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This text examines Spain, for the reason that Spain is where langauge was taught first systematically to the deaf. Instruction is thought to have begun in the 16th century in Spanish monastic communities, where the monks, under vows of silence employed a well-established system of signed communications. Early in the 1600s, deaf education entered the domain of private tutors, laymen with no use for manual signs, who advocated oral instruction for their pupils. Deaf children were taught to speak and lip-read, and this form of deaf education, which has been the subject of controversy ever since, spread from Spain throughout the world. The text shows how changing conceptions of deafness and language constantly influenced deaf instruction. 19th-century advances brought new opportunities for deaf students, but at the end of the "preprofessional" era of deaf education, deaf people were disempowered because they were barred from the teaching profession.