Bide

OUTLINE OF PAPER WRITTEN ON BLACKBOARD

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Bide your time.
We will bide with you.

Bind

Bind up the boy's wound.

Those are the ties that bind.

Pine

There was a pine tree in the woods. Don't pine for what is past.

Pint

You ought to drink a pint of milk every day.

Bight

A bight is a body of water curving into the shore.

I have said enough, I hope, to show that without the training of the mind, which must learn to make use rapidly of the sentence pictures conveyed to it by the eyes, successful lip-reading is difficult.

To be sure, we cannot all possess in an equal degree the mental qualities that make the expert in lip-reading; but, as John Dutton Wright once stated, "The acquisition of the ability to interpret speech by the visible movements involved in it, with little or no aid from the ear, is surrounded with much the same difficulty as the acquisition of any other intellectual accomplishment. If a deaf person will put forth the same amount of effort and spend the same amount of time in the study and practise of the art of lip-reading that even an ordinary player on the piano must expend in order to acquire a very moderate degree of proficiency in musical expression and comprehension, he or she will reap a much greater reward of personal satisfaction and comfort than the pianist secures. I believe that, while there may be some persons who cannot even acquire moderate skill in music, there is no one who cannot acquire a most useful amount of skill in reading the lips."

The Mental Factor in Lip-Reading

I. Personal experiences.

a. The lack of lip-reading qualities.
b. Visit to the Board of Education.
c. The mental factor.

II. Experiences with pupils.

a. Lack of concentration.

b. Watching for the last word and listening. (Sentences that "end with words that deserve distinction.")

c. Men as lip-readers and "The Female of the Species."

III. We and the hearing.

a. The lack of thinking.

b. Developing the thinking habit.

c. Telling apart words that have several meanings and that have their homophenes.

d. What John Dutton Wright says.

HOW A DEAF BOY HAS DONE HIS BIT FOR HIS COUNTRY

BY MABEL A. RUSCH

Richard Spater, a deaf boy 14 years of age, who is a member of Boy Scouts of St. Paul, ventured on the sale of "Liberty Bonds" during the first campaign. He succeeded in selling ten bonds, for which he was awarded a Boy Scout medal.

His enthusiasm thus was kindled and he entered the second campaign with greater ambition. At closing it was discovered he was at the head of his troop in number of sales. He totaled 42 sales, amounting to $3,900.

His campaigning was done during his spare moments, outside of school hours. He is a freshman in high school. His seventh and eighth grade work was completed in classes with his hearing friends in the St. Paul public school.

His speech and speech-reading have been put to a thorough test and withstood it well, as with few exceptions the people to whom he sold were strangers to him.

He is at present earnestly planning for the third campaign, in which he hopes to surpass his second goal.

3. THE PATH OF WISE RESISTANCE T OUR last meeting we spoke of the two paths that we might follow;

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one we called the "Path of Least Resistance" and the other the "Path of Wise Resistance." Today I want to try to make clear to you just what I mean by the expression wise resistance.

It is a characteristic quality of human nature to judge of another by oneself every one does this; all of us, even you and I, do it a little sometimes; so we find among our hearing brothers and sisters the same quality, and they judge of what we should enjoy by the same standard that they set for themselves, quite for getful of the fact that our ability to enjoy certain kinds of entertainment is vastly different from their own. This difference is especially felt in all kinds of social intercourse and society. Social life is far harder for us to enter with any degree of real enjoyment than for our hearing brothers and sisters; but it is almost impossible to make clear to them the difficulties and trials that we encounter, for these difficulties are only really understood through experiencing them.

So we have to make up our minds to meet social demands from all about us, and we must learn that very many times it is best in every respect for our own welfare, as well as for the welfare of others, to kindly but firmly refuse to do that which others believe is best for us to do. This is what I call following the "Path of Wise Resistance." There can be no fixed law that may be written in regard to how and when and where to exercise "wise resistance," for much depends upon circumstances and conditions; in fact, so much depends upon circumstances and conditions in each individual case that it must always be re

duced to an individual and personal equation.

I am speaking only of the social relations and obligations, not of the moral ones. When it comes to a question of morals-I mean the vital things of life; those matters that have relation to the

spiritual and moral duties that we are called upon to perform-we must each be the judge in these matters; we must each weigh the matter wisely and strive not to be blinded in our final conclusion by the errors of self-deception. There is a general rule that can be given, and the general rule is this: Always, under all circumstances, be true to self. We have every right to do that which will truly give us, individually, the most satisfaction and enjoyment, for we are not called upon to sacrifice our strength and vitality to gratify the whim or desire of another, especially when we feel that the one for whom we are sacrificing cannot understand or appreciate in the least our real inner feelings.

Does this sound very selfish? It does, perhaps, when one looks at it only from the surface; but, looking more deeply, it seems to me that this position is in the end really the most unselfish in every sense of the word; for if we can regulate our lives and our manner of living, so that we can keep our nerves in absolute balance and control, are we not demonstrating to ourselves, as well as to others, that we are leading strong, independent, positive lives? It is when our nervous strength becomes exhausted that we give way to a host of evils, such as depression, impatience, irritability, suspicion, and a score of other undesirable feelings.

If we wish to keep the lid securely fastened on the chest that contains our own evil forces, we must keep our nerves strong, firm, and well controlled in order

to maintain at all times our balance and poise; else we can too easily lift the lid and, like Pandora, let the evil forces get beyond our control. In turn, this brings the regret that is always sure to follow such an unwise act.

So, I repeat again, the one rule that we can safely and wisely follow is that which expresses itself in being true to self; in not sacrificing our strength and nervous force to indulge the whim of some loving friend or relative who sincerely believes that he or she knows better what is best for us than we know ourselves.

