B01W BLIND AND DEAF. 41 



ties as might at first be suspected ; as I am assured by the best 

 authority, that his eldest sister, whose good sense has already 

 devised some imperfect modes of communication with her un- 

 fortunate brother, possesses talents which fully qualify her to 

 carry into execution any plan that may be proposed for his 

 farther improvement. His age, at present, only exceeds by 

 two years, that of Sicard's celebrated pupil Massieu, when his 

 education was begun ; and at that period, Massieu, though he 

 had the inestimable advantage of possessing the sense of Sight, 

 seems to have had his rational faculties as imperfectly develo- 

 ped as those of Mitchell. 



I must, at the same time, observe here, in justice to myself, 

 that my expectations of the future improvement of the latter, 

 are by no means so sanguine as those which the Abbe Sicard 

 would probably have indulged in similar circumstances. Were 

 it possible, indeed, to place him under the immediate tuition 

 of that eminent man, I have little doubt that much more would 

 be accomplished than appears to us to be practicable ; but the 

 difference between his situation and that of Massieu is so im- 

 mense, as to render all our conclusions founded on the history 

 of the one, quite inapplicable (except with great modifications) 

 to the case of the other. The slowness with which the sense of 

 Touch proceeds, in collecting information concerning the exter- 

 nal world, when compared with the rapid perceptions of the Eye, 

 w T ould, on the most favourable supposition, retard infinitely the 

 rate of his progress in acquiring even the first elements of know- 

 ledge. This, however, furnishes no argument against the attempt; 

 nor does it even tend to diminish the value of the results to which 

 it might lead. The slightest addition that could be made to 

 his present range of ideas, by means of an improved system of 



Vol. VII. F signs j 



