FINIS.

My last words to you are: Be courageous! Strive with manly power against sickly phantasies, and enter, as I do, always more hopefully into active life, that your talents may be more useful to others, and thus to yourself.

With this wish, with these hopes, my infinitely dear friend, I close, and we part silently from each other. If man can bear an eternity in his heart, you will remain eternally in mine.-RICHTER.

Many children who are now being Educated by signs. have sufficient hearing to be taught with the Andriphone articulate speech instead. Truly Y Truly F. Rhodes

Paris France
Die 1 41880

ΤΟ

TEACHING THE DEAF TO

SPEAK.

THE TEETH THE BEST MEDIUM AND HE AUDIPHONE TE BEST INSTRUMENT FOR CONVEYING SOUNDS TO

THE DEAF, AND IN TEACHING THE PARTLY

DEAF AND DUMB TO SPEAK,

Address DELIVERED BY R. S. RHODES, OF
CHICAGO, BEfore the FOURTEENTH CONVENTION
OF AMERICAN TEACHERS OF THE DEAF, at
FLINT, MICHIGAN.

MR. PRESIDENT AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

I would like to relate some of the causes which led to my presence with you to-day.

About sixteen years ago I devised this instrument, the audiphone, which greatly assisted me in hearing, and discovered that many who had not learned to speak were not so deaf as myself. I reasoned that an instrument in the hands of one who had not learned to speak would act the same as when in the hands of one who had learned to speak, and that the mere fact of one not being able to speak would in no wise affect the action of the instrument. To ascertain if or not my simple reasoning was correct, I borrowed a deaf-mute, a boy about twelve years old, and took him to my farm. We arrived there in the evening, and during the evening I experimented to

Lee if he could distinguish some of the vowel sounds. My experiments in this direction were quite satisfactory. Early in the morning I provided him with an audiphone and took him by the hand for a walk about the farm. We soon came across a flock of turkeys. We approached closely, the boy with his audiphone adjusted to his teeth, and when the gobbler spoke in his peculiar voice, the boy was convulsed with laughter, and jumping for joy continued to follow the fowl with his audiphone properly adjusted, and at every remark of the gobbler the boy was delighted. I was myself delighted, and began to think my reasoning was correct.

We next visited the barn. I led him into a stall beside a horse munching his oats, and to my delight he could hear the grinding of the horse's teeth when the audiphone was adjusted, and neither of us could without. In the stable yard was a cow lowing for its calf, which he plainly showed he could hear, and when I led him to the cowbarn where the calf was confined, he could hear it reply to the cow, and by signs showed that he understood their language, and that he knew the one was calling for the other. We then visited the pig-sty where the porkers poked their noses near to us. He could hear them with the audiphone adjusted, and understood that they wanted more to eat. some corn to throw over to them, and he signed that that was what they wanted, and that now they were satisfied. He soon, however, broke away from me and pursued the gobbler and manifested more satisfaction in listening to its voice than to mine, and the vowel sounds as compared to it were of slight importance to him, and for the three days he was at my farm that poor turkey gobbler had but little rest.”~

enjoyed their talk, and I gave him