When vacation time comes and the children come home for the summer, the home folks will probably have some trouble at first in understanding their imperfect speech. Do not be discouraged. The speech will steadily improve from year to year, and you will soon be able to comprehend it, even when it is very faulty. But do not accept from the child anything except the best speech he is capable of. When the boy first arrives you will, probably, not know just how much to expect of him. To begin with, it will do him no harm to ask him to repeat what he says, even if you really did understand him the first time. He will probably speak much more distinctly the second time than he did the first, and you will see that you can demand of him more than you at first thought he could do. He will not be discouraged by being asked to repeat. He is used to it. The price of good speech, like the price of liberty, is eternal vigilance. During the school period, teachers and parents should give unremitting attention to demanding of the children, _every time they speak_, the best enunciation of which they are at that time capable. If you do not understand the boy, or he does not understand you, do not let him resort to gestures, nor use them yourself. Give him pencil and paper, if necessary. It will not be necessary often or long, and each day occasions of difficulty will grow fewer. Provide some useful and helpful occupation for the child for at least a part of each day. Do not let him play at random all the time. Continue a certain regularity of life in the matter of meals and getting up and going to bed. Insist upon respectful behavior and good manners. He has these demanded of him at school. Do not let him return in the fall having lost much that he had gained during the preceding year. When he is at home keep him in touch with the activities and the topics of discussion in the family circle. Do not let him withdraw or feel shut out. This will take a good deal of effort and self-denial and patience, but in the long run it will repay the parents. Failure to do this will eventually bring sorrow to all concerned. Train the other children to do their share of this. Insist upon their telling the deaf one their plans and their doings. Unless some care is taken he will see the others going without knowing where or why, he will sometimes lose pleasures because he did not hear the talk that was going on around him and no one thought to tell him. This has a tendency to make him bitter and unsocial.