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Page after his father and subsequently changed to Gallaudet University) The school was funded entirely by the United States government. When Edward Miner Gallaudet was offered the directorship of the school, his contract stipulated that his mother,
Sophia Fowler Gallaudet, serve as matronevidence of the respect she had earned in the deaf community. She served admirably,
winning the reverence and love of the faculty and students. Throughout his life, Edward Miner Gallaudet was surrounded by deaf people who led full, productive lives as a result of using the sign language that his father and Laurent Clerc had brought back from France.
Like Edward Miner Gallaudet, Alexander Graham Bell was strongly influenced by his parents. His mother, Eliza Bell, had lost much of her hearing as a child. Although she could not read lips, she was able to speak well. She was extremely well read and was even able to educate her children at home. Alexander Graham Bell's father, Alexander Melville Bell, dedicated his life to
Visible Speech, a system he developed in an attempt to improve hearing people's speech patterns and elocution. He published numerous books on the topic and gave public lectures and tours, often using his sons to demonstrate his techniques. The Visible
Speech system provided a logical foundation for Alexander Graham Bell's firm belief in oralism, a belief that he never abandoned. Long before Bell became famous for his invention of the telephone, he had developed what would become a lifelong interest in teaching deaf students. He had even started his own school in Boston, The School of Vocal Physiology and
Elocution, where he used his father's methods and charts to teach deaf children the meanings of Visible Speech symbols;
however, the school closed for lack of students. He later used his wealth and prominence to establish an organization whose prime purpose was to advocate and support the oral movement in the United States.
Bell found confirmation of his beliefs in the success of his wife's oral training. Mabel Hubbard Bell had excellent speech skills.
As Winefield explains, it was initially believed that she had lost her hearing as a very young child. Many years later, in 1919, it was discovered through family letters that she had lost her hearing at the age of five, after her speech had developed, and

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