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This system is, moreover, exceedingly deceitful. It deceives both instructor and pupil, by affording to the latter a mechanical guide to the construction of sentences, which he does not understand. It is, still further, even at the present day, practically imperfect. Not all the labours of Sicard, and they were Herculean, with those of De l'Epée to aid him in starting, nor all those of his numerous disciples, have yet brought the system to that perfection which its theory demands, or filled up its limitless vocabulary of signs.

M. Recoing, whose writings have been already quoted, and who is distinguished for his glowing zeal in the cause of the deaf and dumb, has taken the trouble to collect a list of distinguished names, behind which to intrench himself, in fulminating anathemas upon the system of methodical signs; and it is a fact in no small degree remarkable, that since the days of De L'Epée, excepting his great disciple Sicard, all Europe has produced no single individual of note, to advocate this mischievous system; while its opponents have been numerous, zealous, and able. Its latest champions in France, M. Jamet of Caen, and M. Dudesert of Conde, are only remarkable, the former of his singular inaccuracy of information, and the latter for a spirit of ultraism never dreamed of even by Sicard. He admits no signs which are not wholly arbitrary; rejects, of course, all natural signs which are not wholly arbitrary; rejects, of course, all natural signs, in the most decided and peremptory manner, and prohibits the use of such, in the mutual intercourse of the pupils themselves. The systems of Jamet and of Dudesert, are not indeed identical with that of Sicard. These gentlemen have some notions peculiar to themselves. They say, for example, that as we possess ideas, words, and also pronunciation; the deaf and dumb should have the same, or something equivalent. Their methodical signs stand therefore for pronunciation; they stand, unvaried, for the words they represent, whatever changes of meaning the latter may undergo; and they stand strictly for single words, and not indifferently for synonymous terms. By deviating then from the system of Sicard, these instructors do not seem to have become more philosophical in theory, or more felicitous in practice.

The radical evil lies here. In all its forms, the methodical sign system rests upon an erroneous theory. Its supporters claim that the deaf and dumb must always, of necessity, think by the instrumentality of their language of pantomime. This doctrine is absurd upon the face of it, and may be met and confuted by arguments of precisely a similar character to those, once successfully employed to combat the assertions of the early teachers of articulation. For be it remembered that these men denied even to pantomime, what more recent teachers have denied to written words, the power or fitness to serve as the instrument of thought: a prerogative which they claimed in behalf of the voice alone. But these doctrines have both alike been long since exploded, and are now quietly inured among the rubbish of the past.* Methodical signs, therefore, remain without a plausible excuse for their continued existence; and are probably destined to disappear with the next generation.

*The writer has observed with regret, in one of his own countrymen, a new advocate, at this late day, of the several absurdities exposed in the text. With still greater regret has he noticed the lack of courtesy on the part of the same gentleman, toward one, who had certainly intended him no disrespect; and who, in giving his own views to the public, through the pages of the North American, was totally unconscious that he was assailing any pet doctrines of Mr. Jacobs of Kentucky His views, for which he prefers no claim to originality, he conceives, are likely to stand: for even when Mr. Jacobs shall have succeeded in exterminating them here, and he seems to flatter himself that time is not far distant, he will find all Europe on his hands after all, as, indeed, he may be early apprised, on the appearance of the fourth circular from Paris, now due, but delayed by the press of the matter. The man, who seems to make a merit of reading no French, should speak in these matters with less confidence; for the French and the German instructors think profoundly before they write; and they read, if Mr. Jacobs does not, the productions of their brethren, though in foreign tongues.

Some instructors, in whose methods this artificial system has held a prominent place, have expressed a conviction, unaccompanied by argument, that signs of this description cannot be entirely abandoned. Methodical signs have been abandoned already. In fact they never had an existence, until about half a century ago, and two entire centuries after the time of Ponce. They have no existence, now, in those schools which have never received the method of De 1'Epée. They never, of course, had an existence in the numerous articulating schools, which have overspread Great Britain and the continent of Europe, even to the heart of France itself: yet, without their aid, multitudes of pupils have even learned to talk. They have no existence at the present time, except as matter of memory, in those institutions, which have once employed, and subsequently abandoned them; among which may be mentioned that with which the writer is connected, and the Royal Institution of Paris.