The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-12-23
DEAF AND DUMB.
THREE-FOURTHs OF THE MUTEs
EARN THEIR LIVING.
Trades Taken to Most Readily By
Them Are Typesetting and Wood
Carving-FOurteen Thousand in
the United States.
New York Sun.l

| There are at present over $4,000 deaf
mutes in the United States, and more
than three-fourths of this number earn
their own living. Recently the leading
mutes of the country have, through
their many journals, made strong pleas
for more schools for the instructions of
those persons who are so unfortunate
as to be born deaf and dumb.
At this time there are about eighty
schools for deaf mutes in the United
States and ther are 1852 pupils attend
institutions, which are without eXcep-
ton free, receive as good an education
as is given in our public schools. They
are taught TO read and write, arithmetic
as high as algebra, geography and Eng
lish grammer, and besides these they
receive instructions in sign reading, and
in many institutions lip reading is
taught.
The trade taken to most readily by
mutes is typesetting and printing, and
there are also many engravers and
wood carvers.
The eighty schools now in operation
are all maintained at the public ex-
pense, and mutes from any place and
of any age are admitted. With but a
few exceptions these institutions are
boarding schools, and the pupils are
we'll provided for. All of them are pro-
vided with well appointed Industrial de-
partments, and it is here that the Inutes
are taught the trades that support them
through life.
The originator of the deaf mute
schools was DR.. Thomas Hopkins CAL
laudet of Hartford, Conn. In April,
1917, he founded what he called the
Deaf Mute college in his native town.
Since that time the public have seen the
necessity of providing for the $4,000
mutes. and schools have sprung up on
all sides.
In Washington, D. c., there is a col
lege for deaf mutes, which is support
ed by the government, and the founder
and the president of this institution is
the son of the original deaf mutes'
school at Hartford
AT the beginning of this year a sys-
tenn Of schools for the education of deaf
mutes was begun in Great Britain.
Through the recommendation of the
royal commission appointed in 1885 to
inquire into the needs and the condi-
ton of the deaf and blind, a law was
enacted making education of the deaf
compulsory, and the same law provided
for the expenses of schools similar to
those in this country.
Only a few of our states have made
the education OF deaf mutes compulsory,
but the leading men of the schools are
in hopes that laws will soon be enacted
making it SO, for they state that many
deaf mute children are, by the unnat-
ural treatment of parents and guardi-
ans, withheld from the privileges OF the
free schools. The conversational in
struction as it is called, most favored
by the deaf mutes. is that known as
the combined system That is, they are
taught both sign and lip reading.
The instructor uses his Judgment as
to whether the lip system shall be
taught to scholar. Only those mutes
who are very quick can learn lip read
ing, and SO it is not taught in the gen.
eral classes.
The eyes are the ears of a deaf per-
son, and the greatest care is taken
of the eyesight at the schools.
The control which mutes exercise ov-
er their facial muscles is very great,
and at times they can convey an idea
without a single movement of their
hands
The mutes are taught to dance in the
schools, and though it appears strange
that persons can dance to music that
they cannot hear, the mutes depend up
on sight and feeling.
They can see the time kept by an or
chestra leader. and they can feel the
vibrations of the sound OF drum or
a piano. Strange to say, the vibrations
are felt in their stomachs-