66 GESTURE-LANGUAGE AND WOED-LANGUAGE. 



about tlie average cultivation of those wlio have had the power 

 of speech from childhood. Even in a low state of education, 

 the deaf-mute seems to conceive general ideas, for when he 

 invents a sign for anything, he applies it to all other things of 

 the same class, and he can also form abstract ideas in a cer- 

 tain way, or at least he knows that there is a quality in which 

 snow and milk agree, and he can go on adding other white 

 things, such as the moon and whitewash, to his list. He can 

 form a proposition, for he can make us understand, and we 

 can make him understand, that " this man is old, that man 

 is young." Nor does he seem incapable of reasoning in some- 

 thing like a syllogism, even when he has no means of commu- 

 nication but the gesture-language, and certainly as soon as he 

 has learnt to read that "All men are mortal, John is a man, 

 therefore John is mortal," he will show by every means of 

 illustration in his power, that he fully comprehends the argu- 

 ment. 



There is detailed evidence on record as to the state of mind 

 of the deaf-and-dumb who have had no education but what 

 comes with mere living among speaking people. Thus Mas- 

 sieu, the Abbe Sicard's celebrated pupil, gave an account of 

 what he could remember of his untaught state. He loved his 

 father and mother much, and made himself understood by them 

 in signs. There were sis deaf-and-dumb children in the 

 family, three boys and three girls. " I stayed," he said, " at 

 my home till I was thirteen years and nine months old, and 

 never had any instruction; I had darkness for the letters 

 (j'avois tenebres pour les lettres). I expressed my ideas by 

 manual signs or gesture. The signs which I used then, to 

 express my ideas to my relatives and my brothers and sisters, 

 were very different from those of the educated deaf-and-dumb. 

 Strangers never understood us when we expressed our ideas 

 to them by signs, but the neighbours understood us." He 

 noticed oxen, horses, vegetables, houses, and so forth, and 

 remembered them when he had seen them. He wanted to 

 learn to read and write, and to go to school with the other 

 boys and girls, but was not allowed to ; so he went to the 

 school and asked by signs to be taught to read and write, but 



