577 control should be maintained until a later age than is at present considered necessary by legislators. To give only two of these: it must be insisted that the deaf child is entitled, and justly, to as much advanced education and to as advanced teachers as possible. We have not yet arrived at the time when every precaution is taken to diminish, by negative and positive eugenics, the number of the congenitally deaf, nor have we reached perfection in the prevention of acquired deafness in

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... ren. When so ideal a state of affairs has been accomplished we shall not have so many deaf to educate, but until then we have this great problem of the deaf child to face, and it must be faced squarely and the very best done for them that can be devised -for their sake, for the sake of the State, and for the sake of humanity. Secondly, under the shorter period, the scholar is removed from the teacher's influence just at the time when that influence is most felt, most required, and most likely to make a lasting impression. The first two years of instruction, from three to five years, should be passed in a preparatory class, where the child's capacity, his mentality, and his chance as an oral success or failure could be ascertained by experienced teachers. Teachers of the highest experience and capacity are most needed for this part of his training. Much precious time could be saved by this arrangement, and each child could be drafted at the age of five years into an elementary deaf school in a better state of fitness for his curriculum. It will be remembered that in the first of these articles 1 postulated certain conditions that I considered to be needful for the ultimate improvement of deaf education. The first of these is that discussed in the present paper, the third and fourth may be reasonably noticed now. The need of greater care of the deaf child whilst at school, by care committees and similar means, whereby it can be assured that his attendance at school is regular, his meals are adequate, that he is not neglected or exploited by his parents, and that he is removed from the influence of bad companions and bad home surroundings, is a consideration which hardly requires discussion. Parts of it have already been touched upon, and all I need add is that legislation is urgently needed to ensure greater control over the deaf child, and more people are wanted to take an interest in him. There seems a curious ack of sympathy with the deaf, especially when it is compared with the quantity lavished upon that much happier class of the physically defective-the blind. It seems so difficult to make people understand the position of the deaf child, that he is neither imbecile nor mentally deficient, but simply a normal child deprived of that sense which might be, of all his senses, of the greatest educational value to him. It does not take long to discover from contact with deaf children what a charming and loveable class they are, and I would appeal to the charitable to take up their cause with more vigour than has yet been the case. The fourth need postulated was the encouragement of the deaf child to mix with hearing people. This would be greatly helped by an extension of the later educational course. The last two or three years, from 15 or 16 to 18, would be occupied in an advanced school where special training would be given in some trade or occupation and where moral training suitable to the more advanced age of the pupil would be made a feature. Possibly it might even be better if the advanced school life should be, as at present, from 14 to 16, scholars from 16 to 18 passing to a college for the deaf, where they could obtain a course of training which should be a modification of the ordinary university life.13 This could, however, be settled when the extension of the educational age had been secured by legislation. This system, or a modification of this system, is already in vogue in some parts of the United States, where it appears to have been eminently successful. I feel sure that by some such arrangement as is here advocated the very deaf child would leave his educational courses better equipped intellectually, usefully, and morally 13 If education commenced at three, instead of at seven, a further modification of what is here advocated would be possible, for, as will be seen in the third article, the effect upon speech and language teaching would be such that the scholars would be much more advanced than they are at the present time. There are, moreover, reasons for believing that a university course in an ordinary hearing college would be more acceptable and more advantageous than the foundation of a deaf university. The Gallaudet University in the United States is a great success, but the alternative would be better calculated to encourage the mixing of the deaf and the hearing. than can possibly be the case under present methods. The aim of all education is to fit the child, in the best possible manner, for self-reliant, self-supporting citizenship, and if this is so for the scholar who is fully equipped as regards his senses, it holds good equally for the normal deaf child. I believe that the whole secret of deaf education is to give to the young deaf child that physiological training that his defect has denied to him and whereby he is, at seven years, like a normal child of two in mentality, and to keep him longer at school in order to give him as advanced an education as is possible to equip him for his career in the world in order to remove, or at least to obviate, the handicap which nature has imposed upon him. In conclusion, I wish to touch upon a matter which is of a very delicate nature, alluded to in the concluding words of the fourth postulate in the first article, I I a more careful supervision of religious missions to the deaf." Nothing is farther from my mind than to make any charge of neglect, or to write anything that can reflect in the least degree upon or wound the feelings of any person or persons connected with any particular mission, all of which are conducted by high-minded, disinterested, and, in many cases, selfsacrificing men, actuated solely by the unselfish wish of benefiting the deaf community and ameliorating the conditions under which they live. But these worthy people are too apt to lose sight of other and important considerations in their ardour for their religion. The question is a delicate one and requires careful and tactful handling. The free signing which goes on amongst the deaf-mutes who attend these missions cannot be controlled and those in authority are powerless to prevent it. If any teachers of the deaf read these articles they will fully understand to what I allude, and may, possibly, be prevailed upon to give their own experiences of this matter. The remedy lies, of course, in the better education of the deaf, and the universal encouragement of the oral system among the deaf and the discouragement by missioners of its abandonment after leaving school. Until then, however, I would earnestly advocate that it should be the future care of these missions to regulate their meetings with a view to greater restraint. They should hold different sittings for different sexes (especially when lantern lectures are given), and, an item of equal importance, they should hold different meetings for the old and for the young.