Basic Odor Research Correlation

become senseless and incapable of reason." Aristotle's implication that the deaf could not possibly be taught to speak rendered them a tremendous disservice, since the next two thousand years of Christendom were to "live and die in Aristotle's works," and no educated man would waste his time and strength in essaying an acknowledged impossibility. The whole future of the deaf depended on the advance of knowledge. Mr. Hodgson begins with a clear and concise description of the anatomy and physiology of the ear, and of the methods for testing its function in health and disease. From the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, beginning with the work of Bartolomeo Eustachi and Gabriele Fallopio, the author traces the developments in medicine and physics which enabled both physicians and educators to help their deaf charges. American trends in the education of the deaf were influenced by two men, Thomas Gallaudet of Hartford, and Alexander Graham Bell, an English immigrant. Gallaudet, after working with l'Abbe Sicard in Paris, brought back with him the latter's manual method, as well as Laurent Clerc, Sicard's ablest pupil. Alexander Graham Bell stimulated interest in the oral method, using his father's system of "visible speech" to teach the deaf in his school at Boston. Education of deaf children continues to be their chief problem. Because the parents of deaf children cannot communicate with them through the wall of silence, the author proposes substitute homes for the children, where they can live in little family groups in the care of married couples living an ordinary life, but trained in deaf teaching. The smallness of such home units would make them economically practical because they would be free of the tremendous overhead expenses of big institutions. The child would, in this way, enter school with good social adjustment and emotional response. In addition, a great deal would be known about him, his age level in language, his lip-reading ability, general educational attainment, character, temperament, etc. The author concludes that the education of the deaf should be wholly the concern of the government. Such central responsibility alone can distribute the burden of the cost evenly over the whole community and give deaf children equal opportunities. Mr. Hodgson's work presents the historical and philosophical aspects of the education of the deaf, then outlines the various legislative and organizational programs which have developed through the centuries to improve the social and economic status of "the deaf." Although presented from a British point of view, the material is international in scope, and provides a valuable background for anyone who is involved with the deaf in any locality or in any capacity. JOHN A. KIRCHNER