The Manawatu Daily Times. THE OLDEST MANAWATU JOURNAL ESTABLISHED 1875. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 3, 1884.

Manawatu Times, Volume X, Issue 1285, 3 September 1884, Page 2

The Manawatu Times. THE OLDEST MANA WATU JOURNAL ESTABLISHED 1875. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 3, 1884.

Fifty years ago it would have been accounted a paradox to say that the dumb could talk, yet here m New Zealand we have an institution m which deaf mutes are actually trained to talk and to understand what is said to them. "Until very recently the only method by which converse could be held with them was by means of the fc deafnanddumb alphabet," but this has now fallen into disuse. The institution to which we allude was established at Sumner some four years ago, under the charge of Mr and Mrs Van Asch, and from a paper recently laid before Parliament, we learn that the number of inmates at present is 32. The method of instruction is that which is known as " the articulation method," by which deaf mutes are trained to the use of the organs of speech, and learn bo;h to s teak, m the ordinary sense of the word, and to understand (from the motion of the lips) the speech of others. The use of finger signs, or other means employed as su&gtitutes for speech, is strictly excluded. The course of instruction includes reading and writing m the first instance, followed by English composition, arithmetic, geography, history, drawing, elementary science, &c. The girls are also instructed m sewing, knitting, and othei useful domestic accomplishments. That the method of instruction is successful is shown by the following extract from a letter from Mr James H. Pope to to $ie Secretary for Education, Which will give a good idea of the work accomplished. He says :- ♦ k For the casual visitor to ai} institution of this kind, the most striking feature, and the one by which the amount of good done is genet* rally estimated, is the ability of the children to talk, and to understand what is said to them. I found that nearly all the children could make out what I said to them, and could give fairly intelligible answers. The pupils that, have been but a ghori txpap at Sumner, say a year or two, understand very much better than they speak ; those have been there for., a longer time, say : for three or four years, do both nearly equally well. Seeing, however, that 'the number of children that have been at Sumner for a long period is small as yet, the impression made on a visitor is that the comprehension is very much better than 'tihs a peakjng. lam con vi n eed that nj fVo pr thyeo years' time' there will be an alteration m this respect. J had quite a long ponversatipn. $rith one of the boys : this lad ie stone deaf, and four years ago h^ could do no more than make a few signs ; any one who had seen us talking together on Saturday last would have noticed only that the lad repeated what I said to him, that, so to speak, he looked at what I said to him, instead of listening to ifc, and that his own sentences were delivered, m a monotone ; otherwise there was nothing to give any one an indication of the nature of his affliction, or to cause a person unac< quainted with the kind of work done here to imagine that it was a deaf mute that was holding a conversation with me. A little girl, who twe years ago was just beginning the .Course, was able to understand and answer question about her home, and to inform me that she wished the j

holidays to come, so that she might visit her friends. I noticed, too, that the children spoke to one another while they were playing. It would be futile to expect that these children could ever be placed on anything like an equal footing with those who can hear, but it is very plain that all the children here are m a fair way to be able to hold conversations with their friends Jon any ordinary subject, and to have the disabilities depending on their want of the sense of hearing diminished indefinitely Thi3 is, my opinion, a very great deal to have accomplished the Rhort time that the institution has been at work. But the mere speaking and understanding, though of course of cardinal importance, are by no means the only acquirements of the inmates of the Sumner Institution. It is the awakening of the intelligence, and the developing and putting into working order of minds disabled by the blocking up of two of the most important avenues of thought and its expression, that are m reality the greatest benefits conferred on the children - here. - It is impossible to see these children after an interval without recognising that ?in tne meantime their reasoning^ powers have been greatly improved, and that their minds are able to perform operations that had previously been quite beyond their range."