INTERESTING VISITORS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 69, 14 December 1907, Page 5

INTERESTING VISITORS.

DEAF MUTES ON HOLIDAY.

Some, interesting visitors arrived in Wel- , tington yestorday in'tho shape- of a contingent of about twenty deaf and dumb children From' ,tho Sumner lnstituto, near Clmstchurch. ' They came up under the charge of their headmaster] Mr. J. E. Stevens, who is 1 .taking* them homo for their Christmas holi- ' days.. All tho children of tho school have to bo specially taken to their homes in this manner, arid, as they como from every corner of Now Zealand, their safo conduct by the teachers is no slight responsibility. . Another teachor will arrive to-morrow with about 'twenty-rhord children. Moat of Mr. Stevens' contingent livo in Wellington and tho neighbouring district. •■■■'/ Tho lnstituto for Deaf Mutes at Sumner, which.is controlled by the Education Department, is the onjy v school of its kind in Australasia. The system taught thorft is tho pure oral m'othod, of which lip reading is a part, and which enables the afflicted;pupil, after, a graduated course of study, to hold converse with nearly all his kind. There is • no other public school for the deaf and dumb hv'-Now Zealand, and in Australia they aro taught solely tho fihgor system, which makes their moans of communication an awkward,mechanism of signs, only intelligible to those who havo learned the finger alphabet. •'lt is claimed by the advocates of the pure oral: method, also, that thoir method, from its .earliest stagos, by awakening tho intelligence of the child and developing both his physical and mental faculties, acts in a way whifch is riot' possible with tho silent system. ■Lite can lie very happy, even to. deaf mutes, and to see tho Sumner children laugh - and run, play football, and indulge in all the other sports of youth with zest, makes one 'momentarily doubt if thoir affliction can be real. ~ .V.haunv Christmas to t'te doaf niutesl