Page:Vocal Speech for the Dumb.djvu/28

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DEAF, NOT DUMB.

opposition was led by a member of Congress, who himself had a toto-congenital deaf and dumb child.

When I was in America the school was large and nourishing; one of the warmest supporters, and most active members of its committee, being the very Congressman who had so long and successfully opposed its foundation. He told me himself that he felt he could never do enough to further the 'German' system, in order to make amends for having kept its benefits from his native State so long.

Now, we will go to a very different part of the world, and give you an instance of the prejudice which did exist against this system in Switzerland. For this purpose I will quote from the able report of Mr. A. A. Kinsey, made of a school at Riehen. He is the gentleman who has qualified himself by residence and practical instruction, in the best German schools in Germany, to preside over the proposed training college for teachers of this system in England:—

'In a little village called Riehen, about four English miles from Bale, in Switzerland, is to be found a most excellent school for the education of the deaf. I cannot refrain from advising anyone reading or listening to the following story, if at some future time they happen to find themselves at Bale, to drive over to Riehen and visit the 'Deaf and Dumb Institution' there. I promise them that they will be most cordially received, and what is far more to the purpose, greatly astonished at what can be done with children stone deaf from birth.

'This school has been in existence now thirty-six years, and is prosperous, but at the commencement of its