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DISCUSSION.
The Chairman said the main point for discussion seemed to be whether the German system was the best.
The Rev. S. Smith said he desired, as Chaplain of the Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb, and Minister of St. Saviour's Church, Oxford Street, to say a few words on the other side of the question. They were much indebted to Mr. Ackers for going so deeply into the question, and he was entirely in favour of the deaf being taught to speak and read from the lips as much as possible, but he advocated the combined system. It was said by some that the two systems could not be carried on together, but he could prove the contrary. He had a pupil at the present moment who could both use the finger and the sign language, and also speak and read from the lips, though, of course, he was not quite so au fait at the latter as those who were confined to that method. He was in favour of the finger and sign language, because of the rapid progress which could be made with it in the first few years of instruction, though he knew it was contended on the other side that the progress was not so rapid afterwards as in those who could speak. The sign language was especially necessary for the adults who had never learned any other, and amongst whom he had laboured for the last twenty-two years in London. A sermon or lecture could never be understood by a large assemblage of deaf persons, especially if the speaker wore a beard or moustache, like Mr. Ackers. Their language must always be somewhat limited; they could not follow, therefore, the metaphors and rhetoric employed in the pulpit, and he defied any deaf person to follow a sustained discourse of half-an-hour. But he knew that the deaf and dumb in London had derived very much consolation, instruction, and recreation from the sermons and lectures de-
