PROPOSED DEAF AND DUMB INSTITUTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 297, 23 October 1879, Page 2

PROPOSED DEAF AND DUMB INSTITUTION.

[By Teleokaph.] Sir J. Vogel, on the 18th June, informed the Colonial Secretary that in accordance with instructions lie lias engaged the services of Mr Gerritt Van Asch, to proceed to New Zealand as teacher of deaf and dumb mutes, £2O being paid to Dr Abbott as honorarium for assisting in making the selection. Mr Asch to embark for New Zealand at the latter end of October. In an enclosure Sir Julius Yogel, Messrs Edwin A, Abbott, and Walter Kennaway, report at length to the Premier, under date June 10th, that seventeen applications for the appointment was read, twelve being persons who professed to teach on the combined system, three from persons who had no special knowledge of teaching of deaf mutes, and one from a professor of the German system, which teaches pupils to converse by means of articulate sound, and understand by lip reading, interpreting the movement of the lips of the speakers to the exclusion of all signs, except natural ones. The introduction of this system has been comparatively recent, Mr Yon Asch came over from Holland expressly to teach the system, but its general introduction is perhaps due to Mr St, John Ackers, who travelled with his wife all over the Empire, and part of America, in order to find the best system for teaching their child, a littlo girl who lost her hearing in infancy. They adopted the German syfcem taught by an American lady, and were so delighted with progress made that they threw themselves enthusiastically into the cause of promoting the system, establishing a college, with a number of influential coadjutors. Mr Asch had a private school on this system. The German plan discards the arbitrary signals as opposed to natural ones to express words, letters, or short sentences, by which deaf mutes are enabled to compensate themselves for loss of hearing and speech. They read and write with facility and read from the lips with astonishing rapidity, varying with their intellectual ability. It is applicable to all children not idiots. Others advocate systemised signals, as the French or dactyl system, and declare that the percentage of children capable of acquiring the German system is so small, and that only the French system is capable of imparting the requisite instruction, Tho professors of the combined system attempt to combine the teaching of articulation and lip reading with teaching of dactyology. The opinion of Messrs Yogel, Abbot, and Kennaway lies between the two extremes, They think the German system the motf beneficent in its result. Under the FreiSm--system there is danger that deaf rautsjT should shun the society of those whp/aro not deaf, and by congregating together increase the natural disadvantages of their affliction. They are, however, not quite confident that the German system is applicable to all children not idiots, some intelligences being too low to acquire that system, Children under tho German system think in words, while under the French or combined system they think in signs. They selected the only applicant under the German system. The general, salary paid to teachers under the system is about a hundred to a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds a year. With the exception of one gentleman none under the French system receive a salary of over two hundred pounds a year. The exception was a clergyman receiving five hundred. Assuming that the German »yjtem may not prove all (sufficient for

p**iuj£"," .',■ 7, ■ \ft\i* ii.c jf?T "r——.— New Zealand, n teacher of ilio Fiench system could lie secured fur a hundred $ and lifly pounds a year. Mr von Asch has a thorough knowledge of the German system, and the results of his teaching me astonishing in the extreme. He is accustomed to take entire charge of his pupils, including their board and lodging. He speaks English with perfect accuracy and entire freedom from foreign accent or idiom. By his means the German system will take full root in New Zealand, and .the French system, if hereafter required, /can be supcr-acldcd,