es (see above, p. 23). Certainly they do
not get their first signs through "any one's suggestion," they form them
for themselves, but, so far as I see, only through imitation and the
hereditary expressive movements. The signs are in great part themselves
unabridged imitations. The agreement, or "convention," which many
teachers of deaf-mutes assume, and which would introduce an entirely
causeless, not to say mysterious, principle, consists in this, that all
deaf-mutes in the beginning imitate the same thing in the same way.
Thus, through this perfectly natural accord of all, it comes to pass
that they understand one another. When they have gained ideas, then they
combine the separate signs in manifold ways, as one who speaks combines
words, in order to express new ideas; they become thereby more and more
difficult to be understood, and often are only with difficulty
understood even among themselves; and they are able only in very limited
degree to form concepts of a higher order. "Nothing, being dead,
space"--these are concepts of a very high order for them.

For this reason it is easy to comprehend that a deaf-mute child,
although he has learned but few words through instruction in
articulation, weaves these continually into his pantomimic
conversation in place of his former elaborate gestures. I observed
that individual children, born totally deaf, preferred, even in
conversation with one another, and when ignorant of the fact that I
was observing them, the articulate words just learned, although these
were scarcely intelligible, to their own signs.

Thus mighty is the charm of the spoken word, even when the child does
not himself hear it, but merely feels it with his tongue.

But the schooling the deaf-mute must go through in order to become
acquainted with the sensations of sight, touch, and movement that go
with the sound, is unspeakably toilsome.

W. Gude says in his treatise, remarkable alike for acuteness and
clearness, "Principles and Outlines of the Exposition of a Scheme of
Instruction for an Institution for Deaf-Mutes" ("Grundsaetze und
Grundzuege zur Aufstellung eines Lehrplans fuer eine Taubstummen-Anstalt,"
1881): "The utterances of tones and of articulate sounds called forth by
involuntary stimulus during the first years, in deaf-mutes, are such
unimportant motor phenomena that they are not immediately followed by a
motor sensation. But when the deaf-mute child is more awake mentally, he
perceives th