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HAND-WORK.

The art department comprises instruction in pencil and charcoal-drawing, sketching from life and nature, designing, painting in water colors, and clay-modelling; a lesson in one of these being given daily to all, even the youngest. The babies, however, have their work for some time at the black-board, charcoal and the pencil only being introduced after they have acquired considerable ease in holding the chalk, and a good free movement.

We consider the small hand-slate, as generally used in schools, the greatest enemy to good hand-work, and banish it from our premises.

Our Art room is in every sense a "study" room, the ability to represent the object presented by the teacher accurately and with dispatch being considered of more importance than the making of beautiful "pictures."

The results of these careful lessons are visible on the blackboards of every school-room. From the first baby sentence sent home, every "letter" is filled with illustrations, and Christmas cards, birth-day remembrances, and souvenirs for all occasions are the work of their own hands, made with little assistance, and by the older pupils usually without even a suggestion, proving to our satisfaction that careful work in the beginning pays in every department.

The Swedish system of sewing is taught, and this, with the regular lessons and sloyd, are given to all pupils above the kindergarten.

KINDERGARTEN.

We make the kindergarten system the basis underlying all the work of the School, having had from one to three trained kindergartners since the opening of the second year of school, and, believing that a happy occupation induces thought and furnishes the best possible incentive to speech, we give great prominence to every department of hand-work. Believing, also, that the ability to picture a thought and to write it in words adds to its accuracy, and tends directly to habits of more careful observation and reliable memory, the kindergarten is, therefore, associated at once with drawing and writing on the black-board. The little tot of three, being given several times every day short free-arm exercises on the black-board, learns to hold the chalk lightly and move the arm properly, and is prepared to take up both drawing and writing with ease and facility. When this ease of movement is once thoroughly acquired, what is to many a task becomes to him a pleasure, and the black-board is henceforth a never-ending source of instruction and amusement, giving him an avenue of almost perfect expression, and furnishing his teacher an opportunity of supplying the word for which he hungers.

The kindergarten department comprises the babies and least advanced pupils, who during school-hours occupy the gymnasium, a room 45 x 25. They work in small classes and are separated by black-board screens, which are easily moved and admit of freedom for the children.

The beginners have short lessons with the bright colors and pleasing forms of the kindergarten, which, with drawing, writing, Delsarte, and the preparatory articulation exercises, serve to promote habits of attention and self-control, and to develop the power of observation. At the same time, as they are always addressed by speech, they learn to recognize language in sentences, and, after a time, to speak oft-repeated easy words and to imitate the hand-work in the various departments, and these, with the necessary frequent rests and games, occupy the time.

The second class continue the exercises for the cultivation of the sense of sight and touch, but give more time to articulation and the acquisition of a vocabulary, using the kindergarten occupations as an incentive to speech, and writing and drawing freely in every lesson.

The third class give less time to the kindergarten occupations, take simple combinations of numbers with objects, draw and write on the black-board with rapidity and ease, learn to translate script into print, using primers and very easy books; the chief object of every lesson being the development of thought and a better and freer use of elementary language.

The older classes have regular lessons from text-books, such as are used in the public schools. The most advanced class comprises three pupils-eleven, twelve, and thirteen years of age, the last two congenitally deaf-who have been in school six and seven years. They have lessons in arithmetic, geography, history, physiology, and word-analysis. Their perfect understanding by speech-reading and their unusual ability to express their thoughts without hesitancy in either spoken or written language confirm the conviction that has been growing upon us for the past nine years, namely, that infant kindergarten schools are a necessity for the best development of the deaf.

SUMMARY.

1. Teach the deaf child in infancy the things a hearing child unconsciously learns during that period.