Gallaudet, Bell & The Sign Language Controversy

REVIEW ARTICLE: Richard Winefield, Never the Twain Shall Meet: Bell, Gallaudet &the Communications Debate. Gallaudet University Press. 1987. 129 pp. $19.50. GALLAUDET, BELL & THE SIGN LANGUAGE CONTROVERSY Barry A. Crouch In a recent essay,"The Revolution of the Deaf," in The New York Review of Books, Oliver Sacks, citing the Winefield book, states that Edward Miner Gallaudet and Alexander Graham Bell "were about as different as two human beings can be." This perception is, however, only partially true. To be sure, as Sacks notes, Gallaudet and Bell were "the sons of deaf mothers (but mothers with completely different attitudes to their own deafness), each passionately devoted to the deaf in his own way". 1 In their respective careers it was the two men's fathers who had the major impact, the mothers determining which form of language each would advocate and promote for the education of the deaf. Gallaudet and Bell were remarkably alike in their social sphere, each actively engaged in the Washington social scene and sharing many friends. The question can legitimately be asked, why did these men so alike in many respects have such dissimilar views about how deaf people in the United States and elsewhere should be perceived? Richard Winefield in Never the Twain Shall Meet attempts to answer this and other questions, questions that continue to arise about how and by what method deaf children should be educated and socialized. The two men were born a decade and an ocean apart; Gallaudet in Connecticut in 1837 and Bell in Scotland in 1847. In the United States during those years virtually all deaf children were educated in residential institutions with instruction in American Sign Language 1 Vol. XXXV, 9,p.25, n.6. @ 1989, Linstok Press, Inc. See note inside front cover ISSN 0302-1475 71 Crouch (manualism). In the same period some schools in Scotland emphasized the oral approach, concentrating on the teaching of speech and speechreading (oralism). This was not a new opposition; it had become an international debate in the eighteenth century.2 Underlying the divisive argument over method was the premise that language had much to do with the socialization of children and therefore determined what their status in society would eventually become. All these currents later emerged in the way that Gallaudet and Bell promoted their perceptions of what would benefit deaf children most. From Winefield's portrait two men emerge "who both served education of the deaf as great benefactors and as destructive forces." [In what sense was Gallaudet destructive?] Additionally, "their differing philosophies, specifically their expectations for the education and placement of deaf persons in the hearing world, are important factors in the nineteenth-century communications debate." Winefield finally, and almost reluctantly ,concludes that perhaps the feud that existed between these two giants, in their respective spheres, grew out of "their attitudes toward deviance and society" (p. 2). When their backgrounds are compared, there is some evidence for this thesis, but more needs to be developed. In and under what circumstances did Gallaudet and Bell become molded so as to hold their respective positions which they never relinquished? Edward Miner Gallaudet (EMG) needs a biographer. 3 Winefield, through his judicious use of primary sources, tantalizes the reader encountering a man who was the son of one of the founders of education for the deaf in the United States in 1817, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.4 Born after his father had left the principalship of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, EMG became the first president of what is 2 C.Garnett, The Exchange of Letters between Samuel Heinicke &Abb6 Charles Michel de I'Ep6e. Vantage. 1968. 3 But see D.de Lorenzo's article, "Edward Miner Gallaudet," inGEDPD 1,135-141. (The Gallaudet Encyclopedia of Deaf People & Deafness. 3vols. McGraw-Hill. 1987). 4 See J.Fernandes' articleThornas Hopkins Gallaudet, GEDEP I,439-444; and Ph.D. diss. U/Mich. 1980; also H.Lane, When the Mind Hears. Harper. 1985. SLS 62 Spring 1989 now Gallaudet University. 5 Environment was indeed important. Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, his mother, used only sign language to communicate. Born deaf, she apparently never attempted to use her voice. Winefield perceptively writes that she "undoubtedly helped shape...