The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-29

future upon the present site. In it's present buildings, nevertheless, the school has enjoyed another year of sat isfactory progress in all departments. The favor with which it is regarded by the authorities in Massachusetts. state justly recognized as leading in aduca- tional matters and possessing within it's own borders two well known oral schools, is shown by the fact that the number of pupils sent to the school from that state almost equals the num- Der of pupils fl m TonnecEiCut. In ad- dition it may be noted that the number of Connecticut pupils received during the last school year was the largest in the history of the institution. The class under instruction by the exclusive oral method, which was organized year ago, has been continued this year with gratifying success, and, in the con- templated alterations at the school, may form the basis of a pure oral depart ment. The American schol strives to follow the gold mean in the education of the deaf placing first in importance mental development and knowledge of written language, and adding thereto in the case of every child speech and lip-reading to the degree that his ca pacity and adaptability allow him to ac- quire them,
 The Mystic Oral School
 Within the past year, the Mystic Oral school has been incorporated under the general laws of the state governing the formation of joint stock companies. While this action gives the school a nominal stand ng as an established cor poration, it is, nevertheless, more a change of name than of nature, for in reality almost all of the stock is he'd by the actual manager, Mrs. Michigan, and by her husband, and few shares only stand in the names of residents of Mystic and vicinity. No provision has yet been made to represent the state in the management of the institution.
 The school has been visited t number of times by representatives of the board since the publication of the last report, and on every occasion the actual class room work of the several divisions has been carefully exhibited by the teachers in charge. Creditable results Wrre shown in some instances, but in many cases it was noticed that the proflcien- cy of a pupil in the use of intellig ble speech depended largely upon the amount of hearing possessed or upon a former ability to speak before the hear ing was lost.
 The acquired speech of almost all deaf persons is, as a rule, very imperfect sometimes muffied, sometimes harsh, and since their own articulation is so incomplete, it is doubtful if satisfactory intercourse can ever be had among themselves through the channels of lip reading and speech. Moreover tho great difficulty that is usually experi- enced by the average hearing person. to converse with orally instructed deaf pupils, makes it probable that the value in after life of their laboriously acquired speech has been considerably oversti- mated. While it may be true that in struction by the exclusive oral method is desirable for certain class of deaf pupils, there is nevertheless, reason to believe that the intellectual develcp- ment of the majority of deaf persons is greatly stimulated by judiclous use of the sign language as employe,l in the combined method.
 If the pure oral class, already estab- lished at the school in Hartford could be developed sufficiently to satisfy any demand there might be in the state for instruction by this method, there would | then be no apparent reason for Connec- ticut to support longer two institutions for the education of it's deaf wards