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Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe

Creator:  (editor)
Date: 1909
Publisher: Dana Estes & Company, Boston
Source: Available at selected libraries
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 1

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260  

"These observations will furnish an answer to another question which is frequently put concerning Laura: can she be taught the existence of God, her dependence upon, and her obligations to Him?

261  

"The answer may be inferred from what has gone before; that if there exists in her mind (and who can doubt that there does?) the innate capacity for the perception of this great truth, it can probably be developed, and become an object of intellectual perception, and of firm belief. I trust, too, that she can be made to conceive of future existence and to lean upon the hope of it, as an anchor to her soul in those hours when sickness and approaching death shall arouse to fearful activity the instinctive love of life, which is