388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lowing the eye in its wanderings till it has captured and capti- 

 vated the regard, . . . keeping the eye at bay, or leading it away 

 froni its empty fixedness." 



At the end of the second year of training, " the vibrations of 

 the eyes have diminished, his voluntary look has become more 

 steady, and his automatic one less riveted." From the study of 

 objects and movements this no longer idiotic boy was led on to 

 the acquirement of language. At the beginning of training he 

 could repeat only the last word of what was said to him ; at the 

 end of the second year he had acquired an accurate though lim- 

 ited vocabulary. Five portraits of the child accompany the re- 

 ports of this experiment — the first (Fig. 1) taken at six months of 

 age, showing normal development ; the second (Fig. 2) at eighteen 

 months (after convulsions), in which idiocy is apparent;* the 

 third (Fig. 3) at seven years, in which the characteristics of idiocy 

 are well marked ; the fourth (Fig. 4) at the end of a year's training 

 of the hands, and the fifth (Fig. 5) after a year's training of the 

 eyes. These portraits testify, in a language far more forcible than 

 that of words, to the efficiency of Dr. Seguin's method. The im- 

 provement — physical, mental, and moral — as reflected in the last 

 portrait, is most remarkable, f The entire history of this experi- 

 ment is a history of the triumph of the physiological method of 

 education J — the only rational method, and as applicable to the 

 sound as to the unsound body and brain. To the physiologist, 

 at least, it must have the value of a complete demonstration of 

 the supreme importance of physical culture in both mental and 

 moral development. 



Corroborative testimony of equal or even greater importance 

 may be found in a recent report of the New York State Reforma- 

 tory at Elmira, to whose resident physician, Dr. Hamilton D. 

 Wey, belongs the distinction of having proposed and carried out 

 the details of an experiment* for testing the effects of physical 

 culture on the mental and moral capacities of an inferior order of 

 adult criminals. Dr. Wey selected for this experiment twelve 

 men ranging from nineteen to twenty -nine years of age, five of 

 whom had been convicted of burglary, four of grand larceny, and 

 three of crimes against the person. 



* The fact that idiocy often follows convulsions has a significant bearing on the subject 

 of this paper, since the convulsions of childhood are generally the result of reflex over- 

 stimulation of the motor centers of the brain from excessive irritation of the sensory cen- 

 ters brought about by some severe disturbance at the periphery, as in the convulsions of 

 teething. 



+ We are indebted to the kindness of the Messrs. Putnam for permission to reproduce 

 these portraits. 



% This includes all that comes under the head of manual training. 



* See Annual Report of Board of Managers of the New York State Reformatory, Janu- 

 ary, 1887. 



