58 A PEEP AT 



that her bodily health seemed restored, so that she 

 was able to enter upon her apprenticeship of life and 

 the world. She grew up in the simple mountain 

 home where she was born, until she was nearly eight 

 years old, when her case reached the ears of Dr. 

 Howe, the director of the institution for the blind, in 

 Boston, who immediately hastened to Hanover to see 

 her. He found her with a well-formed figure, a 

 strongly marked nervous-sanguine temperament, a 

 well shaped head, and with the whole system in 

 healthy action. Her parents were easily induced to 

 consent to her coming to Boston, because she was 

 growing unmanageable, and because they could not 

 make her understand their wishes or her duties ; and 

 in 1837 they brought her to the institution. It was 

 ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt that she 

 could not see a ray of light, could not hear the least 

 sound, and never exercised her sense of smell, if she 

 had any. No instruction had been given her, nor had 

 anybody conceived the practicability of penetrating 

 within the dark cell which enclosed her mind, for 

 there was no case upon the records of history where 

 the attempt had been successful ; but on the contrary, 

 the vain case of Julia Bruce, at the institution of the 

 deaf and dumb, in Hartford, seemed to make it hope- 



