26 VOCAL SOUNDS OF 



tion of her organs only. It must be observed, also, that the loudest letters, for 

 instance a loud i?, (pronounced as in Italian,) are not necessarily felt by the 

 organs of speech as strongly as some guttural tones, which are far from resem- 

 bling them in strength. Possibly, then, there may yet be the agreement of which 

 we have spoken, according to Laura's own perceptions and impulses. One of 

 her teachers told me that Laura once omitted to produce the accustomed sound 

 indicating the person who related the incident, for a whole week; after which she 

 uttered an entirely different name-sound, and said: "This is your name,*" which 

 name the teacher retained at the time the account was given to me. It is clear 

 that at the present advanced stage of Laura's education many causes which 

 come into play when we make or give names must be active with her; but how 

 her mind came first to settle upon the precise sounds which she has given to 

 certain individuals may never be discovered. 



I have given my view how the fact is to be accounted for, that she has sounds 

 for persons, and none or very few for things and actions. I think one more 

 reason may be adduced, proper to be stated at this stage of our remarks. Every 

 word whatever, except nouns proper, is the representative of an abstract idea, 

 because it is generic, and the idea of a genus is an abstraction. This process of 

 abstraction, accompanied by sounds, which must at all events have been in her 

 very limited and laborious, was wholly stopped by giving her a full and de- 

 veloped, a ready-made language. It operated upon her native development of 

 language as the superinduction of the Roman law foreclosed the further develop- 

 ment of the German common law; or as the introduction of a fully developed 

 foreign architecture has cut short the native architecture of some countries, 

 which happened to be yet in the process of formation; or as, indeed, the influx 

 of the Latin language often operated in the middle ages. 



An individual, however, is something concrete, and his noun proper, of 

 whatever sound this may consist, means the concrete individual, and nothing 

 else. The names of persons which were given to Laura were no sounds or 

 representations of sounds, but spelled digital marks. There was, therefore, 

 no forestalling possible by a ready-made language, and all the original formative 

 impulses retained their primitive vigor. A name was given her, but she could 

 freely invent another of her own kind, parallel with the first; or perhaps she 

 had already given such a one. 



Laura has near sixty sounds for persons.* When her teacher asked her, at 

 my suggestion, how many sounds she recollected, she produced at once twenty- 

 seven. Three of her teachers, Dr. Howe included, stated to me that she had 

 certainly from fifty to sixty. 



It may possibly excite surprise that I do not speak with greater certainty. But 

 it ought to be observed that these inquiries must be carried on with some degree of 

 caution, so as not to cultivate in Laura a feeling of vanity, from which this little 



* Here I must again refer to the letter of Miss Wight, at the end, from which it appears that she 

 has forgotten many, and now uses but few. 



