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JOHN BURNET

(1808–1874)

When Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was sailing to America with Laurent Clerc in 1816, he told Clerc that he wanted to write “some few directions for parents who have deaf and dumb children.” Gallaudet apparently never got around to publishing such a manual. That task fell to John Burnet, who composed a detailed essay for parents in which he admonished them not to neglect their deaf children. He explained how they could encourage deaf infants’ natural instinct to sign and eventually teach them to read, write, and perhaps articulate. Burnet published the exhortative essay in his book, Tales of the Deaf and Dumb (1835). In other chapters, he decried prejudice, presented facts and statistics about deaf people, and offered original poems and stories that (he explained in an afterword) were designed to “awaken … an interest on the subject in the bosoms of many.” This groundbreaking volume marked the advent of a talented deaf author.

John Robertson Burnet was born on December 26, 1808, in New Jersey. He grew up on his grandparents’ farm. At age eight, he caught a fever that completely deafened him. Burnet never received formal schooling; his older sister Rachel educated him at home and he continued learning on his own, reading everything that came his way. When he was fourteen, Burnet’s sister and friends began to use the two-handed British manual alphabet to communicate with him, which added to his ability to interact with others. He did not have much luck with speechreading, and his speech was of little use to him, except with those who knew him well. Curious about other deaf people, at age twenty-one Burnet visited the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. There, he encountered sign language for the first time. Fascinated with the language and the deaf community at the school, he decided to apply to become a teacher. He was hired on a trial basis in 1831. However, Burnet was shy, unused to socializing much with others, and not yet skilled in sign or in disciplining students. As a result, he resigned toward the end of the academic year. In 1833 he began helping an uncle edit a Philadelphia newspaper, The People’s Friend. He also conceived the idea of a book about the deaf community and, using the New York school as his headquarters, began securing subscriptions for it. Many teachers at the school took an interest in the project and encouraged him. Tales of the Deaf and Dumb appeared in 1835, when he was just twenty-six years old. The book gave what was easily the most comprehensive overview of deaf Americans to date. It sold well, and Burnet earned enough money from it to pay off his grandfather’s debts and assume sole management of the family farm.

In 1839, Burnet married Phebe Osborn, a graduate of the New York school. They adopted a hearing daughter, who delighted her parents by becoming quite proficient in sign language. Over the next decades, Burnet worked on the farm, studied, and continued his literary efforts. A productive author, he regularly published articles in the American Annals of the Deaf, the North American, and periodicals for deaf readers. He consistently promoted deaf education, both in his writing and by meeting in person with state legislators. Burnet maintained close ties with the New York Institution for the rest of his life. Tired of physical farm labor, in 1868 he agreed to become a correspondence clerk at the school. Soon thereafter, he accepted a position as a full-time teacher, and he continued teaching for the next six years. In 1871 he received an honorary degree from the National Deaf-Mute College (now Gallaudet University) in recognition of his achievements. He died in 1874.

The writings included here are all from Tales of the Deaf and Dumb, Burnet’s most influential work. In addition to the essays, there is an excerpt from a long poem, “Emma,” which is notable for its positive, unpitying portrayal of a student at a deaf school. The short story, “The Orphan Mute,” is probably the first published piece of fiction by a deaf American. Burnet wrote that he was surprised that few, if any, novelists had tried to portray a deaf person, and hoped that his own “humble attempts” would inspire more to do so. “Here,” he stated in his afterword, “is an unexplored field, worthy of the genius of a Cooper, or an Irving.”

What the Deaf and Dumb Are before Instruction

Of all the long catalogue of infirmities which flesh is heir to, deafness is the one which is least apparent at first sight, and which least affects, directly, the vigor of the bodily or mental faculties, and yet there is no other infirmity, short of the deprivation of reason, which so completely shuts its unfortunate subject out of the Society of his fellows. Yet this is not because the deaf are deprived of a single sense; but because the language of the hearing world is a language of sounds. Their misfortune is not that they are deaf and dumb, but that others hear and speak. Were the established mode of communication among men, by a language addressed not to the ear, but to the eye, the present inferiority of the deaf would entirely vanish; but at the same time, the mental and social condition of the blind would be far more deplorable, and their education far more impracticable, than that of the deaf is now.1 It would be as hopeless as that of the deaf, dumb, and blind is at present.

Those who have appealed to public sympathy in behalf of the deaf and dumb, have given highly colored and often exaggerated pictures of their sad condition when abandoned without instruction.2 That condition is certainly, without exaggeration, sufficiently deplorable; and has in too many cases been rendered far more deplorable by the influence of prejudices, which, not content with shutting out the deaf and dumb from all intellectual enjoyment, have averted from them all the kindly feelings of the human heart, and denied to them an equal measure of civil justice! Superstition has regarded them as beings laboring under the curse of heaven; and the benevolent de l’Epée3 remarks that, in his time, parents held themselves disgraced by the fact of having a deaf and dumb child, and concealed it from the eyes of the world, to vegetate in a cloister; a lot, compared with which, the customs of those barbarous nations which are said, even at this day, to put them to death as soon as their infirmity is known, would be mercy.

That men should so long have regarded the deaf and dumb as little if any superior to the brute, ought, perhaps, to excite less surprise than regret, when we consider that the natural and almost inevitable effect of such prejudices is to degrade those who are so unfortunate as to be the objects of them, as low as the image of the Creator is capable of being degraded. It is only when attended to with care, and treated with kindness by those to whose care and kindness providence has committed him, that the deaf mute can be expected to exhibit those proofs of intellectual and moral qualities, which give the lie to prejudices by displaying indisputable traces of the Creator’s image. Finding himself, on the contrary, as he too often does, not only neglected, but an object of aversion, marked out by the unanimous consent of the world as a victim at the altar of prejudice, is it strange that the solitary mind of the mute should sink in this unequal struggle? that his unaided faculties should succumb under the mountain heaped on his devoted head? And then, that same prejudice whose hand crushed him to the dust, justifies her deed by pointing to the degraded condition to which she has herself reduced him!

We are indeed compelled to deplore the blindness of human nature, when we find even the families which contain deaf and dumb persons affected with such prejudices. The birth of a deaf and dumb child is, under any circumstances, a heavy affliction; but its weight is incalculably increased by the influence of neglect on the character of the child. In such cases the fearful effects of the prejudices or neglect of his friends, recoil, with indeed some show of justice, upon themselves. Nor are the effects of the unrestrained indulgence of misjudging kindness much less deplorable. It is certain that however unfortunate the ignorant deaf and dumb may be, they are not so unhappy as their families. These last ought to instruct them for their own sakes, if not for less selfish considerations. And, severe as the task may seem, I venture to assert that, as no labor could be better employed, so none would be more richly rewarded.

Still, despite the withering influence of coldness or neglect, the deaf and dumb not unfrequently display most undeniable proofs of intelligence and sensibility. Though compelled to begin, as it were, even at their birth, the world for themselves, and to acquire by their own unaided efforts, all that they can acquire of that intellectual wealth which has been accumulating from generation to generation, and to which hearing children are, as it were, born heirs, they often do acquire a stock of knowledge, which, however scanty when compared with that of those who hear, is truly wonderful when we reflect under what disadvantages it was gleaned. To expect that a solitary mind should acquire a knowledge of all that is useful to know, is to expect that the labors of a solitary bee should fill the hive with honey.

I shall not attempt to give an elaborate dissertation on the character of the deaf and dumb before instruction. It may be sufficient to say that their characters are such as might be expected in minds constituted like our own; but not, like our own, cultivated and corrected.4 That is, that they display the characteristics of untaught childhood; not, as many by a strange propensity to degrade their own species would make us believe, of apes or monkeys. Such an opinion is not surprising in the vulgar, who are accustomed to think the power of speech the only difference between man and the ape; but we can not repress our surprise and indignation, when we find it gravely asserted and maintained by men, in other respects sensible and intelligent; even by not a few who have aspired to the first rank in Philosophy. It is certain that the deaf mute has received a mind and a heart from nature, in which the seeds of bright talents and warm affections are as frequently implanted, as in the minds and hearts of speaking children; and only need as diligent cultivation to quicken them into as luxuriant growth. There is, therefore, nothing wonderful or mysterious in the art of instructing the deaf and dumb. If instruction has wonderfully improved their mental faculties, it is because those faculties were formed capable of improvement. The teacher can no more create a mind where a mind is wanting, than the workman can manufacture a watch without the steel, the brass, and the silver.

Let the deaf and dumb, then, be regarded as your own brethren, differing from yourselves only in being less instructed, because ignorant of the language of those around them; and ignorant of that language, only because the ear, the great avenue through which language and knowledge is acquired, is, with them, sealed forever; and consequently only requiring to be taught that language under its written form, a form addressing itself to the eye, to enable them to compete with yourselves (except where a knowledge of sound is required), in all the various divisions of the intellectual field.

