The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
General
The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell : $b a gentleman, who, tho' deaf and dumb, writes down any stranger's name at first sight, with their future contingencies of fortune
Campbell, Duncan, 1680?-1730; Deaf people -- Great Britain -- Biography; Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Prophets -- Great Britain -- Biography
To begin: how are children at first taught a language that can hear? are
they not taught by sounds? and what are those sounds, but tokens and
signs to the ear, importing and signifying such and such a thing? If,
then, there can be signs made to the eye, agreed by the party teaching
the child, that they signify such and such a thing, will not the eye of
the child convey them to the mind, as well as the ear? They are indeed
different marks to different senses, but both the one and the other do
equally signify the same things or notions, according to the will of the
teacher, and consequently must have an equal effect with the person who
is to be instructed, for though the manners signifying are different,
the things signified are the same.
For example; if, after having invented an alphabet upon the fingers, a
master always keeps company with a deaf child, and teaches it to call
for whatsoever it wants by such motions of the fingers which, if put
down by letters, according to each invented motion of each finger, would
form in writing a word of a thing which it wanted; might not he by these
regular motions teach its eye the same notions of things, as sounds do
to the ears of children that hear? The manner of teaching the alphabet
by fingers, is plainly set down in the following table.
When the deaf child has learned by these motions a good stock of words,
as children that hear first learn by sounds, we may, methinks, call not
improperly, the fingers of such a dumb infant, its mouth, and the eye of
such a deaf child, its ear. When he has learnt thus far, he must be
taught to write the alphabet, according as it was adapted to the motions
of his fingers; as for instance, the five vowels, _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_,
_u_, by pointing to the top of the five fingers, and the other letters,
_b_, _c_, _d_, &c., by such other place or posture of a finger, as in
the above-mentioned table is set forth, or otherwise, it shall be agreed
upon. When this is done, the marks B, R, E, A, D, and so of all other
words, corresponding with such fingers, conveys through his eyes, unto
his head, the same notion, viz., the thing signified, as the sound we
give to those same letters, making the word 'bread,' do into our head,
through the ears.
This once done, he may be easily taught to understand the parts of
speech, as the verb, the noun, pronoun, &c., and so, by rules of grammar
and syntax, to compound ideas, and connect his words into a language.
The method of which, since it is plainly set forth in Doctor Wallis's
letter to Mr. Beverly, I shall set it down by way of extract; that
people in the same circumstances with the person we treat of, and of the
like genius, may not have their talents lost for want of the like
assistance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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