I reply, so long as signs constitute the basis of education, for so long will the pupils think in them rather than in articulation. In that case no good result is to be gained, because articulation will be but a foreign language, in which ease enough to be pleasant or useful will rarely be gained, an annoyance very often—a task, and will ever lead to disappointment.
A 'foreign' language! Is it not startling to hear English spoken of thus, in the case of English children? Yet such is English to those taught on the 'French' or 'Combined' methods. It is a foreign language to them, as we are constantly reminded by the teachers of those systems. Let us see whether such is the case with those taught on the 'German' system.
Here, to begin with, there is no inverted order; and, as those taught thereon have no other medium for thought than the English language, there is certainly no reason, theoretically, why their language should not be as pure as that of hearing children. This is scarcely the case at first, yet such a result is reached before leaving school, and is not lost afterwards.
I fancy I hear someone say, 'This may be so with the semi-mute and the semi-deaf, but can it be possible with the toto-congenital, who have never heard? Are they able to make speech the means of communication with the world in general? 'Wait a minute, and I think, when you have heard a few examples of the very many cases that have come under our notice, and which we tested for ourselves, that you will acknowledge that articulation under the 'German' method is no mere accomplishment; but is the practical means by which those so
