The Deaf Mute Howls

11. STILL AN INFERIOR

~11~ STILL AN INFERIOR JUST A FEW words more about my life in Italy-three years that were fruitful in experiences and made interesting because of my study of other worthwhile subjects. Without intent to avoid meeting with deaf people, I met none during my entire sojourn in Italy. I neither missed nor craved their company for the simple reason that Italy is, par excellence, THE LAND OF GESTURES! My memories of my life while there will remain pleasant the rest of my days. I earnesdy recommend Italy to all the deaf as the country where they can feel completely at home, and live on equality with the hearing without knowing one word of spoken or written language. The Italian will preserve and use his peculiar but expressive sign language to make himself understood . On the day following my arrival in Rome, I became a member of the Circolo Artistico Internazionale, a club composed of about 400 painters, sculptors, singers, musicians, authors and members ofthe Nobility. It was most democratic. All it demands of its members is that they contribute something to advance Art, Music , Drama, Literature-in brief, the cultural arts. With the warm sympathy of the Latin race, these people were most cordial, and succeeded in making me very happy. I did not know one word of Italian, but that never bothered me. My new friends-delightful fellows-made gestures so simple and complete that I missed not the smallest shade of meaning in the complete stories with which they regaled me the first evening. Long afterwards, I repeated these stories in the same manner to my deaf 47 THE DEAF MUTE HOWLS friends, and they relished them as keenly as I did. My wish is that I could reproduce them, but as they were rendered in signs, it cannot be done. To obtain some clear idea ofwhat they were like, imagine yourselfin a theater watching the gestures ofthe inimitable Charlie Chaplin, who can tell entire stories without uttering one word. The French and Greeks make simple signs that vary slighdy from the Italians; but arejust as easy to learn. All gestures are, however , limited in scope, being intended to emphasize vocal expressions , and not as a language. The sign language, as used, is neither elegant nor artistic. It has never been cultivated or developed as a distinct means of expression, unless we except the few, isolated, dilettante cults like the De1sarte Schools of expression which give lessons in pantomime to actors and pantomimists. In the Combined System Schools for the Deaf, it is used by the teachers to explain the meaning of words to their pupils. The deaf people use it in a conversational style and each individual fits it to his taste without caring whether his gestures are graceful or ugly. He is satisfied with making himself understood with litde effort-a habit that retards progress toward beauty and poetry in the use of signs. Such is the status of the sign language today. Quite different from what it was in the days of the pioneers in the education of the deaf-mutesbefore the advent ofpure oralism. Now the number who can truly employ the sign language effectively can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Unless the art be taken up and cultivated, it runs the danger ofbecoming as extinct as the fabled dodo. On my return to America, I found myself once more among stiff-necked people whose few gestures are cold and meaningless. It reminded me again that I was indeed a deaf-mute-helpless and useless, an outcast in society. It would be still worse had I, like a large majority of deaf-mutes, been unable to write. Many times I longed to return to sunny Italy! Now when I wish to converse, I have to resort to the slow, cumbersome, process ofwriting-the only safe, sure medium ofthe deaf. Then there is always the chance that the third or fifth person I meet cannot read or write at all. This Neil Hamilton (left) learning to fingerspell his own name, with Albert Ballin's help. THE DEAF MUTE HOWLS is an angle that I shall discuss later. Now when I converse, I have to write my conversation, and the one with whom I am conversing has to be patient while I labor with pencil and paper. Then I in turn have to wait while he writes an answer. Again...