Milan Schools Demonstrations

The two schools for the deaf in Milan held demonstrations showing their "oral success" schoolchildren, as part of the Congress' quest for votes on the Pure Oral Method, in the afternoons of Thursday 9th, Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th - the latter two being after the close of the Congress.

By all accounts, the majority of the delegates were hoodwinked by the elaborate demonstrations, when the pupils were paraded to answer questions being asked of them by the oral method.

Only the Italian teachers from the schools were allowed to conduct these examinations and to ask questions, not the Congress delegates. One request made by Richard Elliott for an Italian stranger to read out a passage for the children to lipread, and to recite what had been said, was wholly rejected.

Sometimes the children, even the semi-mutes, failed to understand a question. Then the teacher used elaborate mouth movements, and one observer said that these exercises were "very nearly a failure". The Italian delegates who were unknown to the pupils had great difficulty in making themselves understood.

Information about the pupils' histories, their degree of deafness, their speech and lipreading abilities and intelligence was noticeably absent. This information would have helped the delegates to assess each pupil, and it was believed that it had been deliberately withheld.

The following comments were from some of those who were unconvinced by these demonstrations, even including some Oralist supporters -

"There was evidence of long previous preparations of severe drilling and personal management to produce the most striking effect. There was an apparently studied absence of definite and all-important special information as each case came up for exhibition ... My neighbours, themselves Italian and articulation teachers, informed me that [the best pupils] were not congenitally deaf and had probably mastered speech before entering the institution."

"I found that many of the pupils, exhibited as illustrating what the Pure Oral Method could accomplish with deaf-mutes, had in fact learned to speak before losing their hearing."

"Everything had been carefully rehearsed beforehand ... [The pupils] did answer correctly - in fact, they answered too correctly, for there were apparently no mistakes made nor was there any deliberations before the answers were given ... Indeed, pupils even began answering questions before they were completed."

While the demonstrations were going on, James Denison, principal of the Columbian Institution of the Deaf, Washington, and himself a Deaf ASL user, observed the pupils awaiting their turn outside - they were signing. He said, "Two or three times, a group, noticing the intentness with which I was watching their conversation, abruptly suspended the sign-making part of it ... I inquired in sign whether they ever used gestures. The response was a blank mystified look on each face, then a general shaking of heads. But when I reminded them of what I had just observed, they pleaded guilty, with propitiatory smiles, to having partaken of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge."

The Theatre Performance on Thursday evening

Another demonstration was provided when children from the Royal Institution for the Deaf performed two dramas. The stage was lavishly draped, the scenery effective, the costumes perfect. The parts were recited orally, and between acts pupils from schools for the deaf and the blind performed musical interludes. Scripts were provided for the delegates, and one observer reported that he could follow the parts readily with the words before him.

Another demonstration involved some thirty graduates of the Milan school, men and women who had become workers, accountants, farmers, fathers and mothers. They were questioned by Tarra on their professions, events in their lives and plans for the future. One broke into tears in the midst of his discourse. Tarra comforted him and kissed him on both cheeks. The audience applauded, and Tarra explained that the person was overcome by the thought of an elder brother who was speechless because he had attended school before the Oralist reform.

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