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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



showed Helen the cake and spelled 'c-a-k-e' in her hand, holding the 

 cake toward her. Of course she wanted it and tried to take it; but I 

 spelled the word again and patted her hand. She made the letters 

 rapidly, and I gave her the cake." Meaningless as this finger-play 

 niust have been to the seven-year-old child, it was hardly more so than 



t 



K. 





Miss Helen Keller (1893). 



other of the arbitrary relations between causes and effects that a child 

 readily accepts as part of tlie logic of reality. But the magic touch 

 that was to supiily 'tlio light that failed' was not far off. The really 

 serious obstacle was the difficulty of sustaining human relations with 

 this willful bit of Innuaniiy, and of enforcing discipline. After a few 



