122 VOCAL LANGUAGE OP LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 



one of her friends ; and, on inquiry as to the reason of it, refers to some 

 thought she was then indulging in about the absent one. "While I 

 was attempting to speak to her, she manifested a sense of irritation 

 and perplexity, consequent on my blundering use of an unfamiliar 

 finger-language. In the midst of this, Dr. Howe entered the room, 

 and she immediately brightened up, and with a lively smile uttered the 

 sound for her benefactor. To me it would have been meaningless but 

 for the obvious association of ideas ; but to her friends it was the in- 

 telligible utterance of a name, accompanied with an expressive welcome. 



Each subsequent stage of Laura Bridgeman's progress has been 

 watched and recorded with intelligent interest. After mastering the 

 use of the raised alphabet of the blind, she next acquired the manual 

 alphabet of the deaf-mute; and so could soon spell, on her fingers, 

 the names of everything within her reach. Her next step was to 

 master the names of their qualities; as, hard, soft, long, broad; 

 though it proved a slow and difficult process to carry her mind be- 

 yond the special associated idea, as the hardness of the table, the 

 softness of putty, &c., to that of hardness, softness, or the like quali- 

 ties in the abstract. But, her age must be borne in remembrance, 

 along with the far briefer period of her emergence into intellectual 

 life. The appreciation of abstract ideas is not only of slow growth 

 among children, but is found very partially developed among savages. 



The next step was to acquire the expression of relation. Thus, a 

 ring was placed on a box ; and, after she had been made fully aware 

 of this, she was made to spell ring on box. It was then placed on a 

 hat ; and, in response to the sign to renew her spelling, she repeated 

 ring on box. But, on being checked, and the right word given, she 

 speedily caught the idea ; and, following this and other objects 

 through successive changes of place : in a bag, on a desk, in a drawer, 

 &c., she thus not only learned to name the thing with which the ob- 

 ject was thus locatively associated, but caught such nice distinctions 

 as that between on and in. Active verbs, such as to walk, to I'un, to 

 eat, to drink, to sew, &c., were easily acquired ; though the use of 

 the auxilliary verbs, and the distinctions of mood and tense, were of 

 slow attainment. 



Next followed the teaching her to write. ** It was amusing," says 

 Dr. Howe, " to witness the mute amazement with which she submit- 

 ted to the process, the docility with which she imitated every motion, 

 and the perseverance with which she moved her pencil over and over 



