THE MUTUAL AID SOCIETY OF THE SENSES. 643 



tainted stock deafness occurs, and disappears and recurs, genera- 

 tion after generation; and in another collateral branch blind- 

 ness pursues the same wayward and yet persistent course ; and 

 strangest of all, idiocy itself creeps out here and there. Blind- 

 ness and deafness are not the children of idiocy, but blindness goes 

 on intensifying its peculiar brain cell and fiber lesion until the 

 whole central shrine of the mind is vitiated and a.n idiot is born ; 

 and deafness grows and grows into a similar vice of the whole 

 nervous system. 



All this means that blindness and deafness are ill weeds which 

 thrive apace if left uneradicated by proper specific education, and 

 that, like the fly in the potter's ointment, they in time impeach 

 the entire mental integrity. 



The percentage in this town is, therefore, greater than any- 

 where else as regards its ratio of afflicted persons. They are 

 like Darwin's cats with white fur and blue eyes, who are al- 

 ways deaf. 



Miss Camilla E. Teisen, who was formerly employed in Johan 

 Keller's Institution for Feeble-minded Children in Copenhagen, 

 Denmark, and who is now settled down as chief instructress in 

 the Pennsylvania Institute for Feeble-minded Children at Elwyn, 

 Pa., has very kindly answered a number of pertinent questions 

 which I asked her regarding the relative physical condition of 

 the senses in idiots. 



Miss Teisen regards the sight and hearing of feeble-minded 

 children as the senses most frequently defective. She thinks 

 sight the most important sense to develop, and that most easily 

 developed. She feels assured of development in other directions 

 as soon as the idea of color dawns upon the child's mind. Ac- 

 cording to her experience, the development of one sense is accom- 

 panied by improvement of the other senses. And yet exceptional 

 cases have presented themselves to her notice where the develop- 

 ment of one sense has seemed to leave the other stationary. Miss 

 Teisen has: found it impossible to reach the moral sense without 

 a fair development of the physical senses. Improvement of the 

 physical senses has been usually shown to improve the habits and 

 manners. A child that distinguishes sound and appreciates music 

 will not be so likely to howl and scream, and a child that feels 

 the influence of color is far less inclined to tear its clothes. 



Miss Teisen makes one statement of unusual interest. She 

 says that many of the children of lowest grade have perfect sight, 

 which their minds can not use. This very striking announce- 

 ment opens the way to the question as to whether the structure 

 of the image-field of sight, together with both that of afferent and 

 efferent nervous fibers (the carriers to and from the brain) may 

 not in many cases be approximately perfect, and the great and 



