Support for oralism gained momentum in the late 1860s and the use of manualism started to decrease. Many in the hearing community were now in favor of the evolutionary perspective, which depicted deaf people who used manual language akin to “lower animals”.[18] Some hearing people viewed speech as what separated humans from animals, which in turn caused manual language to be viewed as unhumanlike.[18] The first schools for oralism opened in the 1860s were called The New York Institution for the Improved Instruction of Deaf Mutes and The Clarke Institution for Deaf-Mutes (now the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech).