long as the intellect and powers of speech in this early age remain in their deep roots, we are accustomed to draw them to the knowledge of ourselves by certain gestures and external actions; for example, when we lift them up, put them to rest, show them anything, or smile upon them; by all these things we aim at this, that they in their turn should look at us, smile, reach out their hand to take what we give them. And so we learn naturally to understand first by gesture and then by speech, even as we do with the deaf and dumb.[1] I maintain that a child in its first and second year is able to understand what a wrinkled and what an unwrinkled forehead mean, what a threat indicated by the finger means, what a nod means, what a repeated nod means, etc., which in truth is the basis of rhetorical action.
6. About the third year children begin to understand and imitate actions, according to gestures, occasionally questioning, sometimes expressing admiration. On the doctrine of tropes, while they are endeavoring to understand the proper meaning of words, they cannot perceive much, yet they may learn them, if in their fifth and sixth years they hear any such from their equals in age or from their attendants. There is, however, no need of solicitude as to their understanding them, since they will have sufficient time afterwards for those higher and ornamental words. My only aim here is to show, although this is not generally attended to, that the roots of all sciences and arts, in every
- ↑ In Comenius’ day the deaf were taught by signs and gesture. To-day in all the better institutions in America and Europe, deaf children are taught to articulate and read the lips. The editor has conversed with many such children—notably in the Horace Mann School in Boston and the National Institutions at Leipzig and Paris—whose voices were so natural and whose lip-reading so accurate as to have easily mistaken them for hearing children.
