SILENT WORLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 15 (Supplement)

SILENT WORLD

After twelve years of experiment the Royal School for the Deaf and Dumb at Margate has closed its farm, for its pupils prefer tiie employment of tlie workshops, where the}' learn tailoring, printing, carpentry, engineering, and the rest To town boys, to whom a breath ol country life is paradise, this decision must seem strange indeed. But where is there a place where voice and hearing are more essential to enjoyment and success than in the country, with its great open fields and meadows? To be denied the sound of the song oi birds, the sight of trees waving in breezes that we cannot hear, to be unable to address a horse in the words to which it answers, to he denied the. ability,to summon a dog by sound, or to call the cattle or direct the sheep by voice—all this* iiiakes 'country"" life as an occupation for the deaf and. dumb a painful deprivation of the commonplace privileges enjoyed by the' poorest among us. .. . , • Country scenes,- so lovely -and so melodious to those of us who hear, must be a desolation of silence to the deaf and dumb. The workshop gives companionship, and those who work there can communicate one with another. It is very sad. but the choice of the Margate boys seems natural and inevitable, and there is the experience of a dozen years to suggest that, tliey have chosen wisely. . . •