Paris as It Was and as It Is: A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The RevolutionBlagdon, Francis William
History
Paris as It Was and as It Is: A Sketch Of The French Capital, Illustrative Of The Effects Of The Revolution
Blagdon, Francis William
Paris (France) -- Description and travel
An establishment at once deserving of the attention of men of
feeling, particularly of those who, in cultivating literature, apply
themselves to the science of metaphysics and grammar; an
establishment extremely interesting to every one, the great
difficulties of which mankind had, repeatedly, in the course of ages,
endeavoured to encounter, and which had driven to despair all those
who had ventured to engage in the undertaking; an establishment, in a
word, which produces the happiest effects, and in a most wonderful
manner, is the
NATIONAL INSTITUTION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.
To the most religious of philanthropists is France indebted for this
sublime discovery, and the Abbé SICARD, a pupil of the inventor; the
Abbé de l'Epée, has carried it to such a degree of perfection, that
it scarcely appears possible to make any further progress in so
useful an undertaking. And, in fact, what can be wanting to a species
of instruction the object of which is to establish between the deaf
and dumb, and the man who hears and speaks, a communication like that
established between all men by the knowledge and practice of the same
idiom; when the deaf and dumb man, by the help of the education given
him, succeeds in decomposing into phrases the longest period; into
simple propositions, the most complex phrase; into words, each
proposition; into simple words, words the most complex: and when he
distinguishes perfectly words derived from primitives; figurative
words from proper ones; and when, after having thus decomposed the
longest discourse, he recomposes it; when, in short, the deaf and
dumb man expresses all his ideas, all his thoughts, and all his
affections; when he answers, like men the best-informed, all
questions put to him, respecting what he knows through the nature of
his intelligence, and respecting what he has learned, either from
himself or from him who has enlightened his understanding? What wish
remains to be formed, when the deaf and dumb man is enabled to learn
by himself a foreign language, when he translates it, and writes it,
as well as those of whom it is the mother-tongue?
Such is the phenomenon which the Institution of the deaf and dumb
presents to the astonishment of Europe, under the direction, or
rather under the regeneration of the successor of the celebrated Abbé
de l'Epée. His pupils realize every thing that I have just mentioned.
They write English and Italian as well as they do French. Nothing
equals the justness and precision of their definitions.
Nor let it be imagined that they resemble birds repeating the tunes
they have learned. Never have they been taught the answer to a
question. Their answers are always the effect of their good logic,
and of the ideas of objects and of qualities of beings, acquired by a
mind which the Institutor has formed from the great art of
observation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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