Forging Deaf Education in Nineteenth-Century France: Biographical Sketches of Bébian, Sicard, Massieu, and Clerc

PREFACE

ix PREFACE The idea of translating the biographies contained in this volume came to me as I was researching another project, an integrated history of the French language since the Renaissance. The “integrated” aspect of that study takes into account the linguistic and cultural imperatives of the national idiom as they relate both to government and to the various other idioms spoken in France since the time of François I—that is to say, the country’s numerous regional languages, dialects, and patois. The French language itself, it is no secret, became the lingua franca of Europe in the eighteenth century, thanks to the prestige generated by the Court of Louis XIV and the vigorous measures of support undertaken by the French government. The Académie Française, its dictionary ,and the language and culture they represented were soon adopted as models across the Continent. Indeed, the notion of an elitist geographical construct attained paranational status in an era of nation building; called the “Republic of Letters,”its capital was said to lie in Paris,and its medium of cultural, diplomatic, and commercial exchange was understood to be the French language.The French Revolution brought with it a sobering realization,however.The survey conducted by the Abbé Grégoire for the National Education Committee in 1794 revealed that,whatever its status abroad, the French language remained a minority idiom within its own borders. Grégoire and his supporters sought to put French citizens on an equal footing in all domains, including language. Their response was to renew efforts to standardize the French language in the interest of national cohesion and to the detriment of competing idioms. Those policies remain largely in effect today. As I was reviewing the literature relative to the language context in France, I was surprised to find how little attention had been paid to Braille and LSF (Langue des Signes Française). Whereas Braille is not x Preface a language as such, it is a scripting medium adaptable to all languages. Its role in helping the blind to fulfill their potential in society is immeasurable , of course, especially today in the age of high technology and talking computers. It puzzled me that the invention of Louis Braille, a Frenchman worthy of entombment in the Pantheon, did not warrant a place in many of the studies I consulted.The neglect of LSF puzzled me further. LSF, like American Sign Language (ASL ), is an authentic language ; it has a storied history and, as I discovered along the way, a very close connection to ASL: Laurent Clerc, a deaf, nonspeaking teacher at the Paris Institute for the Deaf, was recruited by the Reverend Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet to assist him in founding the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons (now the American School for the Deaf). Clerc brought with him a vast store of pedagogical expertise and experience as well as a language—a sign language that would contribute significantly to the development of the American sign vernacular. Ultimately, these findings convinced me to add a chapter to the history I was writing, “Overcoming Impairments: Braille, LSF, ASL.” In order to complete it, I decided to travel to Paris so that I could view on-site documents archived in the library of the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris. There I was greeted warmly by Mme Michelle Balle-Stinckwich, the institute’s librarian, who directed me to volume after volume and willingly photocopied hundreds of pages for me.There, too, I discovered the two masterful bicentennial volumes devoted to the history of the institute and deaf education in France. As I accumulated information, it became obvious that more than an isolated linguistic phenomenon, LSF and languages like it are the products of particular cultures and particular identities worthy of the same considerations —scholarly, historical, societal—as any other culture, a point I repeat emphatically in the chapter “Overcoming Impairments.” I also encountered, alongside references to prominent deaf educators such as the Abbé de l’Épée (founder of the Paris Institute) and the Abbé Sicard (Épée’s successor), the story of Ferdinand Berthier and his efforts to promote deaf identity in the nineteenth century.His writings,especially Preface xi the biographies of Bébian, Sicard, Massieu, and Clerc here translated, provided a context and an account,often an eyewitness account,pertaining to the development...