rational than you, and what can prevent me from exercising my reasoning faculties, as well as any other person who can hear. The only difference I can conceive is, that I may be a little longer about it, but perhaps I may on that account be more correct; for it cannot be denied, that a written question or answer is more to be depended upon than a verbal one. Does not reason tell us, there is no more connexion between ideas and sound, which affects our ears, than between those ideas and written characters, which affect our eyes. Speech is nothing more than a translation of writing. Those who can hear and speak, make use of it as a more convenient mode of communication, while the deaf and dumb, for want of hearing and speaking, substitute the written language and signs.

It has been observed by an author who is a great encourager of utterance, that this artificial speech is a medium which is found very useful for the indigent deaf and

dumb, because children of this description are placed out in manufactories, and are thus enabled to communicate more easily with their masters. It is evident that the person who made this observation had never been a manufacturer; if he had, he would have given the preference to servants who could not hear and speak. They make the best and most trusty servants, having nothing but their business to attend to, and they are not diverted from it by conversation like the others, while they are no less useful and rational.

I cannot help dwelling upon this subject, because I know the indigent deaf and dumb have lost much useful time in learning utterance, which, without being of absolute use to them, causes great pain and torture to themselves in learning, and makes them very disagreeable companions afterwards.

If parents in affluent circumstances think proper to have their children taught utte

rance, in the name of fortune let them, as they can afford to pay for their education, and may be pleased to hear them speak; but do not let a public charity be occupied in any thing but what is useful and absolutely necessary.

It is a great pleasure to see so many gratuitous schools established for educating the poor who can hear and speak, and I hope to see the indigent deaf and dumb admitted into those schools; confident as I am that they can be taught with great ease to read, write, and understand so much as to render them useful, agreeable, and happy members of society.

I have often thought, when I have met a man unable to read or write, but who could hear and speak, that he was infinitely a more pitiable object than the instructed deaf and dumb. I know, if two men thus situated, of equal abilities, were to apply to me for employment in any trade, I should not hesitate a moment in fixing on

the latter, as a servant, in preference to the

former.

There are asylums established for the exclusive education of the indigent deaf and dumb in most countries; and I shall be very happy to see the education of them introduced into all the charity schools where children are educated who can hear and speak. The masters and mistresses would find but little difficulty, in beginning, to teach them the letters and the meaning of words; but in case their pupils should not be quite equal to the children taught at the first asylums, it must be admitted that a little education is better than none. But I am certain from experience, that a child born deaf, will have a greater advantage in learning at a school where children are educated who can hear and speak, than at a school where none but the deaf and dumb are taught; and the children who can hear and speak will be alike benefited by being taught along with

them. If the deaf and dumb were going to spend all their days in company with each other, then it would be as well for them to be brought up and educated together; but as they will have to depend chiefly upon people who can hear and speak, the sooner and oftener they join their society, the better it must be for them; and the children who can hear and speak, will, from their infancy, become acquainted with the dumb language, and be able, when they grow up, to correspond with any person they may happen to meet with, labouring under the like infirmity. If I had a child of my own, born deaf and dumb, and could not afford to send him to any school, I would not let him go to an asylum, nor to a school where none but the deaf and dumb are taught, if he could be educated there for nothing.

The asylums for the education of the deaf and dumb are so well filled, that thousands must remain without any education, unless