On the Early Domestic Education of Children Born Deaf

The number of the DEAF AND DUMB, those most unfortunate beings who, by the deficiency of a single sense, seem to have been rendered, in a great measure, outcasts from society, is much greater than any one ventured to suppose. … By the census of 1830, the United States then contained six thousand one hundred and six Deaf and Dumb persons, and if this number has increased with the rapid increase of our population, which is very probable, it must now amount to nearly seven thousand. The subject, therefore, of these remarks, namely, the means which even their own parents and friends may successfully use to rescue these unfortunate beings from the ignorant and degraded condition to which they are too often consigned, is not interesting merely to the curious, or to the professed teacher of the Deaf and Dumb. It comes home to the firesides of five thousand families in our land; it makes a direct appeal to the hearts of five thousand mothers; nor is it without interest to all—for no condition or situation in life is exempt from this desolating calamity; and who among my readers can say that their own families may not be so afflicted? …

The increasing attention which of late has been paid to the peculiar claims of the Deaf and Dumb, is as pleasing to the philanthropist as it is honorable to the enlightened benevolence of the present age. Only twenty years ago, there was not a single school for the thousands of our own deaf and dumb population, and only about twenty-five for the tens of thousands in Europe. Now there are about one hundred and thirty institutions for the Deaf and Dumb in the world. Our own country presents six well conducted institutions, which now dispense the blessings of education to about four hundred and fifty of our fellow beings who, without education, would be, even in this land of Christianity and civilization, condemned for life to a lot worse than that of the most ignorant savage. …

Though so much has been done for them, nothing, at least in this country, has yet been done to remedy this greatest of all their wants. We leave these immortal minds to vegetate for the first twelve or fifteen years in utter darkness, and then we expect to teach them in the space of four or five years, not only all that others acquire by study, but also till that incalculable mass of information which, with those who hear, accumulates in the memory without a sensible effort on their part, not only from the conversations in which they take part, but still more from those daily and hourly remarks to which they are accidental listeners. Were it possible that the thousand active scenes of twenty years could be rehearsed in the school room during five, still how much will the representation fall short of the impressive force of the reality!

Hence it is, and the remark cannot be too emphatically made, that if we would raise the deaf mute to a level with his well educated hearing and speaking brothers and sisters, we must begin his education, like theirs, at home in the family and social circle, and as early as theirs begins; that is, as soon as he is capable of distinguishing the persons and objects around him.

Yet important as this principle is, it is a lamentable fact that deaf and dumb children receive, for the most part, no education whatever while they remain at home; and thus their teachers have to cultivate in their minds, not only a soil untilled, but, as might naturally be expected, overgrown with weeds and briers.

If, as a distinguished foreign teacher remarks, we must often blame the negligence of parents and relatives, the evil proceeds still oftener from their ignorance of the proper means to be employed. … No books, however, have yet been published in this country, from which parents could learn what ought to be done and what has been successfully done in similar cases; to supply, in some measure, this great defect is the object of the following remarks.

During the first months of existence, there is no perceptible difference between the hearing child and one born deaf. … In a few months, the mind, growing with the growth and strengthening with the strength of the body, begins to arouse from this lethargic slumber; to attend to and distinguish the diverse sensations that assail it on every side; to discover by the success of those first efforts which nature, or rather instinct prompts, its power over the muscles of the body, and to exercise that power, first as a means of supplying its few wants, and then for the mere pleasure of exercising it and acquiring by its means a knowledge of the forms and qualities of the objects around it. Among these powers it finds that of producing vocal sounds, and from the time it makes this discovery, the difference between the hearing child and the child deprived of hearing begins; a difference, small indeed at first, but too often destined to widen into an almost impassable gulf.

The same lesson of experience that teaches the mind of the child its power over the arm, which it can by an effort of the will cause to stretch forth and grasp an apple, teaches it that it possesses the like power over the muscles which produce sounds. The child begins to imitate by a sort of sympathy those words which he hears his mother pronounce to him, and learns their meaning by her looks and gestures. His ear informs him when his imitation has been successful and teaches him how to correct his pronunciation. “Thus he goes on without attending to those motions of the throat, tongue, and lips which produce sounds, but regulated solely by the car, from indistinct prattlings to the acquisition of intelligible speech” the noblest faculty of man.*

The deaf child has the same power of producing sounds, and, in fact often exercises it without knowing it. But experience can never inform him of its existence. … Hence the deaf child remains dumb, while his hearing brothers learn to speak.

Still, the deaf and dumb child understands, in common with his hearing brother, by the instinct of sympathy, the looks and gestures with which his mother accompanies her words; and if she would only continue to talk to his eyes, and to teach him signs as she teaches his hearing brother words, a language would soon be established between them, not only sufficient for all the wants of childhood, but capable of expanding with the development of the child’s understanding, and of aiding that development as much as the language of sounds aids his speaking brother’s.

But, unfortunately, the mother too often forgets that she possesses two languages, one for the ear and the other for the eye. Hence when she first makes the agonizing discovery that her child is deaf and will become dumb, she thinks the misfortune irremediable. She recalls to mind the appalling and all but impassable gulf which, after years of neglect, separates the mind of one born deaf from the cultivated and enlarged mind of his hearing brother, and she imagines that this vast gulf is already fixed between her and her deaf child. How lamentably is she mistaken! The gulf is scarcely opening, it is but a step to cross it, and it is in her own power, if not wholly to close it, at least to prevent it from opening wider. But, ignorant of this, strangely ignorant too that she has, daily and hourly, held intelligible communication with her child through those signs which nature teaches; the mother, when she finds that the ear, the customary door of communication which she seeks to open between mind and mind, is closed forever, instead of returning to the first and in fact nearest, though less convenient passage, the eye, sits down in despair and abandons the mind of her child to the solitary darkness of its “prison house of clay”. …

To the neglected deaf and dumb child, the universe, material and moral, lies in the chaotic darkness and confusion of chance: the future is to him without hope, indeed he scarcely suspects its existence. Still by his own unassisted efforts he acquires some faint glimmerings of that knowledge which an immortal mind only can acquire, and we find by the signs which he invents to overcome the barrier between himself and the speaking world, that he has been an accurate observer within his own narrow sphere. Yet when so neglected, his early condition must be dark and desolate indeed. He almost necessarily becomes selfish, for those who find none to sympathize with them, can hardly be expected to feel sympathy for others. He becomes also suspicious, for he cannot but observe Himself often the subject of conversations held in his presence. Hence it is no wonder if he is often self willed, and irritable. He must also feel himself painfully inferior to his speaking brother. He can form no idea of the nature and uses of the books, papers, slates, &c. with which the latter is so familiar, and for his acquaintance with which he is praised and rewarded. He attempts in vain to comprehend the motives of those gatherings of men together to discuss private or public affairs, or to worship the Giver of all good. He feels himself in short, in almost every thing which distinguishes the man from the animal, an outcast from society, or barely admitted to sit down at its threshold. Neglect has now done her fearful work, a mighty chasm separates him from his speaking brethren, and the world says it is because he is deaf; not so; IT IS BECAUSE HE WAS NEGLECTED. …

The remedy, the only, but an efficient remedy for the misfortune of the deaf, is, By making their eyes supply the place of ears. This short and simple sentence contains the whole art of instructing the deaf; an art which so many consider a mystery, and its success a sort of miracle. …

This golden rule kept in view, in every thing else the early education of the deaf is one with that of the hearing. … Let the mother only attend to the first signs of her deaf and dumb child as carefully and assiduously as she would attend to the first prattlings of a speaking one, and she will soon find the former as able to make his wants distinctly known as the latter. …

Nature, however unindulgent she may seem to the deaf and dumb, has not proved herself such a cruel stepmother as to throw these children of misfortune upon the world without a language. The ability of any human being to exchange with its fellow beings the most common and necessary ideas, does not depend on the mutual knowledge of certain signs previously agreed on, whether we suppose those signs to be, addressed to the eye or to the ear. On this point I have taken the opinion of men eminently acquainted with the subject, and they agree that all that is necessary in order to establish a mode of communication by signs with a deaf and dumb child, is to encourage the child himself to make signs, by attending to and imitating his first efforts.

His first signs will naturally be the expression of his physical wants, but precisely in proportion as he finds himself encouraged and attended to, he will enlarge his vocabulary of signs, till it becomes fully adequate to the expression of all his ideas, whether those ideas be few or many in number.

It is not because deaf and dumb children were born, more than others, with any peculiar facility for making signs, that we counsel their friends to learn signs from them. Hearing and speaking persons, as well as the deaf and dumb, have received the language of signs from the hand of nature; but having acquired and exclusively used, in speech, a more perfect and convenient language, they have forgotten this natural language and must submit to learn it again from those who, having learned no other language, have had no opportunity to forget it. Rules may, however, be given. … That some signs, as, for example, the signs for hunger and thirst, the expression of anger and threatening, or of good will and compassion, are universally intelligible, no one will doubt; and the extent of this universal language is much greater than most people imagine. How often do we read in the narratives of travelers and navigators, of interviews between parties, neither of whom know a word of the other’s spoken language, in which however, matters of the highest importance, involving the welfare or perhaps the existence of one or both parties, were discussed by means of natural signs. In such cases, the value of some previous skill in sign-making becomes strikingly manifest. …

Let those then, who would acquire this language (I address myself more especially to MOTHERS and SISTERS, who, if any are, are capable of becoming ears to the deaf and a tongue to the dumb), attend to these few simple directions.5

Endeavor, as far as in you lies, to forget words and think only of things, become for the time dumb, if you would converse with the dumb.

Study the spontaneous expressions of the feelings and passions in the countenance, and in those gestures which nature prompts us to make whenever words seem inadequate to the full expression of our feelings or thoughts.

Form in your own minds clear and well defined ideas of the forms, qualities, and uses of those objects, and of the characteristic circumstances of those actions, which you would represent by signs.

Cultivate the faculty of IMITATION.

This last direction is the key to the whole art of making signs. We imitate the spontaneous expression of sentiment in the countenance and gestures, and all men understand, for nature operates with the savage of America or Africa, with the barbarous Malay and half civilized Chinese, in the same manner as with the polished European. We delineate the forms and uses of objects and imitate the actions of others, a sort of pictures, whose parts indeed vanish as soon as seen, but after a little practice, the memory will retain and combine them and they will be as intelligible as if their outlines were fixed on paper.

