The Right Hon W E Gladstone And The Deaf And Dumb

Mr. Gladstone, on being presented with the freedom of the Worshipful

Company of Turners, gave an address from which the following is an

abstract:--



I went a few days ago to examine the collection of works prepared at

Messrs. Doulton's Pottery to be sent to the Exhibition at Philadelphia.

Those works were delightful for the eye to behold. They were also highly

satisfactory on the distinct ground that the p ice of production

appeared to be so moderate; but, most of all were they delightful to me,

because they were true products of the soil. There was a high faculty of

art as it seemed to me developed in the production of those works, and

that faculty of art had grown up in Lambeth. It was the Lambeth School

of Art from which Messrs. Doulton derived an abundant supply of workers

to whom they could intrust the preparation of those admirable objects.

Among the works I would mention one. It was a beautiful piece of work

produced by a youth who from his birth was both deaf and dumb. Now,

consider what it is to be deaf and dumb; what a cutting off of

resources; what a stinting of the means of training and improvement; and

then consider, notwithstanding this, how it was through an inborn

resolution in the centre of his being it was in the power of this lad to

make himself a producer of works that could command admiration on the

score of beauty, again showing how the energies, if rightly directed,

can be forthcoming when required.