It is in taking a firm, calm, positive stand in the matter of deciding for ourselves what we really choose to do that I have called the "Path of Wise Resistance."

We all enjoy our own friends; we all enjoy comrades and associates when we meet them in places and under conditions which we can truly enjoy. Persons are not all capable of enjoying the same thing, nor do all persons enjoy the same thing in the same way. For instance, some are

fond of an afternoon tea; some a reception; some a dance; some a luncheon party; some a quiet call of an afternoon or evening, with little likelihood of its being interrupted-all of these forms of social comradeship and many others that I need not mention we who are deaf can really enjoy to a more or less degree. But there are many other things that our hearing brothers and sisters enjoy that it is practically impossible for us to take part in without feeling, as a direct or indirect result, a fine, big, unwholesome attack of "the blues."

Personally, if we allow ourselves to do anything in the purely social line that we know will be followed by depression or any kind of an attack of "the blues," I think we are very, very foolish, and deserve full well the blueness or depression that we suffer; for I maintain that it is absolutely unnecessary for us to drag ourselves into conditions and into places where we are sure to become unhappy if we will just make up our mind that we need not do it.

Please remember that in speaking in this way I have only in mind the nonvital things of life, the thousand and one times when it makes very little difference to others whether or not we do the things they wish us to do, but that make all the difference in the world to ourselves whether or not we are obliged to do them. When it comes to the vital things, as I have already said, that is a very different matter, and we must at all times guard ourselves from indulging in selfishness when we know or feel that an act is unwisely selfish.

But my point is we have a perfect right to use good common sense, to look facts squarely in the face, to be absolutely honest with ourselves and others, and to make a positive choice as to what we will or will not do for our own pleasure and entertainment, instead of being led like sheep by those who take it into their own hands to tell us what is good for us!

So often I have heard it said by some deaf friend, "So and so asked me to go somewhere with her the other night to hear something. I went; I could not hear a single thing that was said. I came away so discouraged and depressed; it was awful!"

Sometimes, in a case like this, I am tempted to ask if "so and so" enjoyed my friend's company very much under such conditions. Of this I am sure, had “so and so" known how the deaf person really felt I don't believe he or she could have enjoyed any one's company at all under such circumstances!

I do not like to have people go with me to places that they cannot enjoy. Do you? I do not believe any one else does, and for that reason I think we are doing our friends a wrong when we deceive them by covering up our real feelings, pretending that we are enjoying a thing that we really are not enjoying and cannot enjoy.

That is the point I have tried to make clear to you today-the wisdom of following the "Path of Wise Resistance”; the wisdom of daring to be true to one's own self.

4. WHAT WE MAY LEARN THROUGH OUR DEAFNESS

The subject of my talk today is "What we may learn through our deafness." This is a subject that we may all consider thoughtfully; there are such an host of things that deafness may teach us if we are only intelligently awake and conscious of our opportunities! But to my mind the first and foremost of all is "patience," for it requires such absolute and infinite patience to bear the burden of deafness wisely.

There are two distinct kinds of patience necessary for us to exercise, for on the one hand we must be patient with ourselves and on the other hand we must be patient with "the other fellow." Perhaps the ability to be patient with self is a deeper and more subtle expression of spiritual victory than the ability to be patient with others.

We lip-readers have ample opportunity to practise and perhaps perfect this art, and, without doubt, the more nearly we perfect it the more easy it will become for us to master that other quality of patience, that of being patient with the other fellow.

We who face the limitations and temptations of deafness need to say over and over to ourselves very often the words: "He who overcometh himself is greater than he who taketh a vast kingdom."

Heroes are being made very fast these days, in the great world's war that now rages; there are very many cities being taken. We, too, are fighting our own spiritual battles, and when we overcome self we, too, are proving ourselves heroes; it is well for us to be conscious of this fact.

Patience, infinite patience, must be our watchword. Perhaps we who share this common limitation can best appreciate among ourselves the degree and quality of patience that each one of us exercises under varied conditions of our daily lives. We all know that every one here in this room exercises varied degrees of selfcontrol and patience a hundred times a

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day in a hundred different ways. Like every other art, and patience is truly one of the greatest of arts, we can, if we are sincere in our desire to do so, go on and on perfecting it till we become veritable angels!

Very, very often I am forced to believe that there are veritable angels incarnate among the deaf. Sometimes I half wonder how many deaf there may be among the angels. Then I cheer myself with the thought that we who are deaf must be angels in the making!

Another quality that deafness may help us to learn is "compassion." This perhaps stands second in the list of great lessons that we may learn, that of "patience" standing first.

The word compassion is derived from two Latin words: "com," meaning together, and "patri," meaning to suffer. Thus it literally means "suffering with another."

It is true that experience is the greatest of all teachers; those who have suffered are best able to appreciate what the sufferings of another really are. So that we who have experienced the "sufferings" that accompany deafness, and they are very real and deep, ought through our own experience to be able to sympathize with and appreciate the struggles of others who are suffering, no matter if the form of their suffering is very different from our own. This we can do, too, if we will but keep our hearts open; if we will guard ourselves against the hardness and bitterness that we are sometimes tempted to give way to, for our limitation will be sure to do either one of two things to every single soul that labors. under its weight. It will either embitter or sweeten. If it embitters, the soul who is bearing the burden will grow hard, cold, bitter, depressed, indifferent to others; and such an one will close his heart to the impulses and promptings of his own higher nature. Such an one will fail utterly to learn the great spiritual lesson embodied in compassion; such an one follows the path of selfishness that leads just where our lower nature always leads us if we are foolish enough to fol