ROYAL COMMISSION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM ON THE CONDITION OF THE Professor of Mathematics, etc., in the National College for the Deaf, Washington, U. S. A. VOLTA BUREAU, INTRODUCTORY. This book has been printed, through the liberality of the Volta Bureau, to signalize an educational movement of international interest. The object of the movement referred to is, to secure provision for the elementary education of every deaf child in the United Kingdom, and incidentally to promote the greatest efficiency practicable in the instruction afforded. In furtherance of this end, a Commission created by the Crown in 1885, with special reference to the blind, was instructed, January 20, 1886, to enlarge the scope of inquiry, and was empowered "to investigate and report upon the condition and education of the deaf and dumb." This Commission endeavored to examine the whole field of deaf-mute instruction with characteristic British thoroughness and energy. Schools upon the Continent were visited, and in London the Commissioners held one hundred and sixteen sittings, calling before them for examination forty-three persons as experts specially interested in the welfare of the deaf, and deemed capable of giving information of great value upon the subjects of inquiry. The complete report of the Commission forms a great work of 1574 large octavo pages in four volumes, which was presented to Parliament in 1889, upon the conclusion of the labors of the Commission. The direct evidence in this volume has been extracted from the third volume of the Report of the Royal Commission. It includes the testimony of President EDWARD MINER GALLAUDET, Ph. D., LL.D., and of Mr. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, Ph. D., M. D., etc. Dr. GALLAUDET, President of the National Deaf-Mute College, and Chairman of the Standing Executive Committee of Conventions of American Instructors of the Deaf, appeared before the Commission in November, 1886, upon the invitation of the British. Government communicated through the Secretary of State. President GALLAUDET appeared as the accredited representative of the profession in America. His evidence, with the accompanying exhibits, is found in Part I. of this volume. Eighteen months later, in June, 1888, Dr. BELL appeared, on the invitation of the Royal Commission, and testified, incorporating in his evidence replies obtained by him from seventy-five per cent. of the heads of schools in America to special points upon which information was sought by the Commission. Dr. BELL's evidence, etc., appears in Part II. of this work. The Table of Contents and the Index to this volume indicate in some measure the magnitude of the labor of love undertaken by President GALLAUDET and Dr. BELL. The variety and importance of the subjects discussed by these eminent men make it inexpedient to attempt to give an epitome of their evidence, or a critical estimate of the value of the matter presented by them. It is sufficient to say that every intelligent friend of deaf children who reads 'this book will not only be the wiser for the reading, but will be stimulated to greater efforts for the welfare of the deaf. To readers unfamiliar with the deaf, and with the history of deaf-mute instruction, who may note antagonistic and divergent views in these pages, the writer would say that the art of instructing and educating the deaf is still in its youth. Though philosophers had demonstrated "the practicability of this extraordinary art" and a hundred instances, or more, of instructed deaf-mutes had flashed their feeble rays of light along the ages, the learned JOHN BULWER, Contemporary of MILTON, and BUTLER, and BACON, met with no encouragement whatever in the earliest effort on record to found a school for those "originally deafe and dumb." Referring to his project, BULWER says: "I soon perceived by falling into discourse with some rationall men about such a designe that the attempt seemed so paradoxicall, prodigious, and Hyperbolicall, that it did rather amuse than satisfie their understandings." Indeed, more than a century followed, in which DALGARNO, and WALLIS, and HOLDER, of Oxford, and DEUSING, and VAN HELMONT, and AMMAN, on the continent, wrote apparently upon the sand before the first enduring schools were established by BRAIDWOOD, DE L'ÉPÉE, and HEINICKE, who groped their way in darkness along an unbeaten path. Living octogenarians may have known persons who were the first pupils in the schools of these pioneers. The problems which have confronted all laborers in this field are many and difficult; and though able and well-equipped minds have been devoted to the solution of them, few, if any, fundamental principles have been established, and definite methods of procedure have not found general acceptance. The education of the deaf has not passed yet beyond the experimental stage. Though methods and systems may be sharply differentiated, I am persuaded from personal observation, from conversation with instructors, and from a study of the literature of the subject, that the instruction of the deaf is in 1 וי |