Many shildren who are now being Candated by signs. have sufficien hearing to be taught with the Andrip shone articulate speechs instead. Paris France Dec 1880 Truly your 99 The "Hard-of-Hearing Speechless Children in our Schools for the Deaf. PAPER READ BY R. S. Rhodes, of CHI- "IN what manner can we best serve the interests of those pupils in our institutions, who have a good degree of hearing?" I find this question asked in the reports of the superintendent of one of our large institutions, issued June 30, 1894. I also find in this report a statement that of 384 children whose hearing was accurately tested, 60 had a record of hearing varying in degrees up to ten per cent.; 35 a record varying between ten and twenty per cent.; 47 between twenty and thirty per cent.; 18 between thirty and forty per cent.; 7 between forty and fifty per cent.; and 16 of fifty per cent. and over"-in all, 183, or nearly fifty per cent. of all children tested, are not totally deaf, but are simply hard-ofhearing people. In 1879, I visited many schools for the deaf in this country, and tested the hearing of many deaf children, and in 1885, I visited many institutions and schools in Europe, and have made accurate tests of the hearing of the deaf children wherever I have been; and I find that forty per cent. of the children in the institutions and schools throughout the world possess ten per cent. and over of hearing, and are capable of being educated to speak through the sense of hearing with mechanical aid. This being the case, and this question being asked by the superintendents of several of our institutions, showing a willingness on the part of the superintendents of these institutions to utilize this hearing and teach aurally to speak, well, then, may this convention pause to consider this question, affecting the interests of half of the children in the institutions represented by you gentlemen present. And let me say that it not only affects the interests of those children in these schools at the present day, but will affect the interests of those in all time to come, not only in this country, but other countries throughout the world. Most of you have up to the present time ignored the fact that these children could hear, and have treated them as totally deaf children, and they have been graduated as such, and in most institutions in the world to-day are being graduated as such. Well, I say, may we consider "in what manner we can best serve the interests of those children who have a good degree of hearing," and well may this convention give much of its time to this important question, and let us answer wisely. God has bestowed upon half the children whose welfare is in your charge ten per cent. and over of nature's own means of learning to speak. This being known, shall we longer ignore the fact? We see adults on every hand, more deaf than many of the children in your schools, using mechanical aids to hearing, and enjoying the use of the own voices, and understanding others well. What they can do with mechanical aids, you can teach these children, with an equal degree of hearing, to do. Forty per cent. of the children in your schools hear better than I can. My degree of hearing in the left ear is about seven per cent., and nothing in the right, and I can hear with the audiphone, at conversational distances, almost perfectly, and can hear my own voice, when speaking against it, quite perfectly. You will allow that if the leaf can hear others and can hear themselves, there is no eason why they cannot be educated aurally, if they have mental capacity. No, there is no reason why they cannot, but there is a reason, and a potent reason, why they are not, and that reason lies with you, the teachers of the deaf. But you cannot be wholly blamed for this, because I allow that even with this instrument which I carry, you, with perfect hearing, find no improvement. But those with imperfect hearing will find great improvement. You hand the instrument to one who has never enjoyed the benefit of hearing, in learning articulation, and you find he answers you that he can hear but little, and you use his judgment and say that he cannot hear sufficiently with it to learn to speak, when you should know that they who have never learned to speak know nothing of the value of sound, and are perfectly ignorant as to how well they should hear to enable them to learn. You know you are succeeding in some degree in teaching them to speak when they hear nothing; if, then, they may by any means acquire simply the vowel sounds of our language, by hearing them, what a great advantage would this be to thesa in learning to speak! And I assert that |