INTRODUCTION
The first edition of the Sign Manual having been exhausted and the demand for copies being continuous the only thing to do was to get out a second edition which is herewith presented with such changes and additions as experience has suggested.
Among these additions the most important is an appendix containing distinctively Catholic signs, with illustrations to accompany the descriptions.
The manual originally had its inception while the author was teaching signs to a class of hearing teachers. After the signs had been shown, a written description was furnished as a guide for reference. The success of the plan suggested that such a descriptive vocabulary would be a help to those who were anxious to learn the sign language and to others who felt the occasional need of some standard of reference to refresh their memory or add to the signs already known.
The work is not presented with the idea that persons unfamiliar with the deaf or their language can take it up and therefrom master the art of communicating in the language of pantomine and understand its peculiarities. But it is believed that those who have had some experience with the deaf and have opportunities to see the signs made will find it easy to follow the instructions given. As with all other languages, so with this language, ease and familiarity in its use and the mastery of its idiom come only by long practice and association with those to whom it is most familiar.
The Sign Language is not now used as a means in the education of the deaf to so great an extent as during the early years of the work. And in no school is it taught as was formerly the case. Its use in schools for the deaf at present is confined to chapel and religious exercises, in their social gatherings of pupils and on the playground.
As a result, pupils merely pick it up haphazard and often from those unfamiliar with it, and no attempt is made to see that it is learned and used correctly. Consequently this very useful and valuable language of pantomime has not been acquired by the rising generation in that purity and perfection attained by the deaf and their instructors during the early decades of its use in this country. It is believed, therefore,
