Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1896-05-04
TEACHING BLIND DEAF MuTFs
Surprising Progress Made With a Numbe,
of Pupils.


of Pupils.
Three blind deaf mutes, whose facn1-
ties have been developed from a com
pletely latent condition, are subjects Of
special notice in the report Of the Per
kins Institution For the Blind, Boston.
Edith Thomas is described as furnishing
convincing testimony to the efficacy of
the system which is pursued in training
such children. She has a good share of
common sense, but is a little ayerse to
intellectual exertion. Yet she is improv-
ing fast, gaining knowledge regularly
and Systematically and is 'steadily be-
coming more skillful, attentive, thought
full logical and earnest, and the stream
Of her thoughts grows broader, deeper
and richer She is fond of letter writ
ing and does it with increasing facility
of expression, while her letters show
that she appreciates the pleasures of
life and despite her privations enjoys
them highly. She likes reading and be-
ing read to, but wants her books true to
life and will not listen to fairy or high
ly imaginative stories. She is able to
appreciate the rhythm of poetry, and
Whittier and Tennyson are among her
favorites. She dislikes arithmetic and is
backward i'll it, but is proficient in geog-
raphy. She has learned to mold maps il
clay and is able to repeat accurately the
details of the surface of the regions she
has studied. At the school commence
ment of 1894 she modelled the map of
Massachusetts, divided it into counties
in the presence of the audience and
pointed out the natural features and the
towns with her left hand, while with
her right hand she spelled the names in
to the hand of blind classmate, who
announced them. She has become a
skillful dolls dressmaker without the
aid Of patterns, and in teaching the use
of the Braille typewriter to her compan-
ions she has exhibited the qualities of a
strict disciplinarian.
Willie Elizabeth Robin, now 10 years
old, came to the institution four years
ago, totally blind and deaf and ignorant
Of language. She has become proficient
in reading, writing, elementary zoology,
articulation and knitting and sewing
by the Sloyd method. She has even
learned to use her tongue rather than
talk with her fingers She is specially
interested in studying animal forms
and searches out the minute details of
their structure. She is expected to tell
all she can discover of each specimen
given her. to represent it in clay and
afterward write down what she has
learned. Of crayfish studied thus she
reported: ''It has eight arms and two
legs and tail and two eyes; it has
body; it lives in the water. The body is
hard, and the arms and the legs are not
strong; they are soft. -
Tommy Stringer came to the kinder
garten department feeble, inert, exhib-
iting few signs of intelligence and seem
ingly devoid of most of the impulses OF
children. He is now full of eager curl
osity concerning the world about him,
enjoys life and is bright, affectionate
and extremely fond of fun. He is at the
head Of his class in some of his studies.
He is remarkably interested in matters
of housekeeping and domestic economy.
He has q strong bent toward geological
study In talk about fish his attention
was drawn to the backbone. He felt it
carefully from end to end and then
passed his fingers up and down his own
backbone to show the correspondence.
"On discovering the eyes, mouth, nos
trils, etc., Of the freq he pointed to
similar features Of his own, and when
he found joints in the frogs hind legs
he Immediately began looking for the
joints of his own body and found near
ly ALL. No seeing boys portrait is
Popular Science Monthly.