“Then tell them to talk, and talk, and talk, to their little deaf ones—­to say everything and say it naturally.  And tell them some things in particular that should be said—­commands, etc., and certainly ‘I love you.’  Tell them to speak in whole sentences.  Give them an idea of the possibilities of lip-reading.

     “Tell them that by the expression of the face they may convey to
     the deaf child the interest, approval, disapproval, etc., that they
     would express to a hearing child in the tone of voice.

“Tell them that there is rarely an untrained person who can
safely meddle with articulation.

“Tell them that it is not true that all deaf children are bad; that
the deaf must learn obedience as others do.

“Tell them the many things which you wish your pupils had learned
before they entered school.

“Only this I beg of you—­tell them! 
“Lucile M. Moore.”

For the sake of presenting the ideas contained in this little book in a somewhat systematic manner it was best to arrange them on the supposition that they would come to the notice of the mothers while their children were yet less than two years of age.  In many cases, however, this will not be the case.  When, therefore, the child is three, four, or five years old when this falls into the hands of the mother, it would still be well if she carried out the suggestions in the order in which they are here arranged.  With the maturity of mind and body that comes with the added years, the child can pass through the earlier stages of the training much more rapidly than can be the case with the baby.  Nevertheless, the preliminary steps should not be omitted.  A child of four can be carried in six months through the exercises that occupied two years when begun with the child of twelve months, but the older child should not be started with exercises suggested for the years after two.

Mothers of deaf children cannot be expected to be trained teachers of the deaf.  It would be useless, and, in fact, often unfortunate, to ask them to attempt to teach articulation to their children.  Even for them to teach the children to write would usually be undesirable because the greatest gain from the mother’s efforts comes from the early establishment of the speech-reading habit and entire dependence upon it.  It is a very great help to have this habit fixed before writing is taught.  There is no haste about the child’s learning to write.  That is easily and quickly accomplished when the proper time comes.  The difficult thing to do is, very fortunately, the thing the mother is best fitted to accomplish, namely, to create in the child the ability to interpret speech by means of the eye, and the habit of expecting to get ideas by watching the face of a speaker.