Quakertown Online_"Mystic Oral School for the Deaf" by Clara H. McGuigan

Taken from: Marshall, Benjamin Tinkham. A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut, vol. 1. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1922. pp. 265-270.

MYSTIC ORAL SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF.

By Clara M. H. McGuigan, 1922

The Mystic Oral School for the Deaf, formerly known as the Whipple Home School, was founded in 1869 by Zerah Colburn Whipple. Zerah Whipple was descended on the Whipple line from Samuel Whipple and Elizabeth Eddy of Providence, Rhode Island, who removed to Connecticut prior to 1712. Samuel Whipple was an iron manufacturer and a successful business man. His mills were built on Saw Mill river, near Pocquetannock. No doubt from this line Zerah inherited his ingenuity and mechanical skill. When only a boy he made himself a very good violin, and later, as an aid to his work in teaching the deaf, he invented the Whipple's natural alphabet, an ingenious pictorial alphabet representing the positions of the lips, tongue, etc., in producing the elementary English sounds. He was also descended from the Wolcotts and Griswolds of Connecticut, families empowered with great intellectual and executive ability. His Bolles, Hempstead, Waterhouse and Rogers blood gave literary ability, musical and oratorical talent, and religious zeal. Two Scotch families, Grouch and Douglass, added strength to his fine English blood. Having the remarkable family inheritance that he did, it is no wonder that Zerah Colburn Whipple was endowed with the vision and ability of a genius. The inspiration for his work came from his grandfather, Jonathan Whipple, who had taught his own little son Enoch, deaf from birth, to talk and read the lips.

Jonathan Whipple was also endowed with all of the talents of his remarkable ancestors, but perhaps religious zeal was paramount. He was the first president of the Connecticut Peace Society, and the extent of his charities was boundless. He was a natural scholar himself, and gave his children a good common school education in the little red school house of his district, but he did so much for the poor and friendless that he hadn't the means left for the higher education of his children, so although all, including Enoch, had college minds, none had college advantages.

Enoch Whipple owned a farm and blacksmith shop adjoining his father's farm. He spoke and read the lips so well that he did business for years with an iron manufacturer in Norwich without anyone suspecting he was deaf. He married a cousin, a hearing woman of great literary ability. Their evenings were spent in reading the best books of literature, travel, etc., and their home with its extensive library was the gathering place for all the ambitious children in the neighborhood. They had the bound volumes of the "Century Magazine" from its first issue to the one at the time of their death, and their book-cases were filled with hundreds of fine books on every conceivable subject.

Zerah Whipple grew up in his grandfather's home. He imbibed his religious zeal and inherited his remarkable talents. He loved and admired his uncle Enoch and his cultured wife. He spent many evenings with them in their delightful home. As he grew to manhood, he began to wonder why other deaf people could not be taught to talk like his uncle Enoch, and his grandfather convinced him they could. He determined to make teaching the deaf and dumb to speak and read the lips his life work.

He advertised for pupils, and November 15, 1869, a young lad of twelve years from a wealthy Quaker family of Wilmington, Delaware, was brought to the Whipple home in Ledyard, Connecticut, for instruction. The old grandfather showed Zerah how to begin his work in bringing speech to the dumb lips of the boy, and Zerah quickly acquired skill in teaching and obtained gratifying results. Although this boy was twelve years old when his education began, he acquired good, intelligible speech, was a fine lip reader, and had a liberal education when he left school at the time of Zerah's death in 1879. His taste for good literature was formed. He regularly subscribed for the leading magazines, was familiar with Dickens and other good writers, and was able to take his place in the class of society in which he was born and look after his own and his mother's business interests.

Other pupils came from all over the United States, and the old gambrel-roofed farm house had to be enlarged to accommodate them. All of the family were pressed into service as teachers except the dear mother, who was "Mother Whipple" to them all. The results were remarkable, for Enoch, who lived next door, was their model. He it was the parents saw and talked with when they brought their children to the school, and speech like his or approaching it was what they paid for and expected. Most of the pupils came from distant States, but the fame of the school soon began to be talked about in Connecticut. Parents of deaf children who hadn't money visited the school and wrote letters begging Mr. Whipple to find a way to give speech to their children. There was no school in Connecticut but the sign school at Hartford where deaf children could be educated free. Then it was that Zerah Whipple applied to the legislature of Connecticut for State aid. This was granted July 24, 1872. From that time children from families in poor and moderate circumstances have had the privilege, if they so desired, of having their children educated by what is known as the Pure Oral Method.

