Joseph Marius Magnat, a Swiss former oralist, received a significant donation to organize the more well-known Second Congress two years hence.
In 2010, a formal apology was made by the board at the 21st International Congress on Education of the Deaf in Vancouver, BC, Canada, acknowledging the detrimental effects of such a ban as an act of discrimination and violation of both human and constitutional rights.
Many of the resolutions were worded in ways that supported the oral method, such as "Considering the incontestable superiority of speech over signs in restoring the deaf-mute to society, and in giving him a more perfect knowledge of language,/Declares –/That the Oral method ought to be preferred that of signs for the education and instruction of the deaf and dumb".
[3] The Pereire Society was an organization formed by the French family of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira and financed by their railroad and bank holdings (including the Société Générale du Crédit Mobilier).
The conference was essentially an attempt by the oralist camp to legitimize an official ban of sign language from deaf education.
Furthering the goal of the oralists, during the conference twelve speakers spoke on the contemporary issues connected with deaf education.
Nine of the twelve speakers gave an oralist perspective, and three (the Gallaudet brothers, and Richard Elliot, a teacher from England) supported the use of sign language.
Considering the want of books sufficiently elementary to help the gradual and progressive development of language, recommends that the teachers of the Oral system should apply themselves to the publication of special works on the subject.
Considering the results obtained by the numerous inquiries made concerning the deaf and dumb of every age and every condition long after they had quit school, who, when interrogated upon various subjects, have answered correctly, with sufficient clearness of articulation, and read the lips of their questioners with the greatest facility, declares: 7.
Considering that the education of the deaf and dumb by speech has peculiar requirements; considering also that the experienced of teachers of deaf-mutes is almost unanimous, declares 8.
Considering that the application of the Pure Oral method in institutions where it is not yet in active operation, should be to avoid the certainty of failure prudent, gradual, progressive, recommends The American and British delegations were the only ones who opposed the use of oralism as a sole method of instruction, but were unsuccessful in their efforts to overturn the Milan resolutions.
Despite failing to have their positions ratified at the Congress, the Gallaudets ensured that deaf education in the US would not be completely converted to oralist methods.
It was recognized and accepted that resolutions concerning methodology were not appropriate at such international congresses because of the unlikelihood that the delegates fully represented the practices and philosophies of their home countries.
"[4][5][self-published source] Rather than seek to directly overturn the 1880 resolutions, the Congress put forward "recommendations" for informational purposes, including the following: "Recommended that this International Congress on Education of the Deaf, in convocation gathered at Hamburg, West Germany, in August 1980, affirms and declares that all deaf children have the right to flexible communication in the mode or combination of modes which best meets their individual needs.
[7] Thirty years later, in July 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, the board of the 21st International Congress on the Education of the Deaf (ICED) formally voted to reject all of the 1880 Milan resolutions.