E. 4.

6

At the end of the year eight girls and one boy were removed. The latter had become deaf as a result of an attack of meningitis at about ten years of age, but was. unfortunately, not sent here until four more years had elapsed. He had remained three years and a half at this school, with the result that his speech, which at the time of his admittance was fast disappearing, had been preserved and his education continued. One of the girls leaving was also a lip-reading pupil; but in her case the loss of hearing had occurred after she had completed a public-school education. In both these cases lip-reading had been hampered by defective vision. The girl is now employed in domestic service in Dunedin ; and in a letter recently received she states that she has no difficulty in reading the lips of her mistress and of the children of the family. Another case removed was that of a girl with defective speech and hearing, who had been admitted in the middle of the preceding year. Her speech had been very much improved, and she left with a fair general education. The six other girls removed had been congenital deaf-mutes. One. had been with us a year only, and was removed owing to her parents leaving the Dominion. Another was a mentally weak girl of nineteen, whom it had been necessary to keep twelve years at the school. She had received a fair general education, and could readily make herself understood by speech. She had been trained in housework to the extent that her relatives now find her very useful in the house. Of the four other girls, one had been ten years and three had been eight years at school. Two of them had been exceptionally bright pupils, and all had received a good general education, besides a careful training in general housework, inehiding cooking, laundry, and needlework. The general health of the pupils throughout the year was very satisfactory. There were comparatively few cases of illness, the most serious being two very mild eases of enteric towards the end of tinyear. The work of the school, however, was seriously hampered by illness amongst the teaching staff, three of the members of which were incapacitated for varying periods during the second half of the year. Our thanks are due to the members of the Canterbury Automobile Association for their kindness in taking the children for an outing in their cars, and also to Messrs. Fuller and Sons for again kindly extending to us an inviation to visit their kinematograph matinees whenever convenient. At these entertainments our pupils are fortunately on a level with hearing children, and from them derive much educational benefit as well as pleasure. In September the school was visited by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, the distinguished inventor of the telephone. Dr. Bell has spent a lifetime in furthering the interests of the deaf. In his young days he was a teacher of articulation, and it was while attempting to produce a machine that would convey some conception of sound-variations to the deaf that he hit upon the idea from which he subsequently developed the telephone. By his generosity in devoting the Volta prize-money, which he received for his wonderful invention, to the founding of the Volta. Bureau, at Washington, he baa earned the gratitude of all co-workers. The Volta Bureau was founded for the collecting and the die seminating of information respecting the deal, and for the promotion of the teaching of speech to them. Dr. Bell was accompanied by his wife, who was herself at one time a deaf-mute. Mrs. Bell is a highly cultured lady, whose interest in and enthusiasm for the instruction of the deaf by means of speech are equal to her husband's. Their visit was of very great interest, and the information derived from them with regard to the education of the deaf in oilier parts of the, world was most valuable. The following newspaper extracts relating to Dr. Bell's visit are taken from the Lyttekon Time* of the 6th and 7th September : LytteUon Times, 6th September, 1911. Dr. A. Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, spent a few very interesting hours at the School for the Deaf at Sumner yesterday. Instruction of deaf children is his hobby and his life-study, and he has been looking forward to a visit to the Sumner institution ever since he came to New Zealand. He states that he is delighted with the school, with its modern methods, with the able work done by Mr. J. E. Stevens and members of his staff, and, above all, with the genuine affection which the children show towards their teachers. It is the best school of the kind he has seen since he left the United States. He saw several institutions for teaching the deaf in Australia, but none so modern in methods and so enlightened in the application of ideas as at Sumner. As far as he has seen, the Sumner school is the only one in these parts where the oral system of instruction has completely superseded the old manual system. The children at Sumner are taught to read from the teacher's lips, not from words spelt out on the fingers. This principle has been adopted in all the institutions in the United States, and has given satisfactory results. It is now recognized that every deaf child is necessarily dumb not because of defects in its vocal organs, but because it is deaf. It cannot use language because it has never heard language spoken. At Sumner the children are taught the " word-by-word " articulation. The United States have discarded that in favour of phrases. If a wish is expressed that a book should be placed on the table, for instance, at Sumner each word will be given separately : " Place —a —book- —on —the—table." In the United States the sentence would be given in three phrases : " Place —a book— on the table." Phrasing, as it is called, is regarded as a notable improvement on the single-word method, and as a very important part of the system of instruction, the articulation being much more natural. The schools of the United States are purely educational institutions. They do not provide vocations for the pupils, who are sent away as soon as their course is completed. In some of the large centres there are day schools for deaf children who live at home. This enables the promoters of the movement to reach a much larger proportion of deaf children than would be instructed if there were only one large central institution. The small day schools, which are conducted on the kindergarten principle, reach little children. Some of the day schools of Wisconsin are attended by tiny tots only three years old. These schools are usually held in a room in the ordinary school buildings, where the deaf children have ample opportunities for associating with other children. It is believed to be a mistake to bring defective children into exclusive association with each other, especially during their education. Some of the older pupils at Sumner are boarded out instead of being compelled to live