The first training colleges for teachers of the deaf

dward Rushton,' a Liverpool man who early in his life went to sea, was a typical product of the Enlightenment. He became interested in the rights of men through his own experiences of the English Slave Trade with its concomitant brutality and degradation. On one of his voyages an outbreak of contagious ophthalmia amongst the slaves spread to the crew and resulted in his losing the sight of his left eye. Severe damage to his right eye ensured that, shortly afterwards, he became totally blind. His subsequent experiences in maintaining himself, first as a publican and, later, as a writer caused him to become devoted to the furtherance of the interests of the blind persons of Liverpool. With the assistance of two blind companions, Rushton formed a small committee which began to solicit the necessary financial support and, by I790, ?6oo had been banked. In January 1791, the first school for the blind persons of England was opened in Liverpool as the School of Instruction for the Indigent Blind. Originally, there were no boarders because the two houses forming the school were not big enough, besides which the age range of those under tuition was 9 to 68 years. Not until I8oo00 was a purpose-built institution, the School of Industry for the Blind, ready to receive residential pupils for training in trades. From the very beginning of the project music was taught to a very limited number of children as a vocational subject by John Christie, a talented master, who was the first person to advocate the teaching of music to the blind.2 Apart from the Liverpool institution the last decade of the eighteenth century saw the foundation of three other schools for the blind at Bristol, Edinburgh and London. However, although the schools were provided there was no method or source of teacher training and neither, by the turn of the century, was there an embossed type without which the totally blind could never be taught to read and write. During the first half of the nineteenth century only four new blind institutions were founded, at Norwich in 1805, York in 1835, Newcastle 1838 and Manchester in I839. However, no consideration was given to the training of teachers for this exacting work. In 1821, Lady Elizabeth Lowther brought from Paris some books in Valentin Hauy's italic Roman letter embossed type for the education of 268

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• The Education of the Deaf

  A W G Ewing•British Journal of Educational…•1956

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