leave, when well understood, no doubt in the mind, in regard to the exact ideas they are intended to express; while, moreover, by the precision of the laws which regulate their combinations, they exhibit the relations which it is designed to exhibit with a certainty which admits of no misapprehension; the language of action, on the other, from the pictorial form of its signs, gives place, not seldom, to a certain degree of hesitancy between analogous ideas, and, from the meagreness of its syntax, renders the groups which it presents, in too many cases, of doubtful significancy.

We cannot, therefore, hesitate to conclude that the deaf and dumb ought, if possible, so to be instructed, that they shall be led by degrees to associate their ideas directly with written words, and shall employ the images of these words in conducting their mental operations, instead of those signs which the exigencies of their situation have taught them originally to invent.

Though this is a principle which is now generally admitted by the most philosophical of those who, in Europe, have given their attention to the theory of our art, it is to be feared that many, even among the number who admit its truth, fail to keep it constantly before their minds, and treat it rather as a theoretical dogma, than as a guide to direct them in their actual practice. They imagine, perhaps, in some instances, that the period allotted to instruction is too short to enable them successfully to combat the powerful predilection of their pupils for their own natural language; and in others, that the aid of the teacher is unnecessary to bring about a result for which they trust rather to time and continued practice. Experience, unfortunately proves, that the first of these suppositions is often very nearly if not strictly true; but that the teacher can do nothing toward overcoming the early habits of the pupil is a position entirely untenable. Without attempting here to point out the modes in which he may usefully exert himself for the accomplishment of an object so desirable, it is sufficient to say, that he too often counteracts this object, by voluntarily employing signs of action, when necessity does not demand it. Were he himself to do, so far as in him lies, that which he trusts that time will do for his pupils, were he to force alphabetic language upon their attention, and to require it from them whenever they are capable of substituting it in place of signs of action, he would soon perceive the benefit of so

severe a course.

But there are others, who seem still to doubt whether alphabetic language, can, in truth, be made for the deaf and dumb, an instrument of thought. To such it appears necessary to proceed on the supposition, that their pupils will, of necessity, always continue to conduct their mental operations by the instrumentality of signs of action; and always continue in the use of words to carry on an inward process of translation. It is, perhaps, worth while to examine, for a moment, the justice of such a supposition.

If we assume that ordinary alphabetic writing cannot become, to the deaf and dumb, an immediate instrument of thought, we must found the assumption on one of two grounds; either, that an ideographic language is an impossibility, or that there is something in the nature of alphabetic writing, which renders it unfit to become ideographic for the deaf and dumb.

The first of these grounds, we need hardly say, is altogether untenable. Of ideographic characters we have numerous examples of daily occurrence. In the mathematics such characters are furnished as the material instruments of every algorithm. Arithmetic presents them in the figures employed to express number. Algebra and the calculus. present them in the letters used to represent quantity and the characters introduced to denote relation. They are found in geometry; they constitute the entire system of musical notation; and they appear again, as marks of punctuation, in every book which we open, to assist in understanding what we read. The hieroglyphics of Egypt present us with another example; and finally, the entire written language of China is composed of characters strictly ideographic. Who has not heard of the once much discussed project of an universal language of visible signs, which, in other times, so frequently called forth the ingenuity of the learned; a project inseparably linked with the names of Wilkins and Kercher, and to which even that of the illustrious Leibnitz imparted a portion of its own celebrity? A project which, however visionary, could not have had an existence, had not the possibility of an ideogra phic language, apart from the method which was to give it universality, been regarded as an axiom.

There is nothing, then, unreasonable in the assumption, that the deaf and dumb, like the rest of mankind, may be taught to associate ideas with visible and written characters. What, we may next inquire, is to prevent their doing so with those furnished by alphabetic language?

There can be no obstacle, unless we suppose that the possibility just proved may be limited by certain conditions; and that these conditions are such as to disqualify ordinary writing, for fulfilling the office proposed. This proposition is self-evident; and it imposes upon us the necessity of examining, in respect to graphic signs in general, first, within what limits is an ideographic language possible? and, secondly, do these limits exclude alphabetic writing in the case of the deaf and dumb?

In considering the first question, one limitation readily suggests itself. The characters selected as ideographic signs should be independent of any law of necessary association, connecting them with other signs for the same ideas, either preexisting or simultaneously created. By the expression, law of necessary association, something more is intended than the simple association of individual signs of one system, with individual signs of another. In a case like this, the associations, if they exist, must have been created by numerous independent efforts, or independent accidents. In the former, they spring into being at once, the moment the law is made know, and to all intents and purposes, before they are recognized in detail.

