seemed to be most passionate, that of his
wife most subdued and practical. It
appeared to me as if the one thought she ought
to be distressed, and the other thought she
ought to be useful.

It was dreadful and degrading to see the
sick man, too, screaming and writhing;
for his screams were the screams of the
dastard. He called aloud on the Aga to spare
him. He was the pitiful thing which
centuries of misrule has made the Greek rayah,
and had no more awful fancy than that of
undergoing corporal punishment when reason
had left him.

I was glad to turn over this painful leaf of
Greek life to open a brighter page. I was afterwards
present at the anniversary of the Greek
schools, one of which flourishes vigorously
in Mitylene. The festival was presided
over by an attaché of the British
Embassy, who made a speech in modern Greek.
The Ephora, masters, and all the pupils were
present, and appeared to be as greatly
pleased as I was.

DEAF MUTES.

WE live in a highly educational age. Although
we have not yet got a system of national
education, we are always talking about it,
and we mean to have it, and no doubt shall
have it some day. Whenever we get it, it
will be in consequence of our having become
freshly and deeply impressed with the
importance and the duty of doing the best
that can be done with and for every human
being born into the world. We seem to
have plenty of help in such a business, to
judge by the number of books written, and
always in course of publication, about the
education of the young. But, it is remarkable,
all these books consider children to
be all alike; or so nearly so as to make
general advice sufficient for all. These books
conclude all children to have four limbs, and
(according to the popular notion) five senses,
and a straight spine, and a perfectly formed
brain. Of the great multitude who are
blind, deaf, deformed, lame, defective in intellect—
who have, in short, some natural
infirmity—we hear nothing, in an educational
sense. We hear of charities for them; and
education goes on in the asylums, where a
good many are sent. But the asylums
contain only a very small proportion indeed of
the whole number in any country; and there
are so many families who cannot send their
infirm members to such places, or who do not
choose to send them there, that it appears
quite as necessary to treat of their education
at home as to treat of home education at all,
in distinction from that of school.

It is very possible that some readers may
be amazed at such a thing being said about a
class of people so very small. They may be
like an old clergyman,—a very benevolent
man, too,—who said, a few years since, that
he had never known more than two deaf and
dumb persons in all his life. Now we have a
thing or two to say about this.

First, if the number of persons suffering
under natural imperfections were the smallest
ever imagined—if, for instance, there were only
one in a hundred thousand persons who had
any natural infirmity whatever, those very few
cases ought to be carefully studied, and the
means of education tried, in order to improve
our knowledge of the human being, body and
mind. We have gained what we know of the
laws of health by the study of disease. It is
the disorder of any organ of the body, or
function of the mind, which discloses to us
the true structure and action. In the same
way we learn to understand the fully
endowed human being by the study of the
imperfect one. For this purpose, then,—
not the highest, but still very important,—
we ought to attend to the whole case of the
blind, deaf and dumb, deformed, and deficient.

In the next place, though it is most necessary
for the general good that the ordinary
run of children should be trained, because
they are to do the business of life, and be the
parents of the next generation, yet it is a
clear duty of humanity and of social justice to
do the best that can be done for those whose
lives and action can hardly spread beyond
themselves. Here they are, in the midst of
life at a great disadvantage. What can be
clearer than that it is the business of their
happier neighbours to make life as good and
pleasant to them as it can be made? If it
were a matter ever so difficult, it ought to be
done. But it happens to be by far the
easiest way. As a well-trained child gives
far less trouble in the long run than a spoiled
one, so does an imperfect being give infinitely
less pain and anxiety if made rational, and
morally disciplined, than if mismanaged, or
left without management at all.

But, again, the number of these imperfect
beings. Will any one guess how many deaf
and dumb persons, for instance, there are in
the kingdom? The benevolent old clergyman
knew of two; and extreme was his astonishment
when he was told how many there were.
We have no very recent accounts; for that
department of the Census Report of eighteen
hundred and fifty-one is not out yet; but we
know the proportion to the total population
ten years before. One in sixteen hundred is the
proportion in our own country. In Europe
generally there is one deaf mute in fifteen
hundred; and in the United States there is
one in two thousand white persons, a smaller
proportion among persons of colour, and only
one in six thousand among the slaves. If the
proportion remains what it was ten years since
(and there is no reason to suppose it altered),
we have in our own country about fourteen
thousand deaf and dumb persons. Imagine
these fourteen thousand persons collected as
the population of a town, or as a crowd to see
the soldiers march for embarkation, and it