Cover next page > title: Seeing Language in Sign : The Work of William C. Stokoe author

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Page of communication in the education of the deaf. The advocates of oralism in the classroom at the Milan Conference perceived themselves as crusaders with nothing less than the spiritual and temporal welfare of deaf people at stake. One speaker at the conference declared:
Oral speech is the sole power that can rekindle the light God breathed into man when, giving him a soul in a corporeal body, he gave him also a means of understanding, of conceiving, and of expressing himself. . . . While, on the one hand,
mimic signs are not sufficient to express the fullness of thought, on the other they enhance and glorify fantasy and all the faculties of the sense of imagination . . . . The fantastic language of signs exalts the senses and foments the passions,
whereas speech elevates the mind much more naturally, with calm, prudence and truth and avoids the danger of exaggerating the sentiment expressed and provoking harmful mental impressions. The decision made in Milan into ban sign in favor of oralism aided Bell's crusade in the United States, where the tide clearly began to turn in his favor. As Winefield notes, although Gallaudet described the conference in Milan as a "stacked deck,"
it "gave the oral movement considerable credibility and infused its leaders with an almost messianic belief in the rightness of their approach."17
In 1887 Bell founded the Volta Bureau (later named the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf) in Washington, D.C.,
and the organization soon began to publish the Volta Review, a journal that celebrated the successes of oralism, particularly in schools. Although Gallaudet, always concerned with his students' welfare, was willing to employ a combined method of oralism and signing in deaf education if it would help students to learn better, Bell would not modify his position. He continued to use his wealth and influence to support oralism in schools he even lobbied Congress to oppose funding for teachers being trained to use both oral and manual methods in the classroom. By the turn of the century, the split in this country was completeand irrevocable. Despite the protests of most deaf people, and despite the efforts of Edward Miner Gallaudet

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