him the best answer you can, although the explanation should neither be so full nor so explicit as you could wish. Something may happen at another time that may enable you to explain it more fully. However never turn the child away from you without an answer of some kind.

So soon as the child can write a little, employ him in every thing you possibly can, by sending him on every errand you may want executed. This will teach him to know the use of his education, and stimulate him to examine into, and inquire the meaning of more abstruse subjects than he otherwise would. The more employment you can give the child, by way of exercising his ideas, the better he will be pleased.

CHAP. III.

The Manner in which the Infant Deaf and Dumb are instructed in Religion and Geography.

Let me beg of parents not to neglect taking or sending the mute child to church every Sunday, and let him always take his Prayer-Book with him. As soon as he can read a little, he will be pleased to go at first, if only to show his book. Point out to the child the service, regularly as it is read, and teach him how to find his lessons, psalms, collects, &c. for the day, that he may be able to do it himself. As soon as he has learnt to do so, make him turn down the lessons, &c. every Sunday, for the person goes with him. with him. I would even advise

who

parents who are themselves presbyterians or dissenters, to send the child to the

church of England, because, as soon as he begins to understand what he reads grammatically, he will gain more information by reading the church-service, than can possibly be acquired at any other church or chapel, where he cannot read what is said. If there should be an organ in the church, let the child sit near it. He will be pleased, by feeling the vibration of the sounds, which will tend to enliven his mind. Indeed, you cannot exercise the child's feeling too much with music, if he should be fond of it. My brother is delighted with music beyond description.*

* The following is copied from the Bath and Cheltenham Gazette of the 14th January 1818, being part of a letter written by G. Chippendale, Esq. of Winwick, illustrative of the sense of feeling in my brother.

66

"Some years back, probably five or six, a young gen"tleman of the name of Arrowsmith, a member of the Royal Academy at Somerset-House, of what degree I "cannot remember, came down into this country, and "resided some months in Warrington, in the exercise of his

To lead a child to a proper idea of religion, direct his attention to astronomy, and

"profession as a miniature and portrait painter. He was

66

quite deaf, so as to be entirely dumb. He had been taught "to write, and wrote an elegant hand, in which he was "enabled to express his own ideas with facility; he was "also able to read and understand the ideas of others ex"pressed in writing. It will scarcely be credited, that a person thus circumstanced should be fond of music, but "this was the fact in the case of Mr. Arrowsmith.

66

He

was at a gentleman's glee club, of which I was presi"dent at that time, and as the glees were sung, he "would place himself near some articles of wooden furni"ture, or a partition, door, or window-shutter, and would "fix the extreme end of his finger nails, which he kept "rather long, upon the edge of the wood or some pro

66

jecting part of it, and there remain, until the piece un"der performance was finished, all the while expressing,

66

by the most significant gestures, the pleasure he expe"rienced from his perception of the musical sounds. He

66

was not so much pleased with a solo, as with a pretty “full clash of harmony; and if the music was not very

66

good, or, I should rather say, if it was not correctly "executed, he would shew no sensation of pleasure. But "the most extraordinary circumstance in this case is, that "he was most evidently delighted with those passages in

show the child the celestial globe, by which he will obtain a comprehensive view of the power of the Creator, and the wonderful works of creation. You will find it easy to explain to the child, that it is God, the Father in Heaven, to whom our prayers are

"which the composer displayed his science in modula66 ting his different keys. When such passages happened "to be executed with precision, he could scarcely repress "the emotions of pleasure he received within any bounds; "for the delight he evinced seemed to border on ecstacy.

"This was expressed most remarkably at our club "when the glee was sung, with which we often "conclude, it is by Stevens, and begins with the words, ""Ye spotted snakes,' &c. from Shakespeare's Mid"summer's Night Dream. In the 2d stanza,

on the "words, 'Weaving spiders come not here,' &c. there is

66

some modulation of the kind above alluded to; and here "Mr. Arrowsmith would be in raptures, such as would "not be exceeded by one who was in immediate possession of "the sense of hearing.

"These facts are very extraordinary ones; and that they are facts can be proved by the evidence of six or

eight gentlemen who were present, and by turns ob"served him accurately."