Manualism

Manualism is a method of education of deaf students using sign language within the classroom. Manualism arose in the late 18th century with the advent of free public schools for the deaf in Europe. These teaching methods were brought over to the United States where the first school for the deaf was established in 1817. Today manualism methods are used in conjunction with oralism methods in the majority of American deaf schools.

The first manual schools were in Paris, France. Abbe de l’Épée, a Catholic priest, encountered two teenage deaf girls while visiting a family in the poor part of the city. He decided to take it upon himself to educate them. He invented a technique called "methodical signing" from the signs the girls already used, with the combination of methods influenced by the writings of Johann Konrad Ammann and Juan Pablo Bonet. He created a one-hand manual alphabet to be able to fingerspell French words. L’Épée opened a free national school for the deaf in his home, on 14 Moulins Street (now called Thérèse Street). After his death in 1789, Abbé Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard took over as head of the school; it was renamed Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris. The school received monetary support from individuals and grants from King Louis XVI.

Laurent Clerc, a graduate from the school and pupil of l’Épée and Sicard, returned to the school as a teacher. He was teaching there in 1816 when Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet visited. Gallaudet met nine-year-old Alice Cogswell who knew no form of communication system. He learned of Sicard's theories and started tutoring Alice. Gallaudet traveled to Europe in May 1815 and attended demonstrations in France led by Sicard, Clerc, and Massieu. He returned in March 1816 and persuaded Clerc to return with him to the United States.

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