will be seen that there are quite enough of
this one class to make it a matter of importance
in ten thousand of the homes of our
country how these beings are treated and
trained. And these, we must remember, are
the deaf mutes alone; persons so deaf as to
be altogether excluded from the world of
sound. Very far greater is the number of
persons partially deaf—able to speak, and to
profit more or less by sound—but still subject
to disadvantages, and moral danger, and
suffering, which should make them the
objects of very tender and studious care.

If there is reason to fear hereditary deafness,
or if there is already a deaf child in the
family, how anxiously the parents watch the
new-born infant, and make all sorts of noises
to ascertain whether it is startled by them or
not! This is not quite so easily discoverable
at first as inexperienced persons might
suppose; for every considerable noise occasions
vibration in solid bodies that stand in the
way of it; and the sensitiveness of the deaf
to vibration and concussion is excessive.
There was a house, some years since (we hope
it is not there now), a damp house, where
two children out of three were born totally
deaf. When the family left it, a young
couple came in, and lived there till they had
eight children, five of whom were deaf and
dumb. What a dreadful watching it must
have become at last, when the fate of two or
three was known! Of course the parents
must have been unaware of the cause of
the mischief; and, not knowing that
prevention lay within their own power, what
a horrible visitation it must have seemed to them!

In the case of a deaf infant, the truth may
be completely evident in a few months;
though we have known a case of a child who
was a year old before any discovery of his
total deafness was made, and before, therefore,
any medical opinion was obtained.
There is no part of the human body about
which we are so helpless as the ear. So very
little is known of its interior structure, and it
is so very easy to do mischief, that medical
men do not much like to be consulted in
cases of deafness; and the wisest of them say
candidly that the cases are extremely rare
in which they can do any good. These, the
wisest of their class, can usually tell where
the mischief resides, and whether there is any
hope of benefit from medical or surgical skill.
If not, as is most probable, the parents must
next consider what is best to be done.

Almost everything depends on whether the
deafness is partial or total. By total, we
mean the popular sense of the expression—
that the child cannot hear sounds well enough
to learn to speak, and does not often hear any
at all. As tor that perfect deafness which is
wholly insensible to all sounds under all
circumstances, it is extremely rare. In an
asylum of a hundred inmates, there may not
be above two or three such; not above two
or three, for instance, who cannot imagine
what you mean by putting a musical snuff-
box on their heads, which is about the best
test there is. Where the apparatus of the
ear is useless, the brain-organ may be right,
and then the music may reach it through the
skull. We have known an instance of a deaf
person fainting under the delicious sensation
of feeling the music perfectly, distinct and
precise, and (as it appeared) quivering down
the spine. Well, if the deafness be practically
total, the case is clear so far as this:
that the child must be brought up as if
destined (as it really is) to a life with four senses
instead of five. There are, in fact, as is now
generally admitted by the learned, more than
five senses; but, making the case as
disadvantageous as possible, it amounts to this—
that your child has a body and brain like
other people's, with four limbs, and all his
faculties, but with four senses instead of five.
The question is, how to enable him to manage
best with four senses instead of five.

It is clear that, as far as happiness is
concerned, he will be far better off among those
who are like himself, than in a world where
he is on equal terms with nobody. A more
forlorn creature than a deaf mute among
people who cannot converse with him, does
not exist. As soon as he gets into an
institution where all are like himself, and can use
the modes of communication established
there, he becomes as merry as other people;
and the difficulty is only how to bring him away
when he can remain there no longer. The
best educated deaf mutes mope, more or less,
after coming out into the world; and not all
the care of their families to use their language
familiarly can compensate to them for the
society of their comrades; for the simple
reason that the companionship of mind is
wanting. Inferior as the minds of deaf
mutes must inevitably be, they are peculiar;
and they can never be in full sympathy with
the thoughts and feelings of better endowed
people. There can be no doubt of the
immense advantage of training in a deaf and
dumb school, though there may be still a few
persons who fancy that imperfect beings must
thrive best among their superiors, and point
to an instance here and there of a deaf mute
who goes through life in an orderly way, busy
and quiet, without ever having been specially
trained. The truth of such cases is, that the
imitative faculties of the child (always strong,
from exercise, in the deaf mute) have enabled
him to go through the external acts of life
like other people, and to learn some art,
probably, some mechanical business, by which he
may get his bread. But there is no mind
underneath in such a case. There is no
thought, properly so called; nothing but
perception of what is visible, and imitation of it.
It will be found, too, that the temper is
probably passionate, and certainly arrogant and
selfish. There is no reason why it should be
otherwise, seeing that the moral part of his