WHAT MAT ANIMALS BE TAUGHT? 177 



hands ; there remain to him only the eyes. He can not, then, learn to 

 speak or to write. Could we teach him to read ; and to what extent ? 

 The question comes back in a manner to this : Could we teach an arm- 

 less mute, not deaf, to read? I think it would be a more formidable 

 task than was that of teaching Laura Bridgman. 



Under the old way it was very hard to teach children to read, even 

 with the help of hearing, the sight, and the voice. We showed them 

 the letter A, pronounced it, and made them repeat it ; then we passed 

 to the letter E, and so on. At the end of a year the most intelligent, at 

 the end of two years less bright, ones were able to attach a determined 

 sound to certain shapes, that is, when we bring it down to the final 

 analysis, to certain conscious motions of the eyes. After that we 

 taught them writing. 



Not a great while ago a pedagogue was struck with an inspiration 

 of genius. It occurred to him to teach reading and writing together. 

 At first sight it seemed absurd to think of simplifying reading by 

 adding writing to it. But what was the outcome of his plan ? Why, 

 that now, children, in the course of three months, and with much 

 less difficulty and without help from the application of the ruler to 

 their fingers, learn to read and write with much greater facility and 

 correctness than they formerly could in three years. 



This comes from the fact that the motions of the hand are associated 

 with those of the eyes, and the form of the letters is thus engraved 

 upon the memory by means of two different instruments, and therefore 

 much more quickly, one assisting the other ; and because the other 

 associations of prolonged sound and articulate sound with that form 

 have become surer and more rapid. 



Would it be possible, by showing him the letter A, to make a mute, 

 not deaf but armless, understand that the sign corresponds with a 

 sound? Evidently the experiment would not succeed. We might 

 with patience teach him to kneel, to get up, to walk, or to make cer- 

 tain gestures as we show him certain figures. We could do this with 

 the mute more easily than with the dog, because we could exemplify 

 the movement to him, and because also, imperfect as he is, he is a 

 man and Hot a brute. He would also attach the same meaning to the 

 pronounced sound, and would thus learn that the written sign A 

 answers exactly to the sound A, as he would obey orders given by the 

 voice, and we would be able to say that he understood language. He 

 might also, if we put the alphabet at his command, manifest his wishes 

 by indicating the sign corresponding with them, and we might be able 

 to say that he had a language. Possibly we might be able to go 

 further still, and train him to the point of interpreting the design ; but 

 I do not hazard much in saying that his education would still leave 

 an enormous amount to be desired. It is very hard to make a great 

 scholar even out of a deaf-mute who has arms and has learned to speak, 

 and Sandersons are exceedingly rare. 



VOL. XXIX. 12 



