EDUCATION AND CO-ORDINATION OF FUNCTION. 9 



unused ; it would seem likely, but we do know that if the sense 

 of hearing is restored, even after many years, they are capable 

 of being educated. There are not many instances recorded 

 where people, either born deaf or becoming so at an early age, 

 have regained their powers of hearing, but such as there are 

 have been instructive in so much that they serve to demonstrate 

 that a long period elapses between the time of recovery and the 

 possibility of differentiating sounds and of using spoken 

 language. One of these histories is related in the well-known 

 story of the son of Croesus, who was a deaf-mute, and his father, 

 as a rich man surely would do, sought every means for his 

 relief. Among other measures he consulted the Oracle at 

 Delphi ; the Pythian, however, advised him to let things alone 

 and warned him that on the day that the boy spoke misfortune 

 would come to the kingdom, and the warning seems to have 

 been fulfilled, for when the fortifications of Sardis were taken, 

 a Persian, not knowing Croesus, was about to slay him, and he, 

 not caring to survive his misfortunes, would have met the stroke 

 of death, but his hitherto speechless son, moved with fear and 

 agony, cried out, " Man, kill not Croesus." These were his 

 first words, and from that time forward he continued to speak. 

 It is presumed that the boy must have recovered his hearing 

 and have understood language for some time previous to this 

 event and that he spoke for the first time under the influence 

 of strong emotion. 



In 1703 the son of a tradesman of Chartres, who had been 

 deaf and dumb up to his twenty-fourth year, heard for the first 

 time on the occasion of the ringing of the bells of the town one 

 cloudy day, this being the prevalent custom to dispel a storm. 

 Sounds were a great mystery to him for a long time, but in the 

 course of several months he came to understand language and 

 eventually became able to speak himself. 



Another similar kind of case was that of one David Fraser 

 who was born deaf and remained mute till his seventeenth year, 



