"Incredible as it may seem, it took only a small clique of hearing educators and businessmen, late in the last [19th] century, to release a tidal wave of oralism that swept over Western Europe, drowning all its signing communities. In America, the submersion of sign language was nearly as complete, for although the European wave reached our [America] shores attenuated, Alexander Graham Bell and his speech association had cleared the way for its progress from east to west.

"Now, one hundred years later, the waters seem to be receding ever so slightly. A few American states, Denmark, Sweden and France, allow the glimpse of a few tentative stirrings of life. Here the hands of an interpreter are seen to move, there a deaf actress signs, elsewhere a teacher signs to his class. Still, nowhere are signing communities granted the status of other language minorities, nowhere are the deaf allowed an important influence in the education of deaf children, nowhere are the deaf enabled to graduate from high school in substantial numbers, nowhere does national policy implement what national ideals demand: self-fulfilment for the deaf as for all other citizens.

"How were the signing communities of the West laid waste? By a conspiracy I will describe that pursued personal self-interest through a series of self-styled congresses".
 

Opening paragraphs from Chapter 12: The Incurable Deafness from the book When the Mind Hears, by Harlan Lane (1984).

It was a pre-planned conclusion. The outcome was basically "fixed", because the Congress was planned and organised by a committee set up by the Pereire Society in France – which does not have a status in government-sanctioned education - that was against sign language. This committee selected the attending “representatives” – more than half were known Oralist supporters from France and Italy.

What happened was that back in 1878, in the midst of the exposition of several different congresses in Paris, a very small group of French railroad businessmen, Isaac and Eugene Pereire, son and grandson of Epee's rival, Jacob, joined up with an exiled French hearing educator, Marius Magnat. He was running a small Oral school in Geneva, and they presented him with Jacob's dust-laden manuscripts showing his "secret" Oral methods.

Disillusioned by the supremacy of Signs and the Combined System (signs and speech) and wanting to tip the scales of the Sign and Oral methods more in his favour, Magnat was 'inspired' by the Paris congresses’ exposition. Together with two Oralist converted hearing educators, Adolphe Franck and Leon Vaïsse (the latter having been ousted as the Director of the Paris Institution for the Deaf because of his conversion), they hastily organised the first so-called "International" Congress of Teachers of Deaf-Mutes in Paris in the same year. This was an effort to swing round the supporters of the Combined System to oralism, but that backfired because the Combined System method was still favoured, although there was some increased support for oralism.

Hence the set-up of the organising committee by the newly formed Pereire Society, which included influential French and Italian Oralist advocates. The two schools for the deaf in Milan had recently converted from the Combined System to the Oral Method, so the city was an ideal venue for the Congress as the starting point for the Oralism "tidal wave".

The location chosen, the makeup of the organising committee, the Congress schedule and the demonstrations, the composition of the membership, the officers of the meeting – all elements were artfully orchestrated to produce the desired effect so as not to fail the second time around.

At this Congress, a declaration was made that the oral method was superior to that of sign. Eight resolutions banning sign language and voting in favour of the oral method, most particularly the two topmost resolutions, were passed with high majorities, giving those who opposed it absolutely no chance at all. The sign supporters tried to get their voices heard, but failed.

Summary of the Eight Resolutions –

• Resolution 1: instruction by the oral method in deaf education must be preferred.
Voted 160 to 4 in favour on 7/9/1880.

• Resolution 2: effectively sealing the fate of sign language in the education of the deaf.
Voted 150 to 16 in favour on 9/9/1880.

• Resolution 3: providing the education of poor deaf children and adults.
Unanimously voted in favour on 10/9/1880.

• Resolution 4: creating guidelines on how to instruct deaf pupils orally.
Carried on 11/9/1880.

• Resolution 5: the need for instructional books for deaf oral teachers.
Carried on 11/9/1880.

• Resolution 6: to ensure the long-term benefits of oral instruction.
Carried on 11/9/1880.

• Resolution 7: the optimal ages for oral education and length of instruction.
Carried on 11/9/1880.

• Resolution 8: phasing out of sign-language-using pupils and to create segregation of sign and oral pupils if necessary.
Carried on 11/9/1880.

Although other topics were supposed to be discussed, the Congress mainly focussed on the methods of education, and representatives talked about the method of instruction used in their schools – either speech or the combined system.

There have been reports and historical accounts of the way the Congress was run, and those who gave talks supporting sign and the combined system were ridiculed and jeered off the platform. Those who gave speeches supporting the Oral method were cheered, applauded and praised. They held demonstrations at the two deaf schools in Milan, where they showed a small number of “successful” orally educated deaf schoolchildren to the delegates. The schoolchildren were paraded up and asked questions orally, mainly by the Italian delegates, and they successfully responded orally, much to the delight of most of the observing delegates.

However, the sign-supporting observers, particularly the Gallaudet brothers, Rev. Thomas and Edward Miner, were unconvinced by this. Later it transpired that the “Orally successful” deaf pupils were carefully selected prior to the Congress, and were not deaf at birth. This meant that they already had natural speech when they lost their hearing, as well as having some hearing left. A good number of the Italian delegates who asked questions – the only ones who were allowed to – were actually Oralist teachers from both of the Milan schools.

Edward Miner Gallaudet wrote that he had observed that there were signing and non-speech-educated deaf pupils in the Milan schools, but they were hidden away.

Throughout the week, an Oralist phrase "Viva la parola!" – Italian for "The word lives!" was often used as a symbol of the superiority of the oral method.

This section has detailed summaries of the day-to-day proceedings, the eight resolutions in full text, the observers' accounts of the Milan school demonstrations, the congress venue pictures and some of the talk papers.

Click here to go to Milan 1880 Congress section.

When the Congress concluded on September 11th, there was a rousing encore citing the event an "enormous success", and the tidal wave of oralism had begun to create a dark and cruel legacy.

The event was also known as...

The Milan Treaty of 1880.
 

Next – The Legacy