Oralism: a sign of the times? The contest for deaf communication in education provision in late nineteenth-century Scotland

Disability history is a diverse field. In focussing upon children within deaf education in late nineteenth-century Scotland, this essay reflects some of that diversity. In 1880, the International Congress on the Education of the Deaf in Milan stipulated that speech should have ‘preference’ over signs in the education of deaf children. The mode of achieving this, however, effectively banned sign language. Endeavours to teach deaf children to articulate were not new, but this decision placed pressures on deaf institutions to favour the oral system of deaf communication over other methods. In Scotland efforts were made to adopt oralism, and yet educators were faced with the reality that this was not good educational practice for most pupils. This article will consider responses of Scottish educators of deaf children from the 1870s until the beginning of the twentieth century

The Iwakura mission in Britain, 1872

In London, at the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (LSE), a symposium was held on 6 December 1997 - the anniversary of the day when the members of Iwakura's delegation were received by Queen Victoria. Comprising four lectures the symposium was attended by a packed audience of some 75 people including the Joint Chairman and many members of the Japan Society, several senior representatives of the Japanese Embassy, as well as staff and students. Each lecturer focused sharply on a particular aspect of the Mission's work in Britain that fell within his or her special field and each prompted numerous questions and much discussion. It is some measure of the great range of subjects that the Mission was attempting to cover that there was no real overlap between any of the four papers. They are now included in their entirety in this volume

The Iwakura mission in Britain, 1872

In London, at the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (LSE), a symposium was held on 6 December 1997 - the anniversary of the day when the members of Iwakura's delegation were received by Queen Victoria. Comprising four lectures the symposium was attended by a packed audience of some 75 people including the Joint Chairman and many members of the Japan Society, several senior representatives of the Japanese Embassy, as well as staff and students. Each lecturer focused sharply on a particular aspect of the Mission's work in Britain that fell within his or her special field and each prompted numerous questions and much discussion. It is some measure of the great range of subjects that the Mission was attempting to cover that there was no real overlap between any of the four papers. They are now included in their entirety in this volume