42 



KIDD'S OWN JOUKNAL. 



every where, there are objects of vanity and 

 glory, marks of honor and disgrace ; every •where 

 there are masters and servants ; all nations make 

 war ; men and women are united in all climates, 

 however different their creeds, and the ceremo- 

 nies of their union ; every where, there are 

 mournings for deceased husbands and wives, 

 children, and friends ; and every where is their 

 memory honored, whether they embalm their 

 bodies, place their ashes in urns, or place over 

 them mounds or monuments. Sing your lines 

 on the straw, or on the harp ; dress your chiefs 

 with feathers or with purple ; your women, with 

 flowers or with diamonds ; inhabit huts or 

 palaces ; it will be still the same faculties which 

 lead man to act within the circle traced for him 

 by his Creator. 



But somo think to prove that man is horn 

 without propensities and without faculties, and 

 that he acquires these faculties merely by social 

 life and by education ; by citing the example of 

 some individuals found astray in the woods, who, 

 having received no education, have all the 

 brutality of animals, and appear to he not only 

 deprived of human faculties, but even of those of 

 the least intelligent animals. 



The objection falls, when we learn that these 

 savages found in the forests are ordinarily miser- 

 able creatures, of imperfect organisation, as 

 M. Eoussel and de Tracy have already remarked. 

 The following is the organisation of these pre- 

 tended savages : Their heads are found to be 

 either too large and affected with hydrocephalus, 

 or too small, compressed, and deformed ; almost 

 always with a scrofulous constitution ; the eyes 

 small, sunken, slightly opened upwards, closen 

 horizontally ; the mouth very large, the lips pen- 

 dant, the tongue thick, the neck swollen, the 

 pace staggering and insecure. Their primitive 

 organisation is, therefore, defective ; they are 

 real idiots, who can receive no instruction, and 

 no education, -and it is this fact which accounts 

 for their being found in woods. As they are a 

 charge to their families, and, as in certain 

 countries the people of the lower classes regard 

 these unhappy beings as bewitched or as 

 changelings, it often happens, that they expose 

 them, or allow them to wander at their will 

 without interference. It has even been remarked, 

 in hospitals, that these deformed beings have a 

 decided propensity for living in forests, and that 

 they always try to escape. They told us at the 

 hospital at Haina, near Marbourg, that some of 

 the idiots whom they kept there made their 

 escape, and that in pursuing them they sometimes 

 found others who had escaped before, and who 

 had nothing more than fragments of clothing. 

 We saw near Augsbourg an insane woman, who 

 had been found in a wood. At Brunswick we 

 were shown a woman completely idiotic ; she had 

 been discovered in a wood, lying on her side, with 

 her eyes open, but unable to articulate. 



The savage of Aveyron, placed in the deaf and 

 dumb institution at Paris, is not different from 

 those of whom I have just spoken. He is weak- 

 minded to a great degree ; his forehead is very 

 little enlarged laterally, and very much com- 

 pressed from above downwards ; his eyes are 

 small and greatly sunken, his cerebellum little 

 developed. We are not able to convince our- 



selves that he had the sense of hearing ; for they 

 could not in our presence render him attentive, 

 either by calling him, nor by sounding a glass 

 behind his ears. His mode of existence is 

 tranquil ; his attitude and manner of sitting are 

 decent ; it is only remarked that he is constantly 

 balancing the upper part of his body and his head ; 

 he salutes by inclining his body to the persons 

 who arrive, and manifests his satisfaction when 

 they depart. The sexual propensity does not 

 seem to be active in him. He knows a few letters, 

 and even points to the objects which the letters 

 designate. In other respects, his favorite occu- 

 pation is to restore to their former place any 

 articles which have been displaced. Such is the 

 result of the hopes which were formed of him, the 

 efforts which have been made, and the patience 

 and mildness which a benevolent woman has 

 shown towards him. We may pronounce, with 

 confidence, that these labors will never be crowned 

 with any better success. 



The wild man found in the forests of Lithuania, 

 who is cited by many authors as an example of 

 the powerful influence of education, was certainly 

 a similar being. 



When M. de Tracy, in speaking of men in 

 general, remarks that the individual who has re- 

 ceived education has less resemblance to him who 

 has received none, than an egg to a chicken, or 

 an acom to an oak, he speaks truth only in 

 relation to these unfortunate beings ; but the ex- 

 perience of all times has proved, that they remain 

 simple, whether they live in forests, or continue in 

 the bosom of their family. The most immoderate 

 panegyrist of the effects of education, Helvetius, 

 is obliged to acknowledge that a favorable or- 

 ganisation is the primary requisite of education. 



It is difficult to believe that in our populous 

 regions a well-organised man can wander for a 

 long time as a savage. Should such an indivi- 

 dual be found, who has gone astray from child- 

 hood, it is impossible that in his state of insu- 

 lation he should have acquired any knowledge 

 dependent on instruction. But even in this 

 situation, he certainly must have exercised the 

 faculties which belong to him as a man. As soon 

 as such an individual finds himself in the midst 

 of society, he will be seen to develop human dis- 

 positions, not only by a prompt imitation of social 

 usages, but by his capacity for instruction. It 

 will not be possible to imagine, as was done in 

 the case of the individuals referred to, that he has 

 adopted the mode of living and the character 

 of wild beasts. Example and instruction will 

 soon change his mode of life ; or if there is no 

 change, the subject is an idiot, and education and 

 circumstances can only act upon a man so far as 

 he possesses the necessary dispositions, and is pre- 

 pared for them by his organisation. 



Locke, to demonstrate that the qualities of the 

 mind and soul have an accidental origin in social 

 life, adduces the case of children, who, according 

 to him, still want certain propensities and talents, 

 and arc destitute of passions. 



If Locke had been for a single day a mother or 

 a nurse of children, he would have seen, in a very 

 little time after their birth, the most evident marks 

 of their passions, or rather of their affections. " It 

 is useful," says Cabanis, " to remark all those 

 passions which succeed each other in so rapid a 



