Signs and Wonders: Religious Rhetoric and Preservation of Sign Language, by Tracy Ann Morse (Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2014, paperback, 168 pages, $45.00, ISBN 978-1-56368-601-6).THE BACK COVER of Signs and Wonders describes Morse's research as a sharp course correction in current academic work on development of American Deaf community. Indeed work takes up a topic that has received little attention: involvement of Protestant Christianity in US deaf education, with subsequent adoption of Biblical references, lexicon, texts, and persuasive style in discourse of signing. This is fertile ground, and I think Morse has sown seeds in this book.The introduction lays out threads Morse will follow in book. In chapter 1 she reviews limited research on religion and rhetoric in general, and notes lack of work on rhetoric in Deaf community. Morse has pored over many pages of archived text, beginning with French and American writing about deaf children and language, to lay out examples of explicitly Christian and Protestant commentaries on deafness, Deaf people, and She focuses on one of original reasons for offering schooling to deaf students, that is, need to bring Gospels to those who, through no fault of their own, had not heard them. She offers conventional legend about origins of deaf education in United States as background.Chapter 2 treats role of Protestant ideology in disagreements over teaching methods-the approach that is, signing, oralist approach, and combined approach, intended to select the best of oral and manual methods. But Morse tosses an ideological sabot into works with evidence that most educators of deaf students believed that deaf students should be instructed via sign language during religion classes and chapel. This evidence deserves more attention, and a deeper discussion and analysis would have provided strength to Morses text. It is worth emphasizing that educators viewed Protestant Christianity as subject that required unambiguous communication. Manualists saw indoctrination as salvation through a personal relationship with God. Oralists saw same training as a route to Americanization through exposure to moral values, noting that the word alone makes too little impression on eyes of mute (p. 49). Accordingly, the language of pantomime was permissible and necessary. Advocates of each method claimed that without religion deaf students would not adopt morals valued by society. Time passed, and early twentieth-century schooling became secular. Still, even new nondenominational schools entangled Christianity, and moral and ethical training with each other. The use of rhetoric in secular schooling is an irony that deserves attention of students of Deaf history.Chapter 3 puts textual flesh on subtitle of book, religious rhetoric and preservation of sign language. I suggest that readers who are familiar with traditional legend of deaf educations origins and development in United States start with chapter 3, because it both fulfills expectations raised in book's title and offers details that go beyond conventional discussions. Although schools and churches are distinct institutions, they are routinely mentioned together as sources of community and social life among deaf signers. …