it is because, in the utter absence of historical indications, we can only indulge in conjecture. M. Ramon de la Sagra, a distinguished Spanish philanthropist of our own times, supposes that it was the pantomime of the Roman stage that suggested to Ponce the method of instructing the deaf and dumb. Hernandez, another Spaniard, says that Ponce took the idea from the work of Beda.* It is evident that neither of these statements explains how the mind of Ponce was directed to this novel career. At most they but explain how some of the processes of instruction may have been suggested to him. As Ponce, if not the first teacher of deaf mutes, was certainly the first whose success was so decided as to attract public notice, to silence scepticism, and direct the attention of others to the instruction of the deaf and dumb, it is much to be regretted that the notices of his life and labors which have come down to us are so brief and unsatisfactory. The following sketch, the materials for which we have carefully collated from different independent sources, embraces, we believe, about all that is now known concerning the inventor of the art of teaching the deaf and dumb. Pedro Ponce de Leon was of a noble family,† and was born in the city of Valladolid, (near the borders of old Castile and Leon,) in the year 1520. All that is known of his personal character and history is, that he entered the order of the Benedictines, in the convent of Sahagun in Leon, but spent the greater part of his life in the convent of the same order at Oña, where he died in August 1584, and where his memory was long held in veneration, as a man of exemplary virtue, as well as of genius and industry. The fullest account of his labors, in behalf of the deaf and dumb, is that given by himself|| in an act of foundation for a chapel, executed in 1578, and long afterwards discovered among the archives of the convent of Oña. In this document, •See Guyot's Liste Lit. Phil., p. 123. Note. †Huvas y Panduro dedicates his work on the instruction of the deaf and dumb to His Excellency Don Joachim Laurent Ponce de Leon," a descendant of the family of Pedro Ponce.-See Carton's Journal, I, 270, and Guyot's List. Lit. p. 6. Note. This date is given on the authority of the Abbe Martin, director of the institution for the deaf and dumb at Besancon, France. Piroux's Journal, IV, 113. Carton's Journal, III, 46, 48. Ibid. relating how he acquired the wealth which he devoted to this foundation, namely, by saving from his personal expenses, from gifts of great men of whom he had been testamentary executor, and from pupils whom he had instructed, "with the industry which God has been pleased to give me in this holy house, through the merits of Saint John the Baptist, and of our father Saint Didace," he adds, "I have had pupils who were deaf and dumb from birth, children of great nobles and of distinction, whom I have taught to speak, to read, to write and to keep accounts, to repeat prayers, to serve the mass, to know the doctrines of the Christian religion and to confess themselves viva voce. To some I have taught the Latin, to others the Latin and Greek, and to understand Italian. There was one of them who received the orders of priesthood and possessed a benefice, and performed the duties of his office in reciting the breviary. This person and some others acquired natural philosophy and astrology. Another who was heir to a majorate and marquisate, and was to follow the career of arms, in addition to his other studies, as already expressed, was also instructed in all martial exercises, and was a very skilful equestrian. Moreover these deaf-mutes distinguished themselves by their acquaintance with the history of Spain and of foreign nations. They were even skilled in political science and in other branches of knowledge, of which Aristotle believed this class of persons incapable. This statement should probably be received with considerable allowance; but we have the testimony of at least three cotemporary writers to the labors and success of Ponce. Ambrose Moralez, a Spanish historian, in a work published in 1575, mentions Ponce as one of the most remarkable men of his age, of genius and diligence well nigh incredible. "By a most perfect art of his own invention," says Moralez, "Ponce has taught the dumb to speak." He declares himself a witness of the fact, and cites among the former pupils of Ponce, two brothers and a sister of the constable, (Velasco,) adding that he was then actually engaged in the education of a son of the chief Justice of Arragon, Don Gaspar de Garrea. Francis Valles, a celebrated Spanish physician and philosopher, mentions Ponce as his friend; and Castaniza, a Benedictine of the same convent with Ponce, adds his testimony to the labors of the latter.* We have but very vague indications as to the particular methods used by Ponce. As we have already noted, Ramon de la Sagra intimates that he employed pantomime, and Hernandez that he used a manual alphabet. We know not if these statements are founded on any historical evidence. Bonet, his immediate successor, we know, used both these instruments. But of the method of Ponce himself we possess no direct information beyond that given by Valles, who says that he first taught his pupils to write the names of objects which he pointed out to them, and then taught them to pronounce the words which they had written. Much to the same purpose is an extract from a letter of one of Ponce's pupils, Don Pedro de Velasco, (brother of the constable; he died at the age of about twenty,) which Moralez has preserved. This young man gives this account of the manner in which he was instructed.