection of speech itself,
and to which revived, the mute, finding it
difficult to go beyond, thankfully for a
while returns-a language, using which
the restless infant enters upon and the tot
tering veteran closes life's career-a Ian
guage which, upon the stage of the pol
ished and as woven into the dialects of the
less civilized races, and also into the more
stirring commercial and metropolitan ne
cessities of the moving, mingling masses
and people of every tongue, has still a
prominent meaning and use-a language
which, in it's more glowing periods and
loftiest flights, oratory always adds to
scanty speech-a language which, under
the tutelage of the remaining senses,
reaches, as used by the educated deaf-mute
and their teachers, clearness, an elo-
quence, power as impressive to them as
any spoken language is to any hearing au
dience-a language which exercises over
them, through the whole range of human
thought, supreme influence which no
words spoken, written, or finger-spelled
can hope to equal"
Though Mr.. Poyntz has not had the op-
portunity of experimenting as those men Of
30, 80, 40 and 90 years standing have had,
he seems to be Of the opinion that the day
Is QOG Iar ulStdut Wueu u6 Gall COuo lOIWdIu
with Caesars words, 'reni, Uidi, vici," but
alas his name is not Caesar, it is Leonidas
and with his hand full of the re-hashed
oralists' argument, will fall like Sparta's
Leonidas with his hand full of three hum
dred braves against Xerxes' million at
Thermopyla.
1t is not unfair in me to say that, at Mr.
Poyntz's request, his semi-mute child was
put, at the beginning of this session, in the
second deaf-mute class, where signs are
used, after having been in the articulation
class for four successive sessions with SEEM
ingly no progress, and Mr.. P. is too honor
able gentleman to say that she has not
made better progress this session. The
deaf-mute children who entered the school
the same year his child did, are now in the
Fourth and Fifth classes while she is in the
second. Her weakness can not be put up
as an excuse for this. Articulation is the
only thing which has retarded her and be-
lieve Mr.. Poyntz is convinced of this fact.
1t is complained that the mutes do not
use good English in expressing themselves
and that the sign language is the impedi-
ment to correct English. l admit that the
majority of the pupils do leave school with
very little practical information, but it is
not at all their fault, nor is it the fault of
the sion.lanpuaoe, 1t is the fallibility of