with another boy. Like Laura Bridgman, this young child was deaf,
and dumb, and blind.
Dr. Howe’s account of this pupil’s first instruction is so very
striking, and so intimately connected with Laura herself, that I
cannot refrain from a short extract. I may premise that the poor
boy’s name is Oliver Caswell; that he is thirteen years of age; and
that he was in full possession of all his faculties, until three
years and four months old. He was then attacked by scarlet fever;
in four weeks became deaf; in a few weeks more, blind; in six
months, dumb. He showed his anxious sense of this last
deprivation, by often feeling the lips of other persons when they
were talking, and then putting his hand upon his own, as if to
assure himself that he had them in the right position.
‘His thirst for knowledge,’ says Dr. Howe, ‘proclaimed itself as
soon as he entered the house, by his eager examination of
everything he could feel or smell in his new location. For
instance, treading upon the register of a furnace, he instantly
stooped down, and began to feel it, and soon discovered the way in
which the upper plate moved upon the lower one; but this was not
enough for him, so lying down upon his face, he applied his tongue
first to one, then to the other, and seemed to discover that they
were of different kinds of metal.
‘His signs were expressive: and the strictly natural language,
laughing, crying, sighing, kissing, embracing, &c., was perfect.
‘Some of the analogical signs which (guided by his faculty of
imitation) he had contrived, were comprehensible; such as the
waving motion of his hand for the motion of a boat, the circular
one for a wheel, &c.
‘The first object was to break up the use of these signs and to
substitute for them the use of purely arbitrary ones.
‘Profiting by the experience I had gained in the other cases, I
omitted several steps of the process before employed, and commenced
at once with the finger language. Taking, therefore, several
articles having short names, such as key, cup, mug, &c., and with
Laura for an auxiliary, I sat down, and taking his hand, placed it
upon one of them, and then with my own, made the letters KEY. He
felt my hands eagerly with both of his, and on my repeating the
process, he evidently tried to imitate the motions of my fingers.
In a few minutes he contrived to feel the motions of my fingers
with one hand, and holding out the other he tried to imitate them,
laughing most heartily when he succeeded. Laura was by, interested
even to agitation; and the two presented a singular sight: her
face was flushed and anxious, and her fingers twining in among ours
so closely as to follow every motion, but so slightly as not to
embarrass them; while Oliver stood attentive, his head a little
aside, his face turned up, his left hand grasping mine, and his
right held out: at every motion of my fingers his countenance
betokened keen attention; there was an expression of anxiety as he
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tried to imitate the motions; then a smile came stealing out as he
thought he could do so, and spread into a joyous laugh the moment
he succeeded, and felt me pat his head, and Laura clap him heartily
upon the back, and jump up and down in her joy.
‘He learned more than a half-dozen letters in half an hour, and
seemed delighted with his success, at least in gaining approbation.
His attention then began to flag, and I commenced playing with him.
It was evident that in all this he had merely been imitating the
motions of my fingers, and placing his hand upon the key, cup, &c.,
as part of the process, without any perception of the relation
between the sign and the object.
‘When he was tired with play I took him back to the table, and he
was quite ready to begin again his process of imitation. He soon
learned to make the letters for KEY, PEN, PIN; and by having the