History of institutions for deaf education
The establishment of schools and institutions specializing in deaf education has a history spanning back across multiple centuries.
[2][3] The historical reality is that he learned the already existing sign language from his early deaf pupils and converted it into a form he found preferable for use in educational methods.
Approximately, twenty-one additional schools were later opened in European and other countries, using educational methods inspired by Épée's original vision.
The school's rapid gain of public attention could be credited to Thomas Braidwood's brazen advertising of his methods and his institution.
[4] Other notable students included John Goodricke; astronomer, Francis Mackenzie; governor of Barbados, John Philip Wood; author, genealogist, editor, and Over Deputy of the Scottish Excise Office, Jane Poole, who set a precedent for having her Last Will and Testament approved by a jury to be valid and legally binding despite her execution of the will being dictated entirely by fingerspelling.
The school for deaf children established by Samuel Heinicke in Leipzig, Germany was originally called "Electoral Saxon Institute for Mutes and Other Persons Afflicted with Speech Defects.
"[15] Like Épée's school in France, Heinicke's institution was opened publicly to serve underprivileged deaf youth.
He ardently advocated the oral method of deaf education made popular throughout Europe by other prominent contributors to the field, such as Johann Konrad Amman.
Certain well-guarded aspects of this system utilized techniques that would remain unshared with the greater educational community until after his death.
His Last Will and Testament revealed one of his techniques to be a method of using the gustatory and olfactory senses to stimulate mental associations for speech development in deaf pupils.
His first son-in-law, Ernst Adolf Eschke, established a complementary site in Berlin, before assuming directorship of Leipzig after Heinicke's death.
However, Eschke turned away from the oralist methods of his father-in-law in preference of Épée and Sicards manual sign language philosophies.
[17] The legacy in deaf education was further carried on by two more of Heinicke's son-in-laws, August Friedrich Petschke and Carl Gottlob Reich, respectively.
It was he who employed Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, his neighbor at the time, to pursue knowledge of deaf education in Europe.
Gaulladet initially traveled to England wherein he attempted to gain insight on oral methods from an unwilling Thomas Braidwood.
He then traveled to France where he became acquainted with a system derived from French Sign Language made popular by abbés Épée and Sicard.
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and the school that would become his namesake, abandoned the original pursuit to bring oralism back to America at the time.
The preference for a sign language based modality had been adapted by the school's founders and began to root in Deaf communities across the country.
He established a Jewish support organization for the deaf composed of wealthy community benefactors to help fund the continued efforts of the school.
The support of this organization known as, "Jedide Ilmim" or "Friends of the Deaf", made possible, not only the continued security of Reich's institute, but also the opportunity for its expansion.
The school was considered to have offered curricula and upholding of educational standards in a manner that was competitively on par with other institutions of its time.
In likeness to his father's ideals, Felix asserted that, "the development of the mind and spirit, and not simply the acquisition of language, was considered the greatest goal."
The oppressive forces of Adolf Hitler's Nazi ideology made continuing the school's normal functions impossible.
