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INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
PHYSICAL EDUCATION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB. 
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY ALBERT GUTZMAN, INSTRUCTOR IN INSTITUTE 
FOR DEAF AND DUMB. BERLIN. PRUSSIA. 
THE question of the physical education of the deaf and dumb is not the 
same as with the education of persons in a normal condition. There are 
many defects found in deaf-and-dumb persons that are independent of 
leafness. These defects arise largely from the mode of life during their 
childhood. These children, if they belong to the poorer families, are seldom 
allowed an opportunity to become familiar with streets, fields, and forests. 
Sometimes they are locked up, day by day, while their parents go to work ; 
ind their natural powers, physical and mental, remain dormant. Im- 
proper food and inattention to their manner of eating are causes of phys- 
‘cal weakness and of many defects not common in children who hear. 
By comparing statistics relative to persons who were deaf from birth 
and those who subsequently became deaf, it is found that those of this 
atter class are most numerous. From the fact that the deaf-mute does 
aot use his organs of speech, the organs of breathing remain undeveloped, 
and a larger percent. of this class die between the ages of twenty and 
shirty than of persons in a normal condition as to hearing and speaking. 
The physical exercise of the deaf and dumb has first of all to adjust and 
repair tne defects of these pupils. The way to do this must differ from 
she training for hearing, healthy children. So the physical education of 
she deaf-mutes is first gymnastics, for curing and to develop the organs of 
sreathing. The purpose in view in their physical exercises is quite differ- 
ent from that in public schools in general. There is little or nothing done 
for the physical education of the deaf and dumb child before he is sent 
s0 school. 
The first condition of all development is movement. So the deaf-mute 
child must be trained to stand, walk, and run. Ie must be given much 
movement, not only at home, but in garden, field, and forest. In stand- 
ng and moving the breathing is quicker, and with it the strength is 
increased. F. Smith has calculated that if one gives the magnitude of 
oreath in lying as 1, it is in sitting, 1.33 ; in walking slowly, 1.9 : in walk- 
ing quickly, 4 ; in running, 7. 
Keeping the bodies of small children straight in sitting, standing, and 
walking isa very important exercise. The trailing of the feet, characteris- 
tic of deaf-mutes, is a sign of physical relaxation and want of physical 
agility ; and the causes of this are nearly always to be found in the first 
years of the child’s life. Here much could be improved even by suitable 
oducational influence. In rich families. the attentive and conscientious