ing a great and successful barrister at law (studying under the learned chief justice), was a master of many languages—French (modern and old), Latin, Greek (ancient and modern), German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, with some knowledge of Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Bohemian, Finnish, and had not neglected Hindostani and Sanskrit, He commenced Hebrew in his thirty-fifth year, and afterward constantly read the Old Testament in that language. He was also familiar with various branches of science, architecture, etc. The McLellan brothers, both deaf, are successful Canadian lawyers.
The results of competent oral instruction are simply marvelous, students being shown at the Penn Institute for the Deaf, at Mount Airy, Philadelphia, who can understand and repeat, in a fairly modulated voice, long sentences uttered away from them—i. e., when they are only able to perceive the movements of that corner of the speakers mouth which is toward them—who can also read fluently from the shadow of speaking lips thrown upon the wall. These visual organs of the deaf are made to do the work of two senses, and attain in time the most extraordinary power and even subtlety of vision. It has with propriety been suggested that such highly developed eyes would be of service in the most delicate astronomical and physical experiments, where instruments of precision are commonly employed. A likeness of Helen Keller and one of her teachers accompanies this article. This girl was congenitally deaf and blind, and has been taught to use articulate speech by the oral system of education now so successfully practiced.
By oral instruction I mean that system which teaches the deaf to communicate with the world at large by means of articulate speech, in contradistinction to the inferior and largely discarded manual-alphabet system, which entirely isolates them as a class from society in general, which does not understand their signs and can not spare time to use the writing pad.
