M Berthier

This gentleman, who is now senior professor in the Paris Institution for

the Deaf and Dumb, is described as a man of rare merit, probably

superior in literary abilities and acquirements to any other deaf mute

from birth that any country can produce. He is the author of several

works that would do credit to a well-educated man whose knowledge of

language had been acquired through the ear. On a recent occasion of a

public exercise at the Institution he was decorated by the President of

the Republic with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, the first time such

a distinction had ever been conferred on a deaf and dumb person.