"dumb" (tump, tumb) becomes in old German a common word for young, giddy, thoughtless, till at last "dumb and wise" come to mean nothing more than "lads and grown men," as where in the tournament many a shock is heard of wise and of dumb, and the breaking of the lances sounds up towards the sky,
"Von wîsen und von tumben man hôrte manegen stôz,
Dâ der schefte brechen gein der hoehe dôz."[1]
Even Kant is to be found committing himself to the opinion, so amazing, one would think, to anybody who has ever been inside a deaf-and-dumb Institution, that a born mute can never attain to more than something analogous to reason (einem Analogon der Vernunft).[2]
The evidence of teachers of the deaf-and-dumb goes to prove, that in their untaught state, or at least with only such small teaching as they get from the signs of their relatives and friends, their thought is very limited, but still it is human thought, while when they have been regularly instructed and taught to read and write, their minds may be developed up to about the average cultivation of those who have had the power of speech from childhood. Even in a low state of education, the deaf-mute seems to conceive general ideas, for when he invents a sign for anything, he applies it to all other things of the same class, and he can also form abstract ideas in a certain way, or at least he knows that there is a quality in which snow and milk agree, and he can go on adding other white things, such as the moon and whitewash, to his list. He can form a proposition, for he can make us understand, and we can make him understand, that "this man is old, that man is young." Nor does he seem incapable of reasoning in something like a syllogism, even when he has no means of communication but the gesture-language, and certainly as soon as he has learnt to read that "All men are mortal, John is a man, therefore John is mortal," he will show by every means of illustration in his power, that he fully comprehends the argument.
There is detailed evidence on record as to the state of mind