By the Pure Oral Method is meant giving a deaf child speech and lip reading in an oral environment, so that he will unconsciously, by force of habit, use speech altogether in communicating with his fellow-men—in other words, restoring him to society. Now this can be done more or less perfectly according to the ability of the child, the ability of the teacher and the child's environment. If we want our child to acquire French and talk French naturally and fluently, we place it in a French school in France, where it has a French environment. Such a method of procedure is absolutely necessary in acquiring fluency in any language. It is the same with speech for the deaf. A deaf child in order to acquire speech and use it spontaneously must have a speech environment. No school that teaches signs and finger spelling can give its pupils a speech environment. The child easily masters signs and finger spelling, and as they are easier at first, it will use them instead of speech. So it is in the schools called Combined Schools, where they have what is called an Oral department, speech is relegated to the class rooms and seldom if ever used elsewhere. In such schools the children think in signs and translate into speech when they use it. In Zerah Whipple's school this was not true. The pupils thought in speech and used speech as their mother tongue. Speech soon became spontaneous and natural. Because of this difference between Oral and Sign and Combined Schools, the Mystic Oral School has continued its work and because of this difference it is still needed.

In a short time the Whipple School outgrew the farm house and its additions. The beautiful summer residence of a retired sea captain was purchased from his heirs, and in 1874 the pupils were transferred to their new home. There is where the school is still situated. It is in the town of Groton, about a mile from the village of Mystic. It is said the old sea captain selected this site for his home because it commanded the most wonderful view of land and sea to be found on the southern coast of Connecticut. It is on a high hill overlooking river, village, valley and sound. It has country, seashore, and almost mountain air combined. The Mansion, as it was called, seemed particularly well adapted to fill the requirements of the Whipple Home School, and it grew slowly in numbers and nourished until 1879, just ten years after its establishment, when its enthusiastic and gifted principal died.

His loss was in a way irreparable, but as the members of his family had always assisted in teaching, they were able to go on with the work. His brother-in-law, Frank Whipple, who had been his partner for a time, became its principal and did excellent work. He finally sold out his interests to an uncle and aunt, and though retained for a while as a teacher, eventually he left Connecticut and went to California to teach speech to the deaf in the State School at Berkeley.

For ten years longer the school was conducted with varied degrees of success according to the efficiency of the teachers employed. Advertising ceased with Zerah Whipple's death. The private pupils were gradually withdrawn and placed in other schools or taught by a private teacher at home until none but State pupils remained. As the school was not endowed and had to depend almost entirely upon the State appropriation for its maintenance, and as this was only $175 per capita per annum, it was impossible to secure experienced teachers and provide up-to-date equipment in the home.

In 1895, Hon. O. Vincent Coffin, then governor of Connecticut, visited the school and completely reorganized it. Its name was changed to the Mystic Oral School for the Deaf, and the per capita appropriation was raised to $200 per year. Dr. Clara M. Hammond McGuigan, daughter of the former principal and first cousin to Zerah Whipple, was asked to assume the responsibility of the school as its superintendent.

Dr. McGuigan was a graduate of the Connecticut Normal School at New Britain, of the Mystic Valley Institute at Mystic, and of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. She had taught in the public schools of Ledyard and Groton, and had been principal of the Ivoryton School in Essex. She had been resident physician for fifteen months in the City Hospital of Philadelphia, and had received special training in work with the deaf from both Zerah and Frank Whipple. She was the wife of a physician, and was not dependent upon the school for her support, consequently she could and did use the State money for the betterment of the school instead of taking an adequate salary.

Dr. McGuigan at once engaged Miss Ella Scott as principal, a teacher who had had eleven years experience teaching in the Clarke School at Northampton, Massachusetts, probably the best school for the deaf in the world.

