""this point he was sprclvi.ni* !o me quite -loudly while the lecture went on, 1 was embarrassed until I remembered only I could hear him. STUDENTS STOOD up to ask questions. Some tried to speak, but they relied mainly on signs. This, say Gallaudet teachers, is the quickest and smoothest method of communication. They feel overemphasis on lip-reading holds a student back. A blonde girl and a boy across the aisle got into an animated argument in sign language. It occurred to me that they couldn't whisper confidentially, as everyone could look and understand. After the lecture the professor handed out test papers and chalked on the blackboard "No talking-- write and leave." Then he added "No signing" and "No spelling." He told me of his trip to the RCAF laboratories at Downsview. He wrote: "Those of us who lost hearing through spinal meningitis have no auricular balance mechanism left so our reactions on earth are often what yours would be in space where there's no G-force (gravity). U.S. Navy has been using us as guinea pigs, and last April we went to Downsview for tests in revolving rooms." I met some of the Canadian students -- Judy Kvarnberg, a pretty sophomore from Edmonton, Irving Macdonald from Nova Scotia, Frank Mair from Toronto, Gerry Sullivan from Sarnia. WE SMILED, shook hands and scribbled sentences on notebooks, but I was lost in the foreign language of signs. They say you can learn to finger-spell in an hourf but it takes six months to read another's spelling. Over at the college auditorium they were preparing for this week's production of Oscar Wilde's "The important of Being Earnest" -- translated into sign language. The Gallaudet Players' last production-- Shaw's "Don Juan in Hell"--was televised by a Washington station and scored a notable success. In 1965 500 deaf athletes from all over the world will be, at the college for the World Olympics of the deaf. Gallaudet's methods, says Mr. Peikoff, depend a lot on the deaf teaching the deaf. More deaf teachers are needed. There are none in Ontario, and few in all Canada. To prove this he points to the graduates of the world's only deaf university, who have gone on to useful and important jobs in a hundred fields. Outside, the campus was still. Even the birds, which only I could hear, had stopped singing. CTT