DE MORET, M. ~ Mémoire et Pétition [for the establishment of an institution for teaching deaf-mute children according to his proven methods, presented to the departemental Chamber of Deputies], Paris. 29 April 1819.
Manuscript on paper, small folio (306 × 200 mm), pp. [20] (including outer wrapper), of which 15 are completed in a neat French hand, signed by or on behalf of Moret. Upper cover docketed in pencil and crayon. Secured with blue silk ribbon. One transverse fold, wrapper split at spine.
An important proposal for the establishment of a school for deaf-mute pupils (form the age of six onwards) run on Moret’s method of lipreading, developed by himself in the course of a government-sponsored trial. Education for such pupils had hitherto been conducted according to the sign-language methods of Charles-Michel de l’Épée (1712-1789), alluded to in this text. Moret announces his success in teaching by his ‘entendre des yeux’ method in allowing the student to then express themselves naturally ‘de vive voix et d’un ton nature’ and to thus experience the same level of education as the hearing. The memoir is apparently unpublished.
Little is known of Moret, and his petition appears not to have been accepted, but his methods were widely noticed. John England, in his 1819 Treatise on the Education of the Deaf and Dumb announced the success of Moret’s experiments proclaiming them ‘highly interesting to humanity’ adding: ‘This unexampled success, which appears almost a phenomenon, evinces indubitably, that M. de Moret has arrived at the highest stage of perfection in the art of teaching the deaf and dumb, which has hitherto been attained’ (Dominic W Stiles, on 27 September 2013 UCL Ear Institute & Action on Hearing Loss Libraries).