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

Abbé Sicard

Abbé Sicard Celebrated Deaf Educator, Immediate Successor of the Abbé de l’Épée A SUMMARY OF HIS LIFE, HIS WORK, AND HIS SUCCESS Followed by brief biographical sketches of his most remarkable deaf students JEAN MASSIEU AND LAURENT CLERC By Ferdinand Berthier Nonhearing and Nonspeaking, Honorary Dean of the National Deaf Institute of Paris, A Vice-president of the Central Society of Education and Assistance for the Deaf of France, President and Founder of the Universal Society of the Deaf, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, Member of the Historical Studies Society (formerly the Historical Institute), and of the Literary Study PARIS 1873 31 A WORD OF EXPLANATION To My Deaf Brothers, and to the Many People, Present and Future, Who See to Their Welfare On November 26, 1854, a family reunion brought us together on the occasion of the 142nd anniversary of the birth of the Abbé de l’Épée.* One of the most diligent guests, Monsieur Léon Vaïsse, who has since been named director of the National Deaf Institute of Paris, where he served as a teacher for many years, expressed the heartfelt wish that I, the humble biographer of the immortal founder of deaf education, a specialty unfamiliar to too many people, undertake the project of recounting the life of his immediate successor,the Abbé Sicard.Monsieur Vaïsse believed that because the excitement created by the Abbé Sicard’s public demonstrations had abated, it was time for one of his former students to confirm his stature among those who have contributed in so many ways to the revival of this very special branch of the human family. He added that both he and the entire deaf community awaited impatiently the publication of a volume on the Abbé Sicard. Such a flattering and encouraging tribute moved me to adopt strategies to hasten the completion of the task. It is with great pleasure that I can now present the fruit of my labor as a complement and an appendage to my biography of the Abbé de l’Épée. Because of the little time at my disposal, I have limited myself to sketching the principal events of the life of my hero, leaving extensive commentary on his pedagogical works to my mentor and the former assistant director of the National Deaf Institute, Auguste Bébian, and to Monsieur Joseph-Marie de * Accounts of the banquets may be found in Relation des banquets des sourds-muets, réunis pour fêter les anniversaires de la naissance de l’abbé de l’Épée, de 1834 à 1863, 2 vols. (Paris: Hachette). 32 Forging Deaf Education Gérando, a member of the Institut de France and former director of the establishment. Moreover, in the course of my writing, I have made every effort to temper the honor and beauty of my mission with the objectivity that brings to light from time to time those occasional indiscretions of character that beset the noblest of souls. Furthermore, I have not neglected to include in my portrayal, in order to underscore their significance, brief sketches of the Abbé Sicard’s two remarkable students, Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc. Dear friends, I shall feel myself fully compensated if you have the goodness to reserve for this latest family album a spot on your bookshelves next to the volume I view as—and please excuse me for saying so—my humble claim to glory, that is to say, the volume devoted to our first apostle, the Abbé de l’Épée. It would double my joy, as a disciple of both the Abbé de l’Épée and the Abbé Sicard, for their venerable names to be brought together in this way and thus further venerated by all those who admire them.  chapter one  Roche-Ambroise-Cucurron Sicard,born September 20,1742,in the little town of Le Fousseret in Languedoc, completed his studies in Toulouse, where he was ordained. His many unusual talents soon attracted the attention of the beneficent archbishop of Bordeaux, Monseigneur Champion de Cicé.The archbishop did not hesitate to place him at the head of a new school he had created for the deaf people of the parish in 1782 and which he had modeled after the Abbé de l’Épée’s rue des Moulins school, founded in Paris in 1760 and subsequently established as the National Deaf Institute...