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It has been claimed (in the press) that totally deaf people have gone for rides in airplanes, found themselves cured. This is a myth. The roar of the motor merely stimulates the eardrum so that a person can hear for a few moments after landing. Curious is the phenomenon by which those who hear are deafened and the deaf enabled to hear by an excessively loud noise. Often in moments of calamity—storms, shipwrecks, wars, railroad accidents, earthquakes—deaf men astound the world by hearing, acting upon orders to which others are deaf. Many deaf old ladies, on the other hand, can hear only those items that are whispered to them.
There are thousands of appliances for the deaf. Some of these are valuable and a real aid to the afflicted. Others are invented to barneyfugle rather than relieve, in the unfounded belief that the deaf are also dense and will clutch at any straw that has been made to look like an ear trumpet. For 15¢, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Chicago, will furnish any asker a large pamphlet exposing fake instruments, quack medicines. Reputable specialists never claim to cure, only to relieve.
Deafness, a severe handicap, may sometimes be an actual stimulant to success, as is proven by the many deaf people who have become famed. Ludwig von Beethoven, who turned deaf in later life, continued to compose, though it became impossible for him to conduct. Thomas A. Edison once stated that he considered deafness one of his greatest blessings. Added he: "Folks who have anything to say worth saying make it brief and to the point if they have to shout." Carolyn Wells, able author, declares that she, while practically stone deaf, can hear treble notes, feel the rhythm of music. This is another phenomenon not uncommon; many deaf people make excellent dancers, for they can feel the time though they cannot hear the tune. Famed are the feats of lipreading performed by Helen Keller. It is little known that she depends largely upon manual spelling, the sign of the deaf, in order to understand.
At Washington. D. C, is Gallaudet'" College, only college for the deaf in the U. S., where deaf men are taught trades. Many become chauffeurs. They make excellent drivers, asserted Dr. Percival Hall, President of Gallaudet. Many people who desire privacy prefer them to any other type and procure deaf . . . mutes whenever possible.—Ed.
Rival Traditions
TIME, New York. N. Y.
Ohio University Department of History Athens, Ohio Mar. 19, 1925
Gentlemen:
In your issue of Mar. 16, Page 1, you state: "Thomas Jefferson rode to the Capitol, tied his horse to a fence." I grieve that you give editorial sanction to this ancient fable. Jefferson walked. See Muzzy, The United States of America, Vol. 1, Page 204.
WILMER C. HARRIS.
Says the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "Instead of driving to the Capitol in a coach and six, he [Thomas Jefferson] walked without a guard or servant from his lodgings—or, as a rival tradition has it, he rode, and hitched his horse to a neighboring fence—attended by a crowd of citizens."—ED,