ols for
the deaf it should not be till he is five or even six years of age.

But during these years the mother can gain much knowledge that will help
her by visiting as many schools for the deaf as possible. There are
about a hundred and fifty such schools in the United States and eight in
Canada. They vary in size, in character, and in methods of instruction
employed. There are public boarding schools, and public day schools,
free to the resident of the state, or city, in which they are located.
There are private boarding and day schools, maintained by charity, or by
the tuition fees. Some of each class are oral schools; that is, they
employ only speech methods of instruction, without any signs or finger
spelling. Others are called "Combined" schools; that is, they permit,
and in some exercises encourage, the use of finger spelling and gestural
signs, while they also give some instruction by the speech method. There
are sectarian and non-sectarian schools, both oral and combined.

A very considerable number of schools for the deaf in the United States
and Canada still use manual, or silent, methods of instruction, at least
in part. But the speech, or oral, method is steadily growing in
popularity, and gradually supplanting manual spelling and gestural
signs. The time will certainly come when the public will be too
intelligent to any longer tolerate the use between teacher and pupil, or
between any employee and the pupils, in a school for the deaf, any
system of manual communication.

_Every deaf child, no matter if born totally deaf and of a low order of
intelligence, can be given as much education by the exclusive use of the
speech method as it can by any manual, or silent, method or by a
combination of the speech and the silent method._ This is not the mere
expression of an opinion, but the statement of a fact; a fact firmly
established by actual results in state institutions where,
unfortunately, the law requires the admission of pupils too poorly
equipped intellectually to belong in a school with normally bright
children. In addition to acquiring all the education of which his mental
endowment makes him capable, he can be taught to speak and to understand
when spoken to. The degree of perfection attainable depends upon the
ability of the child, the skill of the teaching, and especially upon
_the environment_ in which the child passes its formative educational
years. The probability of the child's acquiring a maxi