$5-$50 in Wisconsin, $100 in Kansas, and $50-$200 in
Washington. In Utah the offense is a misdemeanor.

[544] Kansas requires 5 months, Oklahoma, Oregon and Montana 6, and
Maryland, North Dakota and Wisconsin 8.

[545] The number in Montana is 8, and in California 5. The limits in
Wisconsin are 6 and 16, in North Carolina 7 and 17, in Indiana and
Maryland 8 and 16, in North Dakota 7 and 20, in Kansas and Oklahoma 7
and 21, in Michigan, Nebraska and Rhode Island 7 and 18, in Montana,
Ohio, Oregon and Utah 8 and 18, in Minnesota 8 and 20, and in Iowa 12
and 19. In Minnesota it is suggested that the law apply to those over 20
as well. Report of Board of Control, 1908, p. 356; Report of Minnesota
School, 1909, p. 23.

CHAPTER XIX

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS

THE USE OF SIGNS AS A MEANS OF COMMUNICATION

Deaf children cannot be educated as other children, and in the schools
there have to be employed special means of instruction. In the present
chapter it is our purpose to consider these methods only as they
represent, in a complete study of the provision of the state for the
education of the deaf, the means which have been found necessary to
employ to attain this end.

From the beginning of organized instruction of the deaf in America a
system of signs has been in use to a wide extent. At the time when the
methods of instruction of the deaf were introduced into the first
schools, the "sign language" was brought in as an essential part from
France, where it had largely been formulated. Modified somewhat and
considerably enlarged--and in conjunction with the manual alphabet, of
Spanish origin--the system has taken its place as a recognized means of
education and communication in the great number of the schools. The deaf
themselves after passing from the doors of the schools have employed
the sign language mainly in their intercourse with one another, and with
most of them meetings and social affairs are conducted virtually
entirely in this manner. Thus the sign language has for long been one of
the vehicles--usually the chief vehicle--of communication among the deaf
and their instructors.

With the sign language for practical use goes the manual alphabet, or
"finger-spelling," by which the several letters of the alphabet are
represented on the hand, the two together really constituting the
language.[546] The order of signs itself forms to an extent a universal
language. It consists of gestures, bodily