The professor having responded by certain lively gesticulations which appeared to convey a decided negative, the teacher wrote upon the slate, "What did Eckhard do?" The answer, it will be observed, involves a good deal in the grammatical line; but most of the class were equal to it, and presently replied in writing, "He went and asked Mr. Cooke if he liked apple-pie." One little girl who had been corrected for leaving some of her verbs in the present, now put it, "He went and asked Mr. Cooked," etc., upon which that gentleman protested that he had never been in the past tense before. One more process finished the apple-pie affair. "What did Mr. Cooke say?" wrote the teacher. "He said he did not like apple-pie," replied most of the pupils; but one, with nice discrimination, observed, "He said he hated apple-pie."

Remarking the almost invariably correct orthography of these pupils, I was told that when deaf-mutes do misspell, it is in a fashion of their own. Children who hear, if they misspell, are wont to substitute something that sounds right, while deaf-mutes always choose something that looks right, writing l for b, perhaps, or q for g. This remarkable correctness in spelling, like every thing else the pupils acquire, costs the teacher infinite painstaking. The more I saw of the schools, the more I admired the patience, the ingenuity, the enthusiasm, manifested by those who instruct. Why not attach a deaf-mute department to our normal schools, on purpose to give our future teachers a "special course" in these "higher branches" of the profession?

There are about fifty pupils whose education is carried on according to the articulative method. Many of these are "semi-mutes." This term is applied to individuals who were not born deaf, and had learned to talk, possibly also to read, before the loss of hearing. Such, of course, have an immense advantage over the deaf-born in respect to mental development. Though the power of speech is very apt to be subsequently lost through disuse, proper exertions on the part of friends will generally secure its preservation; and the ability to understand others by watching their lips can be acquired so as to make oral conversation practicable. The articulative department includes also some pupils who are not totally deaf, as well as a few congenital mutes of uncommonly bright intellect.

The position of the New York institution in regard to the articulative method is clearly defined in its annual reports. While it gives to all the opportunity to learn articulation and lip-reading as useful auxiliaries to their intercourse with society, it does not make this mode of communication the basis of instruction, except in cases such as those already described. This plan, now known as the combined method, has been extensively adopted in Europe, and the hitherto conflicting systems have thus been harmonized.