SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13598, 7 October 1914, Page 6

SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF.

PRAISE FOR ORAL SYSTEM

Mr J. E. Stevens, director of the School for the -Doaf at Sumner, has furnished a report to the Government in regard to his investigations in Groat Britain and on the Continent of Europe. The. result if his investigations goes •-to ■-show that New Zealand is proceeding on right lines. "Among the teachers I met," he writes, "the consensus of opinioji was overwhelmingly in favour of the oral system; whick is fast gaining ground in England, and is practically the only system in use on the Continent. Indeed, I scarcely met a teacher who theoretically, at-least, was not an oralist. In England I found silent classes taught mainly by the manual alphabet, and by writings. The percentage of pupils taught by silent methods varies much in different schools, and tends to get less and less, as the oral system gets more and-more firmly established. I carefully observed the work done m some of these silent classes, and found nothing to make me change my previous conviction, viz., that the oral system rightly apolied can do more tor deal children of poor mortal «*ndowinenx; than any silent system can do. ihe presence of Kile^t clauses and the use of the manual alphabet in oral schools for the deaf-appear to me to be objectionable in every respect, and should not bo tolerated."