Preface

P R E F A C E The organization of this special issue has been a labor of love, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be involved. The American School for the Deaf (ASD), where the Annals was begun, has a special place in my heart. I grew up a few miles from the school, and my first job there was as a 14-year-old summer farmworker, at a time when many residential schools raised much of their own food. It was there that I first learned some rudimentary signs. Later, as a college student, I worked at ASD as a part-time dorm supervisor on weekends when I was home from college. Over the years, I also worked there as a teacher, football coach, researcher, and first director of Camp Isola Bella. Living on campus and interacting with friends and neighbors like Al Hoffmeister, Loy Galloday, and Dick Lane added immeasurably to my understanding of the cultural and educational implications of deafness. When I began work on the first edition of the textbook, Educating the Deaf: Psychology, Principles, and Practices, I was given free access to all of the ASD resources, with permission to copy anything of interest, and I was able to find a treasure of material. I developed a deep respect for those pioneers in the education of deaf people, for their knowledge, for their efforts to establish our field as a profession , and for the foresight they displayed in establishing the American Annals of the Deaf, the first such journal in the English language and the first educational journal in the United States, at a time when there were only 10 schools for deaf students in the United States, all east of the Mississippi River. Their legacy lives on, and we owe a debt to them. As most readers are aware, the journal was established as the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb. Early journal usage also referred to "deaf-mutes." These terms were accepted by both deaf and hearing people in the middle of the 19th century, and refer to the fact that most deaf people did not speak and received little or no speech training . Wherever possible in the articles that appear in this sesquicentennial issue, we retain the original terminology, with the hope that it does not offend the sensibilities of the modern reader. The issue has been raised that the term deaf is itself an adjective and should not be used as a noun, as in American Annals of the Deaf. In this case, we retain the current usage, with the understanding that it may change in the future. Also, in the interest of preserving the authenticity of the early articles and documents presented here, we have retained their original grammar, punctuation, and spelling, even when such usage may seem quaint or erroneous to the modern reader. We have taken much the same approach with the more contemporary articles. For these articles , silent corrections in spelling and punctuation were made only where they seemed necessary for greater clarity . Cuts and ellipses are clearly placed and were made in such a way as to avoid altering the content, intent, and tone of the original document. Finally, if known, each author's affiliation at the time of writing is given at the beginning of each article. After an introductory section, the articles are presented in chronological order. There are two articles from the first decade (1847-1857). The first of these, by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, is important because it addresses the importance of sign in the education of deaf children and adults. The second, by Harvey Peet, is much more theoretical and treats the age-old language/thought debate. The juxtaposition of these two quite disparate papers represents the range of interests and knowledge of our early educators. Thereafter , there is one article per decade until the last 10 years. The discerning reader may note that the Annals has 142, not 150, volumes. This is the result of an 8-year hiatus in publication during and after the Civil War. Several resources were available to provide a context for the selection of articles and to provide insight into different perspectives...