1900, see "Special Reports of the Census
Office. The Blind and the Deaf," 1906. This report was under the special
direction of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, who has long been interested in
the deaf. The returns of the census for 1910 are yet to be revised,
while at the same time additional data are to be secured to be published
as a special report like that of 1906. As yet the census office has for
1910 only the actual enumeration of the deaf and dumb in the various
states, and the returns with respect to other particulars regarding them
are yet to be completed. See _Volta Review_, xiii., 1911, p. 399. Hence
in our discussions we shall, except for the number by states, deal with
the census of 1900. For a review of this census, see _American Annals of
the Deaf_, Sept., 1906, to May, 1907 (li., lii.). In a number of states
certain county officers are required from time to time to enumerate the
deaf. For a census in one state, see Bulletin of Labor of Massachusetts,
July-Aug., 1907.

[4] Included in the census of 1900 were 491 deaf-blind persons (totally
deaf), and in that of 1910, 584.

[5] From statistics kindly furnished by the Census Bureau.

[6] This is just the opposite of the case with the blind.

[7] Special Reports, 1906, p. 79. Some 2,000 cases were thrown out for
indefinite replies, leaving 35,479, upon which our percentages are
based.

[8] A somewhat frequent classification of the deaf in respect to their
power to speak is to regard them roughly as falling into three great
divisions: 1. "Deaf-mutes," who come nearest to being deaf and dumb.
They have always been deaf, and have never had natural speech. What
speech they may possess has come from special instruction, with the
result that it is more or less artificial. 2. "Semi-mutes," who are
deaf, but who have once had hearing as well as speech; and this speech
they are able to use to a greater or less degree, though in time it is
likely to become more and more astray. 3. "Semi-deaf" persons, who are
only partly deaf, and possess a little hearing, though it is too slight
to be of real practical use; and who have voices most nearly approaching
the normal. They belong somewhere between the really deaf and the hard
of hearing.

[9] Special Reports, pp. 82, 240.

[10] _Ibid._, pp. 87, 240. For 8,966 no returns were made.

[11] On the subject of lip-reading, see especially E. B. Nitchie,
"Lip-Reading: its Principles and Practice", 1912.

[12] This "sign langu