Before closing I ought to say that (more is the pity) there are many persons who live by trading upon the ignorance and credulity of the unfortunate.  The deaf and the friends of the deaf fall an easy prey to the advertisements of quack remedies, ear drums, etc., that are always useless and sometimes actually dangerous.  The American Medical Association has had the courage to issue a pamphlet in which these fake cures are described and exposed, and every deaf person, and parent of a deaf child, should have one of these pamphlets.  The title is “Deafness Cure Fakes,” and can be obtained by writing to the American Medical Association, 535 North Dearborn Street, Chicago, Illinois.

Any one who has read these pages will easily see that the suggestions are all aimed to secure for the deaf a treatment similar in kind, though somewhat different in degree, to that accorded the normal hearing person.  The tendency has been to differentiate the deaf too much from the hearing.  By adopting the procedure of pure oralism, effectively applied under real oral conditions, uncontaminated, during the educational period from five to twenty years of age, by finger spelling or signs, the deaf will be far more fully restored to a normal position in the social and industrial world than they can ever be by the silent methods at present so largely used during their most impressionable years.

XXVII

SOME NOTS

Do not be downcast.

Deafness does not, necessarily, bring dumbness.

Do not consider the deaf child as different from other children.

Do not cease talking to him.

Do not speak with exaggerated facial movements.

Do not exempt him from the duties and tasks and obedience properly demanded of all children.

Do not let him grow selfish.

Do not let him grow indifferent.

Do not be in haste.

Do not show impatience.