Miss Scott came to Mystic full of courage and enthusiasm, with the determination to make the Mystic School as much like her model at Northampton as possible. She taught trained teachers to assist her, and did brave work. The school was soon incorporated, and in five years had doubled in numbers. More room was needed, so a large addition, subscribed to by friends of the school, was built and occupied. The work of reorganizing and building up the school had worn upon Miss Scott so that when she was offered a fine position as a private teacher of a little girl in Canada she resigned to accept it. Other efficient principals followed Miss Scott, but owing to lack of funds the work was arduous and discouraging, so no one held the position longer than five years. The principals under Dr. McGuigan's superintendency were as follows: Miss Ella Scott, 1895-1900; Miss Alice H. Damon, B.A., 1900-04; Miss Frances E. Gillespie, 1904-07; Misses Jane and Eleanor, associate principals, 1907-12; Mr. Tobias Brill, 1912-17; Dr. C. M. H. McGuigan, superintendent and principal, 1917-18; Mrs. Sara Small Temple, 1918-19; Miss Addie L. Landers, acting principal, 1919-20; Mr. Walter J. Tucker, 1920-21.

In 1895 the school numbered 18 pupils; in 1900 there were 36; in 1910 it numbered 54, and at the present time there are 82 pupils in school, and about 50 on the waiting list.

The per capita apportioned by the State of Connecticut for the support of the school has been as follows: 1872-95, $175; 1895-1901, $200; 1901-03, $225; 1903-07, $250; 1907-15, $275; 1915, $300; in each of the last four periods there was an allowance of $20 for clothing when necessary.

By 1909, the building with its addition was inadequate. It was unsafe to house so many deaf children in a frame building, so the State Legislature was appealed to and eventually $17,000 was appropriated for a fireproof dormitory. This was built and occupied in September, 1911. This was built for fifty or sixty children, and not for eighty, so another new building is now needed to relieve congestion and to form the first unit of a model school on the cottage plan.

Four States have sent their deaf wards to the Mystic School: Connecticut, 1872 to the present time; New Jersey, 1876-1882; New Hampshire, 1897-1902; Vermont, 1898-1912.

A member of the Board of Charities of Massachusetts visited the Mystic School and recommended sending its pupils to Mystic when it hadn't accommodations for them within its own borders, but as the room at Mystic was limited, no effort was made to secure Massachusetts pupils.

The course of study prescribed includes lip reading, speech, language, technical grammar, arithmetic, geography, United States, General and English history, physiology, American and English literature, and some algebra. In 1904 one pupil, having completed the course, graduated. In 1907 two pupils graduated. In 1910 there were two graduates; in 1913, two graduates; in 1918, three graduates; and in 1919, one graduate. Three of these pupils afterwards entered high school for the hearing.

In addition to the speech, lip reading and academic studies taught, each child is trained along one or more industrial lines. The various industries that have been taught in the school are as follows: For boys—Printing, farming, cabinet work, carpentry, chair caning, hammock netting, cobbling, tree pruning and spraying, waiting on table, assisting cook, cooking, etc. For girls—Gardening, basketry, pottery, embroidery, crocheting, knitting, sewing, dressmaking, housework, cooking, millinery and weaving.

Almost without exception, the pupils of this school have gone out into the world well equipped to earn their own living and to be a credit to their school, their families and their State.

Practically from the time of its organization the school has maintained a small normal class. Over fifty teachers have finished the course and rendered valuable service in bringing speech to deaf children in this and other States.

During all the years Dr. McGuigan superintended the school, she looked forward to the time when either some wealthy person would endow it or the State would purchase it so its work could go on unimpeded by private management and lack of funds. The endowment did not materialize, so in 1919 a bill for the purchase if the school by the State of Connecticut was passed by the legislative body, and the school would at once have become a State school had its board been assured it would be continued. This assurance was not given, so the deeds were not signed. Dr. McGuigan continued the work and waited for a more auspicious time.

Before the legislature of 1921 came into being, the new governor, Hon. Everett J. Lake, expressed himself as favorable to the continuance of the Mystic School, so relying upon the hope that he and the new legislative body would make proper provision for the future of the Mystic Oral School, the deeds were signed and the school passed over to the State. It is now a State School. It is the only Pure Oral School in the State. It represents the most advanced method known in the education of the deaf. Its situation for such a school is ideal, and with proper provisions for its future, new buildings and equipment, it can be made the equal of the best school for the deaf in the world.

Dr. McGuigan resigned as superintendent, and Mr. Walter J. Tucker was appointed to the place. He was an oral teacher of long standing. He had held the position as principal of the Wright Oral School of New York, and his wife was also an experienced oral teacher of the deaf. They seemed particularly fitted to go on with the work.

Though not the first oral school in America, it was one of the first. Hampered always by lack of funds, it has grown and has done good work. Its influence has been far-reaching and its pupils are its best advertisement.