Those who, visiting an institution for the deaf and dumb, or witnessing the conversation of two intelligent mutes, have gazed bewildered on the thousand changing motions through which every thought of the mind flashes and disappears; or who, desiring to study the language of signs in its improved form, have looked at the mass of signs flitting before them, with as much dismay as if they were to be compelled to count and individually recognize a swarm of bees, will be surprised to find that the whole language may be resolved into elements so simple and so few in number.6 Yet so it is; all these signs are only living pictures, in which a few of the outlines being traced, the mind of the spectator supplies the rest.

It is not to be supposed that the language of signs at the beginning of its use, or even after considerable cultivation, will compare either with speech, or with that beautiful, expressive, and figurative language, which, in a community of intelligent mutes, fully supplies the place of speech.7 The language of signs which a deaf and dumb child shall devise for the expression of its own ideas will be, at the beginning, circumscribed as the narrow circle of ideas of which it is the expression. But precisely in proportion as the ideas of the child become more extended, more just, or clearer, its language of signs, if any one will attend to them, will become more copious, significant, and precise. …

A few examples to show how a language of signs is formed and improved, may be both interesting to the curious and useful to the friends of deaf and dumb persons.

If a deaf and dumb child has been accustomed to drink milk, for example, from a bowl with a spoon, the first sign by which he asks for milk will most probably be the imitation of the action of holding a bowl, and carrying milk to the mouth with a spoon; when afterwards he wishes to refer to giving milk to a pig, he will still figure the bowl and the spoon for milk; but if you take him to the farm yard and show him the process of milking, he will readily consent to substitute the motion of the hands in milking for his former sign; by which change there will be an improvement both in propriety and precision, as will be evident when we would refer to giving milk to a kitten, a calf, &c. or when we would speak of any thing besides milk which is eaten from a bowl with a spoon. …

To a person of an inquisitive and philosophic mind, it will be a highly curious and interesting task to trace the manner in which a language is thus gradually formed. Circumstances merely accidental and temporary will often be found to exercise a great influence on its formation. The child will note individuals by some accidental peculiarities of features, dress, or manner; as, a scar on the cheek, a garment of an unusual fashion, a stoop in the gait, a habitual action, &c; and these signs will generally remain after the peculiarities which gave rise to them have passed away, and will not infrequently become generalized by becoming applied to a whole class resembling the individual to whom they are first applied, or in any way connected with him. When President Monroe (says Mr. Barnard), visited the Asylum at Hartford, he wore a cocked hat of the old fashion; and it was by reference to this article of dress that he was ever afterwards distinguished among the pupils. The same sign has since been generalized, and applied to all Presidents, whether their functions are political or otherwise. A similar instance is related by M. Paulmier, an associate of Sicard in the Royal Institution at Paris. A pupil from near the city of Rouen, in Normandy, had unusually large eyes. A reference to this feature naturally became his distinctive sign among the pupils, and was, by a metonymy, applied to the city from whose environs he came. Afterwards, when several generations had successively entered and left the school, and the recollection of the pupil with the large eyes was wholly lost among them, they still continued to figure large eyes for the city of Rouen.8

If it should happen that the deaf and dumb child should see a laborer come to his father’s wood pile regularly every Saturday afternoon, and cut up, with a saw, wood for the week, he will, most probably, imitate the action of sawing wood to denote not only the saw, or the wood, (adding some other distinctive sign, as that of gathering up an armful for the latter), but also the woodsawyer, the woodpile, and every Saturday afternoon.

The degree of copiousness and precision which the sign dialect of a solitary mute will acquire, will vary with the capacity of the inventor, and still more with the degree of attention which is paid to his signs by those around him. A language being the medium by which ideas are conveyed from one mind to another, the cooperation of at least two minds is necessary to the formation or development of such a medium. Certain it is that if sufficient attention is paid to the signs of a deaf and dumb child, they will become adequate to the expression of all its ideas, and may be made a medium of imparting new ideas to a far greater extent than is usually supposed possible under the circumstances. Pupils have been educated in our institutions for the deaf and dumb, who have obtained an amount of information decidedly superior to that of most persons who hear, wholly through the medium of natural signs.

The signs which are most generally wanting to the language of an uneducated mute, are those which express general or abstract ideas, and, particularly, those which serve to express intellectual or moral judgments. … It is certain that the mute’s moral and intellectual conceptions will become much more distinct when he has learned to express them by some sign, whether natural or arbitrary. These delicate shades of thought flit through the mind so rapidly that they almost escape observation, and if observed are soon forgotten, unless they are associated with something more permanent and tangible. Thus by giving signs to such immaterial ideas, we may be said to give them a body.

The signs which express ideas beyond the material world must, of course, be either arbitrary or figurative; and in the natural language of signs, that part which expresses such ideas is figurative to a very remarkable degree.

To create such signs, it will be, for the most part, sufficient to excite in the mind of the child the idea to which you would induce him to give a sign, or to place him in circumstances in which that idea must necessarily be excited. …

Suppose for example, you would elicit a sign to express the ideas of likeness and unlikeness, some such process as the following might be employed.

Suppose you have several sets of books, each set distinguished by a difference in size or binding; place them all promiscuously on a table, the several volumes of each set at a distance from each other; then busy yourself to re-arrange them in sets, and invite the deaf and dumb child to assist you. Thus employed to arrange objects by their resemblance, he cannot avoid conceiving the ideas of resemblance and difference, and in the process you will readily obtain, if you seek for them, such gestures as seem to him adapted to express those ideas. If his signs should not be satisfactory you can bring him to use any signs which seem to you more convenient or expressive; as for example, by placing side by side the two fore-fingers, between which there is a perfect resemblance.

We will here give a few of the signs used in deaf and dumb institutions to express intellectual and moral notions, as examples of the manner in which some signs are formed.

From time immemorial the heart has been supposed to be the seat of the affections, and the brain of the understanding. Hence many figurative signs are derived. A deaf mute presses his finger on his forehead, accompanying the action by a look of intelligence to signify, I understand; he draws his hand across his brow, with a corresponding expression of countenance, to signify, I have forgot, &c; and he generally accompanies the natural signs for passions and emotions by the laying his hand on his heart with an appropriate manner and emphasis.

Some signs are more purely figurative. The sign for the past is made by pointing back (over the shoulder most commonly); for the future by extending the hand forward; for now, to-day, ready, and other ideas involving present time by presenting the hands with an emphatic motion on each side of the person (that is neither backwards nor forwards, i.e. neither past nor future). The sign for always, &c. is made by describing several circles in quick succession. Here, it will be seen, signs originally denoting ideas of space are applied to time. Portions of time are easily expressed by referring to the course of the sun, or of the hands of a watch, or to any event which the child’s experience has taught him will occur at regular intervals.9

Still more figurative does the language of signs become when we apply it to the expression of moral notions. Almost the only natural signs for such notions are those for good and bad (expressed by gestures of approbation and disapprobation, more or less emphatic); but, adopting a figurative expression from speech, we use signs describing a straight line, for many ideas which involve the notion of right, and signs describing a crooked line for their opposite ideas. Thus truth is expressed by laying the finger on the lips, and then throwing it straight forward; and on the other hand, falsehood is expressed by running the finger across the lips in a contrary direction, and generally in a crooked line.

But to attempt to describe a language of signs by words, or to learn such a language from books, is alike to attempt impossibilities. Those for whose benefit I write will stand in no need of such descriptions if they have followed my reiterated advice to attend to and encourage a deaf and dumb child to make signs, and to imitate his signs, and endeavor to converse with him, and to give him new ideas through this medium.

If this course shall be faithfully followed, the deaf and dumb child, unless indeed he is affected with idiotism, will be able to express all his ideas, almost as clearly and intelligibly to one acquainted with his signs, as a speaking child of the same age can do. He will prove himself equally fond with the latter of telling what he has seen or heard by the eyes, and of asking questions about the nature and uses of all the things he sees, and about past and future events. …

In this manner, which any intelligent mother will easily understand and apply to other cases, the deaf and dumb child may be introduced, step by step, only by the means of signs, to a knowledge of all that a child of his age can know.

But there is still one thing wanting, and that one thing is of the utmost importance. It is a KNOWLEDGE OF WORDS, without which he can never converse, save with the few who understand his signs, and must thus remain a helpless dependent on the kindness of friends whom fortune may snatch from him. A knowledge of words, also, is necessary to enable him to have recourse to books, those never failing companions which are never weary of conversing even with the deaf. Give him but the key of this grand storehouse of knowledge, written language, and you put all at once the mind’s wealth in his reach. No longer dependant on the leisure or the kindness of a few for information, he can then riot at will among the intellectual stores of successive centuries.

But this is an enterprise of no common magnitude. The ordinary passage by which hearing children are admitted to this great storehouse of knowledge, is irrevocably barred to the deaf at birth. Spoken language is an open sesame whose magic power causes the door of this storehouse to fly asunder; for the deaf and dumb a passage must be cut through the wall itself.

Let the reader figure to himself a language (like the Chinese) in which each idea is expressed by an arbitrary character, or, still worse, by an assemblage of arbitrary characters, in an order too, very different from that in which the words of his own language are arranged, and he will have some idea of the difficulties which attend the acquisition of a written language by the deaf and dumb.10

Still, the difficulties though great are not insurmountable, and were they greater, they ought not to be permitted to weigh a feather against the advantages which the mute will receive from access to books, and the possession of a mode of communicating his ideas, common to all in his country. The writer of this, deaf from his early infancy, would not relinquish his knowledge of written language to gain the wealth of the Indies, or even to recover the faculty of hearing. …

To give a deaf mute from birth a perfect knowledge of a written language is an enterprise which may be compared to digging into a mountain for treasure which we know to be concealed somewhere. The depth is considerable, and those who begin at random, throwing up the earth in fifty places, will scarcely ever find enough of the treasure to reward their labor.

