deaf, sight is asked to do this additional service. A blind person's
education is received principally through the _two_ senses of hearing
and touch. Neither of these faculties is so sensible to fatigue by
excessive use as is the sense of sight, and yet the eye has, in every
system of instruction applied to the deaf, been the sole medium. In no
case known to the writer, excepting in the celebrated case of Laura
Bridgman and a few others laboring under the double affliction of
deafness and blindness, has the sense of touch been employed as a means
of instruction.[1]

[Footnote 1: This article was written before Professor Bell had made his
interesting experiments with his "parents' class" of a touch alphabet,
to be used upon the pupil's shoulder in connection with the oral
teaching.--E.A.F.]

Not taking into account the large percentage of myopes among the deaf,
we believe there are other cogent reasons why, if found practicable, the
use of the sense of touch may become an important element in our
eclectic system of teaching. We should reckon it of considerable
importance if it were ascertained that a portion of the same work now
performed by the eye could be accomplished equally as well through
feeling, thereby relieving the eye of some of its onerous duties.

We see no good reason why such accomplishment may not be wrought. If,
perchance, it were discovered that a certain portion could be performed
in a more efficient manner, its value would thus be further enhanced.

In theory and practice, the teacher of language to the deaf, by whatever
method, endeavors to present to the eye of the child as many completed
sentences as are nominally addressed to the ear--having them "caught" by