† "While I was a boy and ignorant, ut lapis, I began to write by copying what my teacher had written; and I wrote all the words of the Castilian tengue in a book prepared to that purpose. Hereupon I began, adjuvante Deo, to spell, and to utter some syllables and words with all my might, so that the saliva flowed from my mouth abundantly. Then I began to read history, and in ten years read the history of the whole world. Afterwards I learned Latin. And all this was through the great grace of God, without which no mute can exist." It is with reason estimated by Carton that Ponce must have practised the art at least twenty years to obtain such results with so many pupils. We are authorized then to conclude the labors of Ponce began about the year 1550 or 1555. It was long believed that Ponce left no account of his processes, or that if he left any, it had been lost. Within a few The citations from Valles and Castaniza may be seen at length in Carton's Journal, iii., 36-7, and 41-2. See also Newmann, pp. 60–61. Cited by Newmann, Die Taubstummen anstalt Zu Paris, etc., p. 61. years it has been stated,* on the authority of Ramon de la Sagra, that a manuscript of Ponce containing an account of his method of instruction had been found in the convent of Oña. This statement remains to be verified. Perhaps the discovered manuscript was merely the act of foundation which we have already cited. To Ponce succeeded Juan Pablo Bonet, the author of the earliest published treatise on the art. The Reduction of Letters and art of teaching the Dumb to speak which appeared at Madrid in 1620.† Bonet, as we learn from documents prefixed to his book, was a native of Arragon. In his title page he styles himself "varlet servant of his majesty, attached to the suit of the captain-general of the artillery, and secretary of the constable of Castile." He makes no mention of the previous labors of Ponce, but intimates that he himself was the inventor of his art. Urged, he says in his preface, by sentiments of zeal and affection to the family of the constable, to which he owed so many obligations, he undertook the instruction of the brother of that nobleman, who had become deaf at the age of two years, and whose mother, "the dutchess had spared no expense and taken infinite pains to seek remedies for his misfortune. "I began," says Bonet, "to make a special study of the case, contemplating, examining and turning the matter every way to seek means of supplying the deficiencies of one sense through the remaining senses." As the book of Bonet is very rare and the analysis given by Degerando is too brief and incomplete to give a correct idea of it, we have thought that a more extended analysis might gratify those who are curious to know the state of the art at that very early period of its history. The work of Bonet is divided into two books. The first entitled "Reduction of Letters," is devoted to a diffuse and some • Carton's Journal, ii., 128. Guyot's Liste Lit, 123, note. Piroux's Journal, i., 137-8. †Reduceion de las letras, y arte para ensenar a ablar los mudos, por Juan Pablo Bonet, etc., Madrid, 1620. According to Guyot, Bonet died about 1629. Liste Lit., p. 2. De l' Educatton des sourds-muets, Vol. I, p. 311, and on. what pedantic dissertation upon the letters of the alphabet, occupying more than a hundred pages, treating of the invention of the alphabet, (not forgetting the rival claims of the Hebrews, Egyptians and Phenicians, nor the two pillars on which the children of Seth engraved their inventions and discoveries ;) the sounds of each letter, their uses in abbreviations and in the notation of numbers, and in short all that could be said about letters by the most prolix grammarian; with a long array of citations from ancient grammarians and historians. An example or two may serve as a specimen of this part of the work. A whole chapter (the 11th,) is devoted to the consideration and explanation of a fanciful etymology of the word letter "Littera dicta quasi ligitera, eo quod quasi legentibus iter ad legendum ostendit; a lego et iter;" for which the authority of eight ancient grammarians is cited. And in treating of each letter, the writer seeks resemblances, often singularly far fetched between the form of the Roman letter and the positions of the vocal organs in its pronunciation. The only point in this first book which seems to us to have any special reference to the art of teaching the dumb to speak (there is evidently nothing in it that has any reference to the mode of teaching them the meaning of words,) is the proposal to teach children to read by learning the sounds of the letters instead of their names. By the Reduction of Letters, indeed seems to have been intended the reducing of be to b, hache to h, equix (so the Castilians name it,) to x, etc. In other words, the experience of Bonet in teaching deaf-mutes to articulate had suggested to him, (as the like experience did many years later to Heinicke,) the method of teaching children to read now called the phonic method, by teaching the sounds of the letters instead of their names.* Bonet, however, was not the first who proposed this method for children who hear, though he was probably ignorant, that as early as 1534, a German teacher, Valentine lekel See Mr. Mann's Report on the schools of Germany. See also Mr. Day's Report, p. 129. |