This point is illustrated, by examining the law of associations which connects articulate with written language. Writing has been devised as a representative of speech; and the facility with which the power of executing and of understanding it, on the part of those who hear, is attained, is a consequence of the law, according to which it is constructed. Articulate sounds, having been resolved into their elements, there has been assigned to each of these elements, a visible character. And as every spoken word embodies a certain number of these vocal elements, the law of necessary association exacts, as the representative of the assemblage,-that is of the word-the corresponding visible characters, in a corresponding order. Each word that we utter, has, therefore, of necessity, under the law, a written representative-and this will be true, whether we attend to it or not. Reciprocally, every written. word we see, recals, by a like necessity, the corresponding articula

tion.

In consequence of this law, it would, without doubt, be exceedingly difficult for a person, gifted with speech, to learn ever to regard written words as being other than mere representatives of articulate sounds. Whether the difficulty is so great as to amount to an absolute impossibi[Assembly, No. 157.]

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lity; or whether, by long continued effort, and seclusion with books, it might not be so far overcome, as that written words should cease to recal the conceptions of sounds, it is of no present moment to inquire. The limitation stated, is practically positive.

Nevertheless, in the

case of the deaf and dumb it is entirely inoperative. Sound, the basis of the association, being without existence for them, the two classes of signs are reduced to one only. No one will undertake to assert that there exists any law of necessary association between written words, and the preexisting signs by which deaf-mutes communicate with one another. The independent creation of the two classes of signs, entirely precludes this possibility.

There is a species of writing, which stands in the same relation to the language of action, as that which alphabetic writing holds, in referance to speech. This is known by the name of mimography. And the manner of its construction bears a striking analogy to that which has just been detailed in the case already considered. The same law of association is called in, to bind together, by a like necessity, two systems of parallel signs. Action is resolved into its elements, and to these elements are assigned graphic representatives. A complex sign of action, demands, therefore, a specific combination of written elements, and it will admit of no other. On the other hand, a specific combination of these characters, exacts a particular sign. According to the principle, then, which we have assumed as involving a practical necessity, it would prove an undertaking altogether futile, for the deaf and dumb, after having once learned to regard their characters as mimographic, to seek over to avail themselves of their use, as direct representatives of ideas.

This seems to be not an improper place to remark, that the opposition with which some have met the theory which proposes to render alphabetic language ideographic to the deaf and dumb, has apparently, in a great measure, its origin in a consciousness of the difficulty which such persons feel that they would themselves experience, in endeavoring to attain, in their own case, the ability at which the theory aims, in the case of a class of persons of habits of mind entirely different from theirs. They are aware of the necessity which exists for themselves, of conceiving something intermediate between written words and the ideas which the words represent. And this necessity is so cogent, that they can hardly refrain from recognizing in it a universal law of mind; forgetting, as it would appear, the fact, or at least disre

garding it, that they thereby deny the possibility of an ideographic language of any description whatever. It is a very unphilosophical mode of argument, to deny the possibility of a thing merely on the ground that it conflicts with our own personal experience. The fact of such an opposition, is undoubtedly primä facie evidence against it but this should only lead us to the inquiry, whether there is not, in our circumstances, something which does not exist in others, to account for what our experience has shown to be true for ourselves.

It does not appear that those who regard as visionary, the attempt to make ordinary writing an ideographic language for the deaf and dumb, have ever questioned the possibility of giving that character to articulate speech for them, more than for those who hear. They seem tacitly to admit, that if we teach deaf-mutes to articulate, our pupils will, naturally, associate their ideas with the articulations, to the neglect of their ordinary signs. Do they not, by this admission, as much as by the corresponding denial in the other case, demonstrate to how great a degree they are influenced by their own experience? Can they claim that speech is the same thing for both classes of persons, those who are unconscious of sound, and those who hear? For the deaf and dumb, articulation is but a species of action, in which the organs employed happen to be the same which others use for producing impressions upon the ear. The conceptions which the deaf-mute can have of spoken words, are confined to the contacts and motions of these organs; whereas, in the case of mankind in general, these contacts and motions are entirely disregarded, and the conception of a word is that of a sound only. A cautious philosopher would pause upon this difference. He would inquire whether there might not arise out of it a rule of exclusion for this class of signs, in the case of the deaf, from the office which they subserve for those who hear. True, he would discover no such rule, yet when he should have reached his conclusion, it would be found to rest in no manner whatever upon his own experience, or that of mankind in general.

The argument then, to disprove that alphabetic writing may fulfil for the deaf and dumb the function which we claim for it, seems to amount just to this. When we present to them language only under a visible form, spoken words, which to us stand intermediate between writing and thought, have no existence for them. Our experience shows that ideas exact some such intermediate representation. Written words can not, therefore, be associated by them directly with their ideas; and