The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-01-07
SOCIETY AND DEAF MUrEs.


SOCIETY AND DEAF MUTEs.
There is a matter to be brought to the no
tice of the next Congress By the National
Academy of Sciences, which relates to, aud
will deeply interest friends of, the deaf aud
dumb. The attention OF Congress is invited
through q memorial by Professor Alexander
Graham Bell who, though best known for
his electrical inventions, notably the tele-
phone, was for years an expert in the educs-
ton of deaf mutes. 1t was he who practi-
cally insugurated the system of instruction
in articulation by which many of the totally
deaf are enabled to talk. Professor Bells
interest in deaf mutes must be the better
recognized when it is recalled that he mar
ried one of his pupils-a lady who could
neither hear nor speak. His paper, which
will be laid before Congress, calls attention
to the evident tendency Of deaf mutes to
intermarry. This tendency he shows
has existed and been growing during the
last forty or fifty years. He recites
the accepted fact that the proportion of deaf
mute offspring born to deaf mutes is many
times greater than the proportion born to
people at large. The reports of the Aueri-
can Asylum, at Hartford, and those OF New
York, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois "show that
in each institution deaf mutes have been re-
ceived who belong to families containing
FIVE, six or even more deaf mutes, and there
is abundsnce Of evidence to indicate that such
families are very numerous in the United
States. In cases where there are five or six
children in one family, all deaf and dumb,
some of them marry when they grow up,
and in many cases they marry persons who
belong, like themselves, to families contain
ing several deaf mutesn
The Partially of the deaf and dumb for
selecting partners in marriage from their
own ranks is supplemented by incrnstions
on the part of many of them for tie forma-
ton of deaf and dumb community. Pro-
fessor Bell says of this:
1.-THE ideas originated in the action OF
Congress in endowing the American Asy-
lum 70; Deaf Mutes at Hartford with tract
of land and afterwards developed into
number of eccentric schemes for the lorna.
ton OF a deaf community. Some of the DQ-
pills, before graduation, formed an agree
ment to emigrate to the West and settle in
q common place, and number of schemes
of somewhat similar character were in the
hands OF deaf mutes in different parts OF the
country. The scheme that received the
most appreciation WAS one for the purchase
of tract of land by few wealthy deaf
mutes who were TO agree to sell the land in
small blocks to other deaf mutes. The
whole scheme was afterwards discussed at q
convention OF the deaf mutes of New Eng
land, and was overthrow by the influence
of several teschers, in con junction with the
, most intelligent of the deaf mutes them
selves. Since then the subject has not been
publicly discussed, but such q scheme is
favored by individual deaf mutes, and may
therefore be revived in an organized shape
at any time. A European philsnthropist
has commenced the colonization Of a tract of
land in Manitoba by deaf mutes, n pom which
there are a number OF deaf mutes, with
, their families, from Europe, and more are
expected next year."
Just what it is expected Congress can do
to prevent marriage or colonization of deaf
mutes, the memorialists do not set forth.
Certain it is, no legislation can be had upon
the matter. Deaf mutes have full rs much
right as other citizens to pursue happiness,
and to marry each other if they deem such
marriage essential to their happiness. Pro-
lessor Bell himself admits the improperly
of any attempt at legislsting them out of
this privilege. His suggestion for lessening
the evil is the adoption OF preventive meas.
ures, in which the grand central principle
should De the retention of normal environ
ment during the period of education, the
establishment of small schools and the ex-
tension OF the day school plan.n
We ara bound to say that the proposed
remedy is most noticeable for its vagueness.
We are unable to see that small schools or
day schools will tend to make deaf mutes
less inclined TO marry than if they be edu-
Gated as now in the larger institutions. Our
observation of their more fortunate brothers
and sisterS-those who can hsar and speak
is that they lean toward love and matrimony
no less If educated at home than in college;
and the same rule will apply to deaf mutes.
We do not see what Congress can DO with
the question.