English pioneer of lip-reading. He was appointed the director of the Jews' Deaf and Dumb Home in London in 1866. His technique, known as the Oral Method, became an essential component for educating the hard of hearing and the deaf. Van Praagh served as director of the College of the Association for the Oral Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb established by Baroness Mayer de Rothschild, and founded the Union of Pure Oral Teachers in 1894.