While I am writing this, seven little boys and nine little girls (how many does that make in all?) are busy writing on their slates. These children do not have any books to study. I tell them what I wish to teach them, and they write it down, and try to remember it. But I teach them without speaking a word. I talk to them with my fingers.
You have guessed already, I dare say, that these dear little children are deaf and mute; that is, they can neither hear nor speak. They cannot go to school and live at home, and see papa and mamma night and morning, as you can; for there are no schools for them near their homes. They have to go a long way from home, and stay in school many long weeks without seeing father or mother, brother or sister. So, when vacation comes, how glad and happy they are! Some of them are even now writing on their slates, "In sixteen weeks we shall go home."

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