The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 38
From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper
From Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper.
Information on the Education of Mutes.
The Spanish monk Pedro de Conce, whose name appears in early history, 1570, was the first who undertook to educate the mute so as to make him useful to society. After him, in the seventeenth century, J. Pablo Bonet, a Spaniard, undertook to teach the mute the art of understanding written words, and explained their meaning by drawings and page 40 pictures. The mathematician Wallace began the education of mutes in England as early as 1680. In Holland, in the early part of the eighteenth century, Konrod Amman taught them by the motion of the lips, which he made them practice before a looking-glass. Soon after this period France established a school, through Abbe De l'Epper, to teach the mute by pantomime.
But now, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, R. S. Rhodes, of Chicago, has invented an instrument named the Audiphone, by which the deaf can hear, through the teeth, spoken words and musical sounds, and the mute that has unimpaired auditory nerve can hear his own voice.
This instrument, which has lately been exhibited in several institutions of this country, is destined to be a great boon to those afflicted with deafness.
Its success is established beyond peradventure. In fact it does more than is claimed by the inventor, as hundreds of testimonials coming from all parts of the world prove.
It not only makes the deaf hear, but by stimulating the natural organ of hearing it improves and strengthens its impaired condition. It is opening a new world for the deaf, and the name of R. S. Rhodes, in connection with the Audiphone, will pass into history and be spoken henceforth and forever along with those of Fulton and Franklin and Morse, and others.