Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-20
FUND FOR DEAF HAS.
DISTRICT SUPPORT
Northampton Work Linked
With Mrs. Coolidge, Dr..
Bell, DR.. Grosvenor.

Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, Dr. Alexander
Graham Bell, and DR.. Gilbert GroS-
venor, editor of the National Geographic
Magazine, are three ties of personality
through which Washington has become
keenly interested in the progress of the
S2,O0000 (Coolidge) fund for the
Clarke School for the Deaf, in North
ampton, Mass. The fund is to be used
to strengthen the equipment of this
pioneer school and to found a re-
search department for intensive study
of problems relating to deafness.
Mrs. Coolidge knowns the school. its
methods, and its staff from the personal
contact of a member of the family, for
1t was here, under the famous teacher
Caroline A. Yale, that she prepared
herself for the specialized task of teach
ing deaf children to speak and read the
lips. After completing the normal
course, to which she came after her
graduation from the University of YER
mont, she spent two years teaching at
the school before her marriage to the
young Northampton lawyer who was
destined for high places.
That was more than 25 years ago,
but Mrs Coolidge has maintained a
close association with the school, visits
It frequently, and has as her guests at
the White House many of her former
associates. BY permitting this fund to
be named for them, Mrs Coolidge and
the President have called attention to
one Of the most neglected Of all educa-
tional problems.
Trustee of School
DR.. Grosvenor is a trustee of Clarke
School and chairman Of the local effort
to reach the goal by March 4, to enable
Mrs. Coolidge to present the fund to
the school while she is still mistress of
the White House.
DR.. Alexander Graham Bell was
Clarke Schools patron saint" He
came to 1t as a young man from Scot
land where he was perhaps the most
expert teacher of phoneticS Of his day.
His father, Alexander Melville Bell,
was an elocutionist, who had formulat-
ed the results of his study OF articula-
ton into a system of signs known as
Visible Speech" In this code, every
possible sound was represented by writ
ten symbol SO that given the symbol,
the initiated could reproduce the sound
it represented even though he had
never heard it.
At Clarke School, Alexander Graham
Bell instructed the teachers in the
visible speech system for three months
and continued to supervise their use
of the method for three years. This
system formed the basis of an adapta-
ton by Miss Alice Worcester of Clarke
School and Miss Yale, which resulted
in the Northampton Speech Charts,
now used, with notifications to suit the
particular need. wherever speech is
taught TO the deaf
It was at this time, while attempting
20 make an simplifying device to help
the partially deaf to hear, that Bell
invented his telephone, which he per-
fected in Northampton and in Boston.
Later he met Mabel Hubbard, daugh-
ter of the first president of Clarke
Schools trustees, and leader in the
effort to establish the school. She had
lost her hearing and with it her speech,
through illness at the age of 4. Be-
cause Mrs. Hubbard had succeeded in
teaching her to regain her baby speech,
and then to add to her vocabulary and
to read speech on the lips of others,
instead of being taught to communicate
by means Of signs or finger spelling,
deaf children should not be .exiled to
muteneSs
After several years Of determined eff
fort he succeeded in gaining a charter
for an oral school from the MaSsa-
chusetts Legislature. This school,
which opened its doors in Northampton
in 1867, was named after John Clarke,
q wealthy and benevolent resident of
that city, whose original gift of $4,000,
permitting the school to open, was in
creased at his death to approximately
100000.
And this gives Washingtonians an
other point of contact with Clarke
School, for Mr.. Hubbard afterward
came to this city and helped found the
National Geographic Society.
Bells Interest in Work.
America owes the telephone to Alex
ander Graham Bells researches in pho
netics and to his efforts to help the
deaf. His devotion to Clarke School
never languished and, in later years, he
seldom made a trip from Washington
to his home in Baddeck, Nova Scotia
without stopping at Clarke School to
give attention to its affairs. He served
as member Of its board of trustees for
Is years and as president of the board
for flve years previous to his death in
1922.
At the time Grace Goodhue entered
Clarke School, as a student in its
teacher training department, the insti-
tuition was under the supervision of a
principal who has become recognized
as one of Americas most remarkable
educators, Miss Caroline A. Yale.
1t was Miss Yale who had charge of
Mrs. Coolidge's instruction when she
was normal student It was she who
supervised her work as a teacher. For
a year the girl graduate from Vermont
learned the problems of the deaf
learned to enunciate her words SO clear
~ that those who hear nothing could
read the accents on her lips, learned
the phonetics Of words and the physi-
ology OF the vocal cords-was. in fact. a
student OF the anatomy Of sound.
After a years preparation Grace
Goodhue began to teach. One of the
primary teachers was on leave of abb
sence that year and Grace Goodhue
was substituted in her classes.
The next year the primary teacher
returned and Miss Goodhue was given
an intermediate class.
Mrs. Coolidge has seen the bows and
girls she taught grow up and take their
place IN the world of hearing people.
some Of them with a distinction en-
y1able to any one.
PEHApn IMnnnD rIINnr