Alexander Melville Bell (1819-1905) was the father of the now much better know Alexander Graham Bell. He was the son of a shoemaker turned elocutionist, Alexander Bell (1790-1865) (Winzer 1993). He is much less well known now than his son, but in his lifetime achieved fame for his creation of ‘visible speech’.  Its aim was to aid the teaching of spoken language to deaf children.

Though they are logical, his symbols seem far from simple, and interested readers might like to try reading the parallel texts below, with the aid of the pictures on the Wikipedia pages.  Promoted by the now infamous Milan Conference (1880), Bell’s symbols fell out of favour, though an adaptation by Alice Worcester was popular.

Winzer points to articles by D. Greenberger of New York, that are critical of Bell, for example this one from volume 19 of The American Annals of the Deaf (1874, p.74) –

Grant, even, that deaf-mute scholars may be trained like parrots in the use of “modulations of the voice, expressive of surprise, sorrow, anger,” etc., it is unreasonable to assert, as Mr Bell does, that they, disqualified in consequence of their infirmity, and with their narrow range of thought, can be made effective readers and orators. Hearing persons cannot become good speakers by the study of elocution, unless their minds are disciplined and stored with thought. “Language,” as somebody has forcibly said, “is not a musical instrument, into which, if a fool breathes, it will make melody.” Those disciples of Mr Bell who waste the precious school-time in “combining the elementary sounds in all sorts of ways to form senseless compounds” by means of the Visible-Speech symbols, and teaching the deaf-mute to utter such senseless compounds with “indefinite pitches” of voice, will, we hope, long before their pupils know “the deep meaning” of the oft-quoted apothegm: “He who buys what he does not need will soon need what he cannot buy.”

NOTE.- Mr Greenberger proposes to begin the next number of the Annals a series of practical school exercises, illustrating the method of instruction used in the institution of which he is the head. – ED. ANNALS.

This Visible Speech book, Stories and Rhymes in Bell Symbols, compiled and edited by Rebecca E. Sparrow and published in 1909, has a very fine cover. Sparrow had previously been assistant at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf. Winzer says that Visible Speech symbols were quickly abandoned in most schools that tried them (p.197). Despite this, the late date that the book was produced,  suggests that it was perhaps either a Bell family vanity publishing project, or perhaps the symbols were still used at that time at the Rochester School for the Deaf where Sparrow taught.

All This reminds me of the now defunct English writing/orthographic reform, I.T.A.  As I understand, it ended up sowing confusion when children who had tried it were then exposed to written English.

You can see some of Melville Bell’s books in our historical collection, including the first edition of Visible Speech (1867).

Winzer, Margaret A., The History of Special Education, 1993.