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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Words. 



Associated Ideas. 



Strength Man's. 



Memory His. 



Sorrow His. 



Time Piece. 



Courage. . Dog. 



Words. Associated Ideas. 



Anger John (the 



name of a comrade). 



Fear Not. 



Disobedience. 



Love He. 



Kindness. 



These experiments continued for some time. Meanwhile, va- 

 cation days having ended, Isaiah returned to school. Unfortu- 

 nately, the boy had been kept grinding at the elements when flex- 

 ibility and susceptibility had long passed their zenith. He had at 

 last, however, arrived at the dignity of geography, which lent mo- 

 mentary zest to his flagging spirits. To encourage the new zeal, I 

 talked over the subject with him at night. A lesson on the races 

 of men seemed to impress him more than usual. When I asked 

 him to repeat the five races whose names and traits he had learned 

 in the morning ; he recalled all but the Malay. I finally told him 

 the forgotten name, when he instantly responded, " Oh, yes, the 

 malaria race ! " I repeated the name several times without com- 

 ment, but he failed to notice the distinction. The very next even- 

 ing a little white girl of ten years, who had also just entered the 

 fifth grade, was telling me the same lesson, and she, like Isaiah, 

 had forgotten the name of one race, the Mongolian. After the 

 omission had been supplied, I turned to her mother and told the 

 story of Isaiah's slip. Quick as a flash and with evident amuse- 

 ment the child exclaimed, " Oh, he mistook a disease for a peo- 

 ple ! " The inference is plain : the one had groups of appercep- 

 tions in her mind that were entirely wanting to the other. 



That I may not fail to give the positive side of Isaiah's lin- 

 guistic attainment, I present here a specimen of his original com- 

 position. It is an account of a feature in a well-known game 

 which, so far as I can ascertain, was introduced by colored boys : 



" The first boy who I new to play prisoners-base was Charles 

 H. Dorsey And the way you play it is to have equal number on 

 each side of the street and one has to show a lead if he get cought 

 he has to hold out his bans. And if he falls he will say broken 

 bones." 



The statement, it will be seen, comprises fifty-five words be- 

 sides a proper name. Of these, all but four are monosyllables. 

 A peculiar phrasing not unlike that common among deaf-mutes 

 has resulted from the boy's inability to master the subtleties of 

 connecting particles. 



The facts here presented are not, in themselves alone, either 

 novel or significant. The question which they raise is, however, 

 fundamental. Are they the sign of inherent deficiency or are 

 they the outcome simply of external conditions ? In dealing 