I will point out the place where you must begin to dig. By persevering efforts you will go deeper and deeper, meeting at every turn of the spade encouraging indications of final success, and throwing up constantly larger and larger fragments of the great treasure beneath. Though you may not, perhaps, fully succeed, yet you will in a very great degree facilitate the labor of the regular instructor, when the child passes under his care. …

The Manual Alphabet is a very useful instrument in teaching words. It is a mode of spelling words on the fingers, not only more convenient, but after practice, more rapid than writing. It can be used at all times and in all places; sitting or standing, walking or riding at meals, and in a thousand circumstances in which writing would be very inconvenient, and even impracticable. A still greater advantage is that it can be used like natural signs, in an intercourse between two persons at a considerable distance. It requires far less light than writing for its employment, and can even be used in the dark by holding the hand of the speaker between the hands of the person spoken to. The latter can thus, with a little practice, distinguish the letters by a sense of touch, a fact of which I have often had proof. Lastly, it assimilates much more directly to speech than writing can be made to do. The interlocutors can sit facing each other, and observe each other’s countenances and gestures while speaking (if I may use the word for this silent manner of expressing words).

The child may be early made familiar with the positions of the Manual Alphabet, and may be taught to spell a number of words on his fingers before he is able to read or write them on paper. After this, to teach him the written or printed alphabets, is only to teach him that a certain position of his fingers corresponds to a particular letter. … [Editor’s Note: Burnet goes on to give detailed directions on how to teach a deaf child to read and write words.]

In his preface, Burnet wrote, “The engraving of the manual alphabet which accompanies the work, will enable any person to acquire the art of talking with the fingers in a few hours, and a few weeks practice will give a surprising degree of expertise in its use.”

These general hints will perhaps be sufficient, because, though I give directions for beginning the mute’s education at home, I would by no means dispense with his being sent, when of suitable age, to a regular institution for the deaf and dumb. … If public schools and experienced teachers are necessary for speaking children, they are doubly necessary for the deaf and dumb. The instruction in written language, therefore, which the mute receives at home, ought to be considered as only the foundation of a fabric to which the experienced instructor is afterwards to put the finishing hand. …

Articulation and Reading on the Lips shall now receive a brief consideration.

These are, beyond all question, the most valuable accomplishments which a deaf and dumb person can acquire. They restore him more effectually than he can be by any other means restored to the ordinary intercourse of Society, by giving him the power of conversing with the speaking world in a mode, which, though in his case not free from difficulties, still exacts less effort than any other on the part of his neighbors, who, I am sorry to say, are too seldom inclined to give themselves trouble for his sake. Hence he will become, by more frequent practice, far more familiar with words, and will thus be more likely to reach that great end in his instruction, an end which too few educated mutes have ever attained, the ability to read books with ease, pleasure, and profit. Some have even thought that his physical development was rendered more perfect, and his health improved by the free play of the chest and vocal organs consequent on the habit of utterance. Certain it is that the deaf mute taught to speak passably, and to read on the lips, is far less dependant on the kindness and sympathy of others, than his brethren in whose education these branches have been neglected.11 With these last, even the very cultivation of their intellectual faculties seems, when they leave the society of their school-mates and go forth into the speaking world, to increase their dependence, as it gives them a keener relish for social enjoyments whose gratification must depend on the willingness of others to be at some inconvenience on their account. No teacher of the deaf and dumb has ever denied the value, to them, of the accomplishments of which we are speaking; and experience has abundantly shown that their acquisition is, in most cases, practicable to a very considerable degree. That they are still, in so many schools for the deaf and dumb, including all in this country, entirely neglected, is to be ascribed to the lingering effects or the early prejudices of instructors, or to their desire to give the ideas of their pupils a more than ordinary range and expansion, and to the scantiness of the period to which the education of the deaf and dumb is almost always restricted, making it difficult, if not impossible, to attend at the same time to the early development of their ideas, and to the giving them the power of vocal speech. Though this branch of instruction, more than any other in the education even of the deaf, demands the perfect work of patience, yet I will not suppose that any instructor, having by heart the very choice of a profession devoted himself heart and hand to one of the noblest labors of Philanthropy, will shrink, merely on account of its difficulty, from that labor which alone can be said to crown his perfected work.

True it is that he can never hope to give the deaf the correct, emphatic, and euphonious utterance of those who hear; he must be content if their articulation is intelligible. And it is equally true that reading on the lips cannot wholly supply the sense of which the deaf are deprived. It exacts, for its exercise, light, proximity to the speaker, and a direct view of the countenance. But why speak of the boundaries which limit our utmost ability to remedy the deficiencies of Nature, when we are yet so far from having attained them? …

I think it possible that the mother may teach her deaf and dumb child, as early as she would a hearing one, to imitate a few words, such as papa, mama, and &c., so as to be intelligible to her, by making it observe the motion of her lips, and in particular, making it feel the emission of breath, and the vibration in the throat which accompany the utterance of a sound. It is as natural for a deaf child to utter cries as it is for a blind one to move its limbs; and not more difficult to teach the former to speak, than to teach the latter to walk. The mother certainly ought to make the trial. … [Editor’s Note: Here Burnet provides elaborate instructions on teaching a deaf child to speak—placing the hand on the speaker’s throat, before the speaker’s mouth, and so forth.]

A consideration which greatly enhances the importance of teaching articulation to the deaf is found in the fact that many children who pass for deaf-mutes are only partially deaf.12 Such will readily hear noises, while they cannot distinguish spoken words. It has been found that this is, in many cases, because finding it difficult to distinguish words, they neglect to listen. With them sounds, though heard, excite only the same confused sensation which all feel in endeavoring to listen to the rapid utterance of a strange language. Experiments made at the Parisian Institution on several such, have proved that they may be brought to distinguish sounds by only accustoming them to listen; and that in teaching them to speak, they are often, to a considerable extent, taught to hear. …

The case of those who lose their hearing after learning to speak shall now be considered. …

It repeatedly happens that children who lose their hearing after learning to speak become in time dumb; and in all cases, unless particularly attended to, their articulation becomes more and more indistinct as they grow up, till at length none but those who are in the habit of hearing them speak can understand them.13 In this point of view, the reader will easily conceive how important it is that children should be early taught to read. If able to read before the loss of their hearing, they will soon learn to write, and will thus, without particular instruction, possess all those advantages which can only be restored to the really dumb by a laborious process of instruction. Cases are not very rare in which persons who have lost their hearing after learning to read, have afterwards by their own efforts, assisted only by books, acquired an amount of information, and a knowledge of language far greater than it is generally practicable to impart to a person deaf and dumb from birth.

But supposing that the child loses its hearing before learning to read, retaining, however, the power of speech, still his case admits a much easier remedy than that of one dumb as well as deaf.

It is only necessary to bear in mind the rule I have already laid down, a rule applicable as well to the case of those who become deaf at any period of life, as of those who are born deaf; viz: To make their eyes supply the place of ears.

None but the deaf, dumb and blind are beyond the benefit of this principle, and that case is fortunately as rare as it is well nigh irremediable. …14

I will conclude this subject with one more remark. Many parents whose children have been bereft of hearing, have, with much pains and expense, tried, and tried in vain, every remedy which reason, experience or even quackery could suggest, while at the same time the simple and certain means of making the eyes supply the place of ears have been neglected. Without trespassing on the province of the physician, I would observe that, though deafness has been some times relieved by medical means, yet the success of those means is, in most cases, extremely doubtful; but that the means which I have pointed out for restoring the deaf to the blessings of social intercourse, are within the reach of all; and, if properly and perseveringly used, will in no case fail to produce valuable results.

The Orphan Mute

On a beautiful sunny afternoon in June, a group of happy children set out, with light hearts and smiling faces, on a strawberry excursion. At some distance from their little village, there was a deserted and ruinous house, around which were a few fields abounding in strawberries, the whole embosomed in woods, but near a public road. Thither the children proceeded, but had hardly entered the fields when they were alarmed by mournful cries, which quickly caused them to huddle together in a group, like so many frightened sheep, and retreat towards the road. A consultation now took place, what course they should pursue; some were for continuing their employment in the fields farthest removed from the place where the cries were heard, others, especially the girls, were for running home to get help. But a manly and intelligent boy of ten, insisted that it was only the cry of some child, who had been picking strawberries like themselves and had lost itself, or perhaps got hurt; he, therefore, proposed that they should proceed towards the spot, and himself volunteered to lead the way. A few of the boldest took courage by his example, and following, they found a little girl apparently about six years old, seated on a stone, and sobbing bitterly. As the party approached, she started up and fled like a wild bird. The suddenness of her flight astonished the party, and most of them, doubting whether the being they saw was not a being of another world, the rather as her dress was unusual and her countenance remarkably beautiful, were disposed to retreat. George Wilson, though as we have already said only ten years old, and younger than many of his companions, had been too well instructed to experience any idle terrors of ghosts and fairies. Leaving his hesitating companions to their own course, he instantly darted forward in pursuit, and soon overtook the timid and exhausted child.

As he caught her in his arms, he endeavored to sooth her alarm by the kindest looks and words; whether it was the former or the latter, the little stranger soon ceased sobbing; and looking eagerly into his face, suffered him to lead her back to his companions, who had now begun to advance. The sight of so many strange faces seemed to renew her alarm, but she seemed now to have a perfect confidence in her conductor, and while the rest gathered around her, she clung tenaciously to him. George, proud of this mark of confidence, offered to carry her home to her mamma, but to all his offers and enquiries, she made no other reply than by looking anxiously in his face. Much puzzled by her silence, the children made several fruitless attempts to make her understand. Various solutions were proposed for her conduct. Some thought that she might be of a French family, which was said to live within a few miles, and some inarticulate sounds, which she attempted to utter, being entirely unintelligible to the children, were believed to be indubitably French. George Wilson, to whom she still continued to adhere as a protector, notwithstanding the endeavors of the girls to entice her away, declared that he would immediately return to the village with her, and take her to his father’s; the rest being much too intent on the anticipated pleasures of the afternoon to accompany him, he proceeded on his humane errand alone. His mother was much surprised to see him return so soon, and so strangely accompanied. On hearing the story she highly praised the manly conduct of her son, and promised to take care of the interesting child till she could ascertain to whom she belonged. As she really found it impossible to make the child understand her, and as there actually was a French family within two or three miles, she considered it very probable that the little girl belonged to this family, and had strayed away and lost herself, as often happens to children. “When your father, George,” said she, “comes home he will ride there, and inform them; in the mean time you may go back and pick your strawberries.” A piece of cake and a toy reconciled the little stranger to her new protector, and George set off to rejoin his companions, with that lightness of heart which ever attends the consciousness of doing well.

George Wilson was an only child, his parents were pious, intelligent, and though by no means wealthy, yet independent and highly respected. His mother in particular, was a woman of a very superior mind. Under her watchful and enlightened care her son grew up, a model of youthful excellence. Possessed of naturally quick parts, his acquirements were beyond his years; his naturally warm and impetuous feelings had been carefully directed to the side of honor and generosity; and the bright promise which he gave of talents and virtue, and future eminence, daily gladdened the hearts of his parents.

Mr. Wilson arrived late in the evening, and his son immediately assailed him with an account of his adventure, and entreated him to ride to Monsieur Dupin’s. His father being much fatigued, and not wishing to go that evening, directed him to call one of their neighbors who had lived some time in the French family. The neighbor soon arrived, and at once ascertained that the child did not belong to them. To this George objected that she spoke French. The neighbor, who professed to some smattering of French, accordingly addressed the child in that language, but finding it impossible to make her understand, she declared that the girl was dumb, and deaf too. This George rejected indignantly, and seemed inclined to ascribe the assertion to anger at the child’s disproving her pretensions to an accomplishment of which she was very vain. His parents, however, who had already a suspicion of the truth, immediately adopted the opinion of their neighbor, and by various experiments, soon convinced him of its correctness.

The next day Mr. Wilson made diligent enquiries, which were continued some time without gaining any intelligence of the child’s friends. An advertisement was also inserted in the newspapers, mentioning, among other circumstances, that she had a remarkable scar behind her right ear. All they could learn, however, was that a person had been seen in a riding chair, accompanied by a child, driving towards the place where she was found; and it soon became the general opinion that she had been intentionally abandoned. In the mean time, the little foundling, by her beauty and helpless condition, no less than by the native goodness of heart she discovered, and the signs of intelligence she displayed, which seemed extraordinary in one of her years and misfortune, twined herself more and more round the hearts of the whole family, till the old people became indifferent to, and George absolutely fearful of, the success of their enquiries.

Some weeks having elapsed without bringing them any intelligence of the child’s friends, Mrs. Wilson declared her intention to adopt her as her own daughter, and give her the name of Mary, after an early and unfortunate friend, whom, she said, the child strongly resembled. From that time, the little deaf and dumb girl became a cherished and a happy, yea, a happy member of the family. Whenever George was not at school, they were inseparable companions, and when he returned, she would endeavor to inform him of all that had passed in his absence. As her signs were sure of being kindly and patiently attended to, they daily became more expressive; and George and herself soon acquired a degree of mutual intelligence which often afforded matter of deep wonderment to the gossips of the village. Sometimes she would endeavor to relate something that happened before he found her in the strawberry field; she would point to her adopted mother, and then to a chest, and would close her eyes, and incline her head, and cover her face with a white handkerchief. This seemed to be a scene which had made a strong and durable impression on her memory. At other times she would point to the scar behind her ear, and would intimate that she had been overrun in the road, by a carriage; of which she seemed to have such an instinctive dread, that she never ventured in the road alone without looking carefully around her. From this circumstance Mrs. Wilson imbibed an opinion that she had lost her hearing by such an accident, and this suspicion was strengthened by observing that, whenever her feelings were strongly excited, she would utter sounds that strongly resembled words; and she thought she could distinguish the word mother, among others.

We will now take our readers by a short cut, to a point of time, eight years removed from that at which we set out. We will introduce them to Mr. Wilson’s parlor, on a winter evening. A noble looking youth of eighteen, was reading the newspaper to a lady who seemed to be his mother. As he read, his mother glanced, with an air of apprehension, to a beautiful and dark haired girl of fourteen, who sat knitting, yet at that moment, intently watching the countenances both of the reader and listener. She caught the glance, and as George raised his eyes from the paper, he met the earnestly enquiring eyes of Mary, and the glow on his cheek deepened. With a look and gesture of irresistible entreaty, Mary applied for an explanation. George extended his arm towards the east, and seemed as if pointing to a distant place, then pointing to herself, he described with his finger, the tie of her bonnet, and placing his finger alternately on his ear and his lips, he finally joined his hands together. Mary quickly put her hand to her head with the motion of putting on a hat, and with an enquiring look, also placed her fingers on her lips. George shook his head, and moved his lips as if speaking.15 Mary looked down upon her work, but her color deepened and her bosom heaved. Mrs. Wilson seemed to observe the couple with increased anxiety and inquietude.

The communications which we have occupied some minutes in describing, passed in less than as many seconds. If after all our pains, the reader is so dull as not as not to know what passed on the occasion we pity him, and advise him to reflect what kind of beings wear bonnets, and what is meant by joining hands (and hearts); and if he cannot then understand, we shall set him down as incapable of comprehending or relishing our story.

The next day, Mrs. Wilson took an opportunity of seriously proposing to her husband that they should procure for Mary the benefits of the State laws, which humanely provide for the education of the indigent deaf and dumb. Mr. Wilson was easily persuaded and promised to exert himself for that purpose; but George, when apprised of the scheme, warmly opposed it. He could teach Mary himself, he said, and in fact he had already taught her many words. An incident, however, happened, which by changing his situation and prospects, changed in a great measure the current of his thoughts. His mother’s only brother, who had been for many years engaged in commercial pursuits abroad, during which time she had scarcely ever heard of him, unexpectedly returned with considerable wealth, and having lost his wife and children in a foreign climate, he declared his determination to adopt his nephew and give him a collegiate education. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, of course, most gladly embraced the offer, which seemed almost to realize all their dreams of their son’s future career, which, however, they were not destined to see further fulfilled; so often are we called away from this world, when our cup of joy seems fullest. Before George departed for College, he was enjoined the task of reconciling Mary to her own removal to an Asylum, which George himself now warmly advocated, though to his surprise, his mother seemed to have lost her zeal in the cause. The necessary steps, however, had been taken, and there could be no reasonable excuse assigned to justify delay.

To reconcile Mary to the step was indeed a difficult task, and probably none but George would have been able to effect it. What arguments he used we cannot say, but they were, at least, powerful enough to succeed. Deaf mutes have hearts as well as others, and perhaps George informed her that the young lady whose marriage he read of in the newspapers, had been educated at a deaf and dumb Asylum, certain it is that, when she found George was leaving home, she became willing and almost anxious to go too.

The day of parting arrived, and George took leave of his friends, parents, and Mary, and left his home with some regret indeed, but with high hopes and bright anticipations. Perhaps he experienced the most regret at parting with Mary. Ever accustomed to give way to the unchecked current of her feelings, she now wept in uncontrollable affliction. The motives which could induce George to leave her, she could not comprehend, and he in vain endeavored to explain them. The grave and anxious faces of the family, as the hour of parting drew near, naturally impressed her with the idea of misfortune impending; and her vision into futurity was far too limited to look beyond present affliction, or to consider it as the means of future happiness. The only idea she could form of George’s employment at College was that he was going to spend his time chiefly in looking over books. She had often seen him reading with an intensity of interest that made even her conversation an interruption. On such occasions she would watch the changes of his countenance as he hung over his book, and weep in the full bitterness of feeling to find herself incapable of sharing what seemed to be his dearest enjoyment. Not perhaps, at any other time, did the consciousness of her deprivation seem much to alloy her happiness. With the young companions of her childhood, she was always an object of interest, and was invariably treated with kindness. She joined in their sports, and was generally preferred to a distinguished place. Her misfortune, joined to her sweetness of temper, her personal charms, and that quickness of intellect, which, when coupled with her misfortune, always excites surprise in common minds, rendered her universally an object of pity and admiration. She was often, indeed, a spectator of pleasure she could not comprehend, and mirth she could not share, but then she could always turn to her adopted brother, with the feelings of a wild bird, flying from the company of those of other species, to a mate, of its own kind. But when that adopted brother too, devoted himself to pleasures which she could not share or comprehend, she seemed to feel the full extent of her misfortune. It was this feeling which George availed himself of to reconcile her to her own banishment from home. How another could teach her better than George, she could not comprehend, but George assured her that it was so. Perhaps he informed her that the mute whose marriage he read of, had been so taught. At any rate George himself was leaving home for instruction, and it almost seemed to associate them, to suppose that she should leave home too, for the same purpose, though in a different direction.

Though George did not succeed in explaining to her the motive of their separation, he at least succeeded in assuring her that they should meet again. Perhaps his looks and gestures spoke another promise to her heart, but as George himself would have been puzzled to reduce it to words, we shall not attempt it; of its nature the reader may judge by the fact that it seemed to reconcile Mary to the idea of going among strangers, from which, at another time, she would have recoiled with the instinctive timidity of a fawn or wild bird. At parting, George gave her a beautiful pocket testament, with a red cover, which she had often admired, assuring her that she would one day be able to read it.

* * *

One day in May, a respectable elderly couple, accompanied by a beautiful girl of fourteen, called at the Asylum at ——— and were received by the Principal with his wonted courtesy. He ascertained at a glance the character of the party. The appearance of the elders forbade the idea that they had called for the gratification of idle curiosity. And there was an expression of eager and trembling curiosity, the natural effect of mingling hope and fear, in the quick glances with which the girl seemed to study, furtively indeed, the lineaments of his own countenance. Shaking the hands of the old people, he advanced towards her, observing, I suppose you have brought me a new pupil. We have sir, replied our old friend, Mr. Wilson. Mr. P. with his kindest look and manner took Mary’s hand, and asked her a few questions in the language of mutes, in which he was deeply skilled, concerning her former employments and her present feelings; enquired if she could write, and if she was desirous to learn, and assured her of his pleasure to have her among his pupils. The benevolence which beamed in his countenance seemed in a great measure to remove her fears, and when she found herself enabled at once to hold intelligible intercourse with a stranger, and one too, of an age which she had hitherto deemed unapproachable to her, her heart, which had been fluttering in her bosom like a frightened bird, seemed to rest with a feeling of confidence. By the Matron to whom she was now introduced, she was received with equal kindness; and during the half hour that her adopted parents remained, she continued entirely at her ease.

After being conducted by the Matron to view the internal arrangement of the building, and into the school rooms to witness the progress of the pupils, they took their leave. Then it was that Mary’s newly acquired confidence seemed to forsake her, when she saw her old friends departing, and herself left among strange, though kind faces; she sunk on a seat, covered her face with her hands, and wept long and bitterly. The Matron considerately permitted her to give a free course to her feelings, but when she became more composed, took her hand and conducted her to the girls’ sitting room. On entering, Mary at first shrunk instinctively, and with an additional feeling of desolation, from a group of unknown faces and the curious eyes which were turned upon her.16 But it was not long before she became interested in what was passing around her. She saw many girls, nearly of her own age, in groups, evidently engaged in interesting conversation; but she looked in vain for any motion of the lips. Those hidden thoughts which had been wont to pass from mind to mind, in such an invisible manner as to elude all the vigilance of her senses, seemed now to have become visible and palpable. The air was literally swarming with the creations of the mind; events past and future, thoughts, feelings and wishes, seemed floating around her, and that knowledge which she had hitherto sought so eagerly, and often so vainly, now knocked continually for admittance.

As the Matron placed her in one of these circles and withdrew, the various groups gradually merged in one, of which she became the center. A hundred welcomes were given, and a thousand questions asked and answered, till the questioners, having gratified their curiosity, separated by degrees, and returned to their several employments, leaving their new associate interested, pleased, tranquil, delighted, almost happy.

We are not going to give a particular account of her progress at school. The instructions of George had not been lost on her; she could write her own name, and the names of most common objects, and many detached words; these advantages, aided by a natural quickness of perception and an ardent thirst for knowledge, rendered her progress unusually rapid, and she soon became a favorite with her teachers.

That she was happy at school, it is hardly necessary to take the trouble to attempt to prove. Who, that has long lived among a people of an unknown language, is not happy when he arrives among a community whose language he understands? Who that has long felt himself painfully inferior in mental acquirements to those around him, that has long hungered and thirsted in vain for knowledge, is not happy when he finds himself brought at once to the gushing springs of science when the whole world is opened to his vision, and the pages of history unrolled before him? Who that has gazed upon the works of nature, and asked in vain, how these things are; that has seen a whole congregation join in prayer and praise; has looked upon their faces, beaming with the feelings of devotion, and felt that all this is above his comprehension—would not be happy if the being and attributes of the Creator were revealed to him, if he could himself join understandingly in prayer and praise to him? Such had been, and such now was Mary’s lot. Reader, do not you think she was happy? Yes, she was happy. Only one circumstance brought with it an alloy. She never heard from her early friends, and often keenly felt their neglect; not knowing that those who had brought her to the Asylum, were now no more.

* * *

“It is surprising that we have never heard from Miss Wilson’s friends since she came here,” remarked Mrs. P. to her husband, as they sat in their private parlor after the school was dismissed. “Though they informed us that she was only an adopted daughter, yet they seemed to feel much affection for her, and, interesting as she is, I could not have thought it possible that they should, for nearly four years, entirely neglect her.” “I have been much surprised at it myself,” returned her husband. “I have several times written to their address, but have received no answer. Miss Wilson’s time, as a State pupil, expires in a few weeks, and I often feel considerable anxiety respecting her future fortune.” “But at all events,” remarked Mrs. P., “she will not want friends.” “She shall not,” replied Mr. P. and continued, “Her early history seems to be mysterious. I have directed her to write what she could remember of it, which I will read to you.”

Account of Myself

When I was a little girl, and began to remember, I lived in a little white house, with a lady who was very kind to me. One day I was playing in the road, and a man drove his wagon, that ran over me, and crushed my head, and I was near dying; yet I got well, but I was deaf and dumb. The kind lady often wept over me much, and she was pale and sick. One day I saw her lie in a coffin, she did not look at me or move, and I cried very much. A gentleman took me away, and he rode with me some days in a chair. He set me down, and I picked some strawberries. The gentleman got in the chair, and left me. I cried after him, but he rode away fast. I felt very much afraid, and I sat down and wept. A good boy found me, and led me home to his parents. They pitied me, and took care of me, and I was very happy. I was always pleased to play and converse with my young friends, but was often envious and sorry because they went to school and learned, and I was ignorant. Then my friends began to learn me to write, and I was very glad. Then they said I should come to the Asylum to be taught; but I was afraid and did not wish to leave my home. They told me that I would learn to read fast, and that they would often come and see me. Then I felt willing to come. When I came to the Asylum I was very happy to converse by signs, and to study many things. I soon began to read the books. I often thought of my friends, but they did not come to see me, nor write to me, and I sometimes felt very unhappy, because they neglected me. But I hope that my teachers and directors will be my friends. And I am happy to think that I have learned about God and the Bible, and that God is good, and will be the friend of the friendless, and the father of the orphans. And I will try to be good, that I may not displease him.

MARY WILSON17

The reading of this simple and affecting composition brought tears to the eyes of the amiable lady, and Mr. P. himself was much affected. Just then a knock was heard at the door. Mr. P. opened it, and ushered in a young man of prepossessing appearance and manners. He apologized for his intrusion, observing that he had called to see an old friend, among his pupils, one Mary Wilson. Pleased at so extremely opportune an adventure, Mr. P. desired his guest to sit down, while he would go and call her. While he was gone on this friendly errand, the stranger explained to Mrs. P. the cause of the apparent neglect with which Mary had been treated, by mentioning the deaths of those who had placed her in the Asylum, within a few weeks afterwards. The only other person who claimed particular interest in her welfare, had been pursuing his studies in a distant college, and during the vacations, obliged to attend on his uncle, on whom he depended for support. But having now left college, and begun the study of the law in the office of an eminent practitioner at ———, he had lost no time in calling to enquire for her.

We must now change the scene. In another room of the Institution, there were collected about forty females, chiefly from ten to twenty years of age. They were all neatly dressed, and displayed contented and happy faces. Their employments were various, some were engaged in the manual occupations of their sex, some were reading, some eagerly conversing on the news of their little world, and a few looking from the windows with the curiosity natural to their age and sex, and perhaps with no small relish of the beauties unfolding under the warm sun of April. Among the whole there was, perhaps, a larger share of personal attractions than could often be met with among the same number promiscuously assembled; but one young lady, apparently about eighteen, instantly struck the eye by the unrivaled symmetry of her form, and the charms of a countenance, which, though not perfectly regular, yet beamed alternately with intelligence and sensibility. It seemed in fact a transparent covering for her heart and mind. But at the moment at which we introduce the reader, there was an expression of seriousness and sadness in her eyes, which were intently bent on the pages of a little red covered book, and thence occasionally seeking the columns of a dictionary.

The door of the room opened; twenty eyes immediately glanced towards the respected form of their principal. He placed his finger behind his right ear, and every eye which saw the action instantly turned on the young lady we have attempted to describe.18 Intent on her book, she did not immediately perceive the signal, but those near her were prompt to inform her that she had been called. When Mr. P. saw that he had caught her eye, he beckoned her to follow, and in answer to her enquiring glance, locked his fingers together, the established sign for a friend; then holding up one finger, and extending his palm towards herself he pointed to the parlor below. They were already through the door, but the gestures we have attempted to describe, were caught and repeated by those near the door; and in a few seconds all in the room knew that Miss Wilson had been called to the parlor to see a friend.

Mary followed her teacher with such feelings as a young, ingenuous, and warm hearted girl might be supposed to feel, who, believing herself for years neglected by her earliest and most valued friends should find herself suddenly summoned to their presence. As they descended the stairs, she ventured to inquire whether the friend who awaited her was one of those who accompanied her to the Asylum four years before. He shook his head and intimated that it was a young man, adding at the same time some of those gestures and imitative variations of the countenance, which are frequently used by deaf mutes to give an idea of the personal appearance of strangers, but which we should vainly attempt to transfer to paper.

Mary’s heart fluttered, and her head grew dizzy. Mr. P. perceiving her emotion, kindly took her arm, and they entered the room. A single glance told her that her suspicions were correct. She saw the companion of her childhood, changed indeed, and improved in manly beauty, but not disguised from the penetrating eye of one long accustomed to mark the human countenance. As George looked on the tall and elegant girl before him, he could hardly believe that it was the same he had left four years before, almost a mere child. But quickly recovering himself, he came forward, and took her hand with a warmth which spoke more to Mary’s heart than any words could have expressed. In the confusion of the moment, he spoke to her audibly, but smiling at his mistake, he endeavored to recall those almost forgotten looks and gestures which he was wont to employ years before, but in this mode of communication he soon found himself embarrassed. Reflecting, however, that Mary had now learned to write, he immediately produced his pencil and pocket book, and seating himself by her side, soon explained to her the melancholy cause of the apparent neglect with which she had been treated.19 He now found no difficulty in making her understand the motives which had led to their separation, and the nature of his present employment. Eager to ascertain the improvement of her mind, he conversed with her at some length, and his questions were always answered with a readiness and intelligence which both surprised and delighted him. In historical and geographical knowledge she scarcely yielded even to himself; and though almost entirely unacquainted with the fictions of poetry and romance (for there are too many truths which require to be imparted to the minds of the deaf and dumb, to permit any part of the limited period allotted to their education, to be devoted to fiction), she evidently possessed both imagination and sensibility. Astonished and delighted by her improvement, and fascinated by her replies, which evinced a heart wholly uncorrupted by intercourse with the world, and deeply imbued with the truths of religion and morality, George protracted his visit as long as he could with propriety. And he afterwards called at the Institution as often as he could find leisure and a decent pretext. He now began again to acquire the eloquent and poetical language of gestures, which he often found to express his feelings at least to Mary, much more forcibly and clearly than words could do, and when his skill in this language failed, the manual alphabet was an interpreter always ready at his fingers’ ends.

* * *

“What a lovely girl she is,” said George to himself one day, as he left the institution, “what a beautiful form, and a face like heaven’s bow in showers, round which her dark hair flows like the streaming clouds, as Ossian says. And then what grace and propriety in all she says or does: what a highly gifted mind she must possess, to have acquired, in four years, larger and better arranged stores of knowledge than many, with every advantage, have acquired in twenty years. In a few days, Mr. P. says, her time as a State pupil will expire. Where can she then go. My parents alas! are no more; my uncle is a single man, and of a morose temper. And this lovely, intelligent, helpless, and warm hearted girl, clings to me as her only friend, as she did when I picked her up among the strawberries. Shall I leave her fragile form and susceptible heart to the cold charity of the world! No! I will devote my life to her; I will be her protector.” And with these generous feelings he sat down to write to his uncle. To this uncle he had been much obliged. By him he had been placed in a situation where he could gratify his passion for knowledge, and where the powers of his mind had room to develope themselves. By him he had been assisted along the rugged path to fame, which his ardent genius longed to essay. And this uncle, though constantly impressing on him the necessity of depending on his own exertions for the acquisition of fame and fortune, still held out the idea that his nephew would be his heir. George, therefore, felt it to be incumbent on him to gain his uncle’s consent, if possible, though when he reflected on the subject, he felt almost hopeless of obtaining it. He sat down, however, and summoned all his powers to represent the case in such a light as would be the most apt to make an impression on his uncle. He painted in glowing colors the personal and mental charms of Mary; he described her destitute and helpless condition, and mentioned the early ties which had connected them, and finished by declaring that with such a being he could enjoy more domestic happiness than with any other, and in the most respectful manner implored his uncle’s consent.

While George is waiting for an answer to this letter, we will suspend the course of our narrative to give the reader some account of his uncle. …

[Editor’s Note: Here Burnet makes a long digression about James Morris, the uncle. We learn that he was a dissipated, reckless young man who pursued wealth. His love for a woman named Mary Harris was rejected; she married a Charles Melville, and he swore revenge. He cultivated the friendship of Charles and drove him to ruin and death. Mary Harris was devastated and died soon after her husband. Morris offered to care for her young daughter, who had recently recovered from an illness. What became of the child was not known, but its death was soon announced.]

It was from such a man, still engaged in the pursuit of wealth in one of our great commercial cities, that George awaited a reply to his romantic epistle.

The reply at length came, and we here lay it before our readers.

Dear Nephew,

I have received your letter, and perused it with much surprise, that you should think of marrying before you are established in your profession, and especially that you should think of marrying a dumb woman. I am at a loss to conceive what pleasure you could find with such a companion for life. As to what you say of her person, I hope you have more good sense than to be taken by a mere outside; and as to the improvement in her mind, which you say has taken place, I am quite incredulous. I have seen some deaf and dumb persons who have been educated, and none of them are able to express any but the most simple ideas. Surely such a girl, no better than a welltaught parrot, a mere beautiful automaton, cannot be a proper companion for a man who is to rise in the world by the exertion of his talents. But I have other reasons for refusing my consent. I have already fixed my mind on your union with the daughter of an old friend, a girl of high accomplishments and immense fortune. I expect you to come hither immediately, when I will introduce you to her. I have spoken to Mr. ———, an eminent lawyer in this place, who has agreed to receive you into his office. As to the concern you express for the future fortune of the dumb girl, if her good qualities are such as you represent, the directors of the Asylum will no doubt provide her a place in some respectable service. Trusting to your prompt compliance with my wishes, I remain your affectionate uncle,

JAMES MORRIS

So, exclaimed George, as he threw down the letter, and paced the room in an agitation he could not control, so the old gentleman is to choose me a wife, ugly and silly she may chance to be; when old men choose for young ones, they look to nothing but money. And then Mary, how coldly and contemptuously he speaks of her. A well taught parrot! a mere automaton! heavens! and she is to go to service, to bake, and scrub, and wash, but it shall never be. I have promised to be her protector, and I will keep the pledge. Her happiness or misery is in my hands, and I will not trifle with the deposit. I care not for the loss of my uncle’s fortune. The sale of my father’s farm will support us for the present. My profession is open before me, I will hew my own way to fortune and distinction. No votary of fashion, no vain, gaudy butterfly, no mawkish sentimental girl for me. Give me the pure heart, the warm, unadulterated feelings of nature. Give me above all, a wife whose heart is wholly mine, no flower that every fly may buzz round, and sip its sweets; no coquette, whose heart has fluttered for half a hundred lovers, no compound of vanity and caprice, concentrated all in self, to whom a husband, like a reticule, is only a necessary appendage. No, I would have a wife for myself, and not for others, a companion to whom I shall be all the world, who will cling to me through all the changes of fortune, with devoted love; I had almost said with idolatry.

With these feelings, the reader will not be surprised to hear that George Wilson soon called on the principal of the Asylum on business of importance. And that in a few weeks he left ———, not to wait on his uncle, but to establish himself in some town in the West, where a favorable opening might offer for a young lawyer.

* * *

One evening in June, a riding chair was seen winding along the banks of the Passaic, and evidently keeping as much in a westerly direction as the sinuosities of the road would permit. It contained a gentleman and a lady. The latter was of surpassing beauty, and her fine, and most expressive countenance, was continually lit up with new pleasure at every change of the prospect. Though neither of them were heard to utter audible sounds, it was plain that there was no want of intelligible communication between them, and thoughts often shone through a single look and gesture, which long sentences would have failed adequately to express; and occasionally they seemed to converse by what one, unacquainted with the manual alphabet, would have considered only a rapid quivering of the fingers; but which to their practiced eyes, left the traces of letters, words and sentences, as clearly as if impressed on paper. It was now near the close of the day, and the gentleman was beginning to consider where they should stop for the night, as no inn appeared in view, when the road suddenly merged into another, and they came in full view of a neat whitewashed cottage, over whose windows roses twined in luxuriant wreaths; to the right lay a garden, to the left, an orchard, and beyond the cottage a beautiful meadow sloped down to the bank of the Passaic; on the opposite side of the river was a dense forest, and beyond, the brow of a mountain of considerable elevation, rose high over the tops of the lofty trees, and now glowed in the rich hues of sunset. The scene was one of the most beautiful they had passed, but instead of gazing on it with her wonted delight, Mary (we trust the reader has already recognized her) seemed to regard it with a feeling of bewilderment. She pressed her hand to her forehead, as if endeavoring to recall almost forgotten impressions, and then again surveying the scene, her doubts seemed to dissipate. Pointing over her shoulder, as the deaf and dumb are wont to do when they would refer to the past, she referred George to the time when she was a child, before she had been picked up in a strawberry field, and then pointing to the cottage in view, she intimated that there her infancy had passed, there the kind lady had wept over her, and there she had seen her laid cold and pale in a coffin. It is impossible to describe the feelings of George at this discovery; the mysterious circumstances in which Mary had been found had taken a strong hold on his imagination, and he had often a kind of vague expectation that they would one day be explained. Checking his horse, he resolved to apply at this cottage for accommodation for the night. A girl appeared at the door, and introduced them into the parlor, where sat a venerable old lady in an easy chair. At their entrance she rose to receive them, and Mary and herself seemed mutually struck with surprise. George keenly remarked this circumstance, and after apologizing for their intrusion, and preferring his request for a lodging for the night, which was courteously granted, he endeavored to ascertain if Mary and their hostess recollected each other. Mary’s recollections of the old lady were evidently very dim, but she thought she had often seen her, and been kindly treated by her. The old lady looked in considerable surprise at the evidently intelligible communications between the strangers, in a manner which she could not understand. George observing her surprise explained to her that his wife was deaf and dumb. The old lady’s interest in her evidently increased, and she inquired her name. “I do not know her real name, Madam,” replied George, “she was found abandoned by her friends, and my mother gave her the name of Mary.” “Mary,” said the old lady, “is a very appropriate name, she is the very image of my daughter-in-law, who bore that name. She died many years ago, and left a girl, which, if it is alive, would be about the age of your lady.” “Is the child dead then?” asked George. “It was taken away, on its mother’s death, by an uncle,” replied the old lady, “and he informed me that it died soon after; but I have sometimes had doubts of it. The child was in the way of his possessing a considerable fortune, and he might have made way with it.” “Was the child deaf?” enquired George. “It was not by birth, but shortly before its mother’s death, it was overrun by a wagon, and I know not if it ever recovered its hearing.” George’s heart palpitated violently as he asked, “Did the child bear any visible marks of the accident?” “Yes,” replied she, “a large scar here,” as she spoke she placed a finger behind her right ear. Mary, who had been intently watching the speakers, saw the action, and removing her own glossy ringlets, she exhibited the scar deeply indented behind her own ear. The old lady tottered forward, examined the scar a moment, looked intently in Mary’s face, and then caught her in her arms. Enough, the orphan child of the unfortunate, Mary Melville, was recognized by her grandmother.

Our story now hastens towards a conclusion. George listened with astonishment to the narrative of the old lady, and the strong suspicions which rested on his uncle of having caused the child to be exposed in some remote place, concluding doubtless, that as the child could give no account of itself the truth would never be discovered. Leaving Mary at the white cottage he returned to ———, in order to take measures to ascertain the truth of that suspicion. An accident which we have not time to describe, threw in his way the wretch who had been the accomplice of the villainies of the once dissipated James Morris. Now at the extremity of his career, he was willing to make his peace with Heaven, by atoning, as far as possible, for at least one of the injuries he had done. He confessed that he had been employed by Morris to make way with his sister-in-law’s child, but chose rather to abandon it in a distant and solitary place. Armed with this testimony, George easily induced his uncle to avoid a public exposure by giving up the patrimony which he had so unjustly withheld from his niece. And thenceforward George and Mary lived chiefly at the white cottage, happy, and conferring happiness on all around them.

Emma

The following excerpt is from Burnet’s ten-page narrative poem, “Emma.” It tells of a young girl who becomes deaf due to illness. Initially confined to a gloomy life of isolation, Emma’s prospects brighten when, at age fourteen, she goes to a residential school for deaf students.

… An edifice I see,

A noble monument of charity,—

That near the new world’s great commercial mart,

In its unostentatious grandeur tow’rs apart.

I see an hundred of the deaf and dumb,—

Collected from full many a distant home,—

Within this noble pile,—whose walls—to them

Open’d another world,—a fairy realm;

A realm of a new language,—all their own,

Where mind was visible,—and knowledge shone,

As the bright all revealing daylight shines

To the poor native of Cracovia’s mines,*

When, first emerging from his regions dim,

The broad,—bright world above seems heaven to him.

And there is a fair girl, —whose eyes seem red,—

Nor yet the tears are dry so lately shed—

Sad had been Emma’s parting hour,—and when

She saw strange faces all around her,—then

Her heart shrunk back with desolating chill,

Nor, for a time, would its wild throb be still.

But round her kind hearts from kind faces beam’d,

And the soul’s sunshine on her spirit gleam’d,

That melted all her doubts and fears away,

As morning fogs fade in the blaze of day,

Soon her once cag’d and insulated mind

Rejoices in communion with its kind.

She now no longer feels herself alone,

Her knowledge but what could be glean’d by one.

But the mind’s commerce, here set free from thrall,—

Makes each one’s store become the wealth of all,

Here, from the speaking limbs, and face divine,

At nature’s bidding, thoughts and feelings shine,

That in thin air no more her sense elude,—

Each understands,—by each is understood.

Here can each feeling gush forth, unrepressed,

To mix with feelings of a kindred breast.

Here does her teacher’s skilful hand unroll

The curtain that hung round her darken’d soul,—

Revealing all the secret springs that move

The once mysterious scene, around, above,

Here, when the sense is pall’d,—she learns t’ enjoy

And revel in delights that never cloy,—

To spurn this clog of clay and wander free

Through distant ages,—o’er far land and sea.

Collecting, one by one, each precious gem

That decks of science the bright diadem.

Till her mind,—rev’ling in the stores of thought,—

Ceases, almost, to murmer at its lot!

Nay more—her teacher,—pointing to the skies,—

Unrolls the sacred volume to her eyes,—

The charter of her immortality,

That teaches how to live, and how to die;—

Bids virtue lean on him who died to save,—

And look from earthly woes beyond the grave!

Lo! in those walls a congregation met,

A hundred mutes in silent order set,—

A congregation met for praise or pray’r,

And yet no voice,—no song,—no sound is there.20

Yet not from the heart’s thoughts ascends alone

That pray’r or praise to heavenly mercy’s throne;

The teacher stands, to pray or teach, and all

The eyes around drink in the thoughts that fall,

Not from the breathing lips,—and tuneful tongue,—

But from the hand with graceful gesture flung.

The feelings that burn deep in his own breast

Ask not the aid of words to touch the rest;

But from his speaking limbs, and changing face,—

In all the thousand forms of motion’s grace,

Mind emanates, in corruscations, fraught

With all the thousand varied shades of thought.

Not in a cloak of words obscur’d, confined—

Here free conceptions flash from mind to mind,

Where’er they fall their own bright hues impart,—

And glow,—reflected back—from ev’ry heart!

* Edinburgh Encyclopedia [Burnet’s note].

* In the salt mines of Cracow in Poland, it is said, many persons have been born and passed all their lives without ever seeing the light of day. [Burnet’s note.]

1. With this example, Burnet suggests that much of deaf people’s “inferiority” is socially constructed, that is, more a product of the environment in which they live rather than any biological characteristic.

2. We can perhaps see such exaggeration in the language of nothingness, savagery, and heathenism used to describe uneducated deaf people throughout this volume. As a person who never formally attended school himself, Burnet was perhaps sensitive to such hyperbole, although he, too, occasionally gives in to such rhetorical flourishes.

3. The Abbé Charles-Michel de l’Epée (1712–1789) was a French priest who began teaching deaf people in Paris in the late eighteenth century. A strong proponent of sign language, he helped to popularize deaf education, published numerous treatises, and founded the National Institute for the Deaf, which Laurent Clerc later attended.

4. Since Burnet was hearing until age eight, he distinguishes himself from those who are “deaf and dumb.”

5. By writing particularly to mothers and sisters, Burnet reminds us that women usually had primary child-rearing responsibilities in the antebellum United States.

6. In producing these vivid descriptions of watching rapid signed conversations in confusion, Burnet doubtless drew upon his own experience of first encountering American Sign Language as an adult, at age twenty-one. His depiction contradicts the frequent claim during this period that sign language is universal (see p. 12, note 6).

7. Burnet contrasts a deaf child’s home signs with the beauty and eloquence of American Sign Language, which can only be truly learned by interacting with other ASL users.

8. These examples illustrate the fascinating ways sign languages can develop from the iconic and literal to more generalized, arbitrary symbol forms.

9. Many of these descriptions of signs will be familiar to modern ASL users.

10. Like Laurent Clerc, Burnet compares deaf Americans learning English to hearing people studying a foreign language. By stating “in order … very different from that in which the words of his own language are arranged,” Burnet implicitly acknowledges that sign language has a grammar and structure quite different from English.

11. Because he grew up hearing, Burnet no doubt was especially aware of the value speech could have. Although he supported sign language, he expressed cautious hope in oral education, as did several other deaf Americans during this period.

12. By addressing the various situations of partially deaf and latedeafened people, Burnet calls attention to the range of auditory status within the signing deaf community.

13. Burnet himself apparently experienced this type of speech deterioration.

14. Burnet is of course mistaken to present deaf, dumb, and blind people as almost hopeless cases, but perhaps can be pardoned since that situation was rather rare. When his volume appeared, Julia Brace (1807–1884), a deaf-blind woman, was impressing observers with her achievements at the American Asylum. Others, such as Laura Dewey Bridgman (1829–1889; see p. 96, n. 3) and Helen Keller (1880–1968), later achieved more fame.

15. More than any other author in this anthology, Burnet repeatedly tries to convey some sense of sign language and gesture in his writing. Here he illustrates the advice he has made in the preceding essay; George and Mary readily converse through a home sign that they apparently have developed on their own. However, Burnet stretches our belief since George’s signs for “girl,” “deaf,” and “marriage” resemble established ASL signs.

16. Such grief was not uncommon among new arrivals at the schools, who had to undergo the trauma of separating from their family for the first time, and often did not understand why.

17. Mary’s essay resembles many student essays from the period that appear in the schools’ annual reports. It is typical in its heartfelt, simple English, its narrative of coming to school, and the religious references at its conclusion.

18. The principal’s gesture, based on the scar behind Mary’s ear, is her name sign. Burnet might subtly be paying tribute here to Laurent Clerc, whose name sign—a brushing of the two forefinger tips on the right hand down the right cheek, near the mouth—also came from a scar, which he had received from a fall into a fireplace as an infant.

19. Again, we see writing acting as a bridge between deaf and hearing people.

20. Such chapel services often had a powerful impact on hearing visitors to the schools. Lydia (Huntley) Sigourney wrote in 1845: “It is touching, even to tears, to see the earnest attention of that group of silent beings, the soul, as it were, sitting on the eye, while they watch every movement and sign of [the minister’s] hand.” See Lydia H. Sigourney, Scenes in My Native Land (Boston: James Munroe and Co., 1845), 242.