Charles-Michel de l'Épée: Encyclopedia II - Charles-Michel de l'Épée - Overview

Charles-Michel de l'Épée - Overview

Charles-Michel de l'Épée was born to a wealthy family in Versailles, the seat of political power in what was then the most powerful kingdom of Europe. He trained as a Catholic priest but was denied ordination, as a result of his refusal to denounce Jansenism, a popular religious reform movement of the time. He then studied law, but soon after joining the Bar was finally ordained as an Abbé - only to be denied a license to officiate.

Épée turned his attention toward charitable services for the poor, and on one foray into the slums of Paris he had a chance encounter with two young deaf sisters who communicated using a sign language. Épée decided to dedicate himself to the education and salvation of the deaf, and some time in the 1750s he founded a shelter which he ran with his own private income. In line with emerging philosophical thought of the time, Épée came to believe that deaf people were capable of language, and concuded that they should be able to receive the sacraments and thus avoid going to hell. He began to develop a system of instruction of the French language and religion. In the early 1760s, his shelter became the world's first free school for the deaf, open to the public.

Though Épée's original interest was in religious education, his public advocacy and development of a kind of "Signed French" enabled deaf people to legally defend themselves in court for the first time.

Abbé de l'Épée died at the beginning of the French Revolution in (1789), and his tomb is in the Saint Roch church in Paris. Two years after his death, the National Assembly recognised him as a "Benefactor of Humanity" and declared that deaf people had rights according to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In 1799, the "Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris", which Épée had founded, began to receive government funding. It was later renamed the "Institut St. Jacques". His methods of education have spread around the world, and the Abbé de l'Épée is seen today as one of the founding fathers of deaf education.

The school Paris school and its daughter schools across Europe emphasised learning trades, such as printing, carpentry, masonry, gardening and tailoring. It was supported by the French government and people in part as a means to remove deaf people from their families, where they were poor dependents, and convert them into productive members of society.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Overview", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki