Intelligence and Speech. 105 



"The poor child sat in mute amazement, and pa- 

 tiently imitated everything her teacher did. But now 

 her intellect began to work, the truth flashed upon her, 

 and she perceived that there was a way by which she 

 could herself make a sign of anything that was in her 

 own mind, and show it to another mind. At once her 

 countenance lighted up with a human expression. It 

 was no longer as a mere instinctive animal; it was an 

 immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a new link of 

 union with other spirits. I could almost fix upon the 

 moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and 

 spread its beams upon her countenance ; I saw that the 

 great obstacle was overcome, and that henceforth noth- 

 ing but patient and persevering, but plain and straight- 

 forward efforts were necessary." 



What was this beam of light that brightened the 

 dreary darkness of this poor creature's mind shut off 

 from communication with the sensile world? Was it 

 speech? No, it was intelligence; intelligence that in- 

 vented speech as a means of communicating with other 

 rational beings. 



In contrast with the case of Laura Bridgman let us 

 now consider the training of a higher animal which 

 was endowed with excellent faculties of sense percep- 

 tion. Lubbock exerted all his ingenuity to teach his 

 clever poodle Van 1 how to think. He gave it lessons 

 in reading, by having the word "food" and other words 

 which represented ideas congenial to "dog intelligence" 

 printed in large letters on different slips. He then 

 trained Van to fetch the card with the label "food" 



Lubbock, op. cit., p. 277: "Van and his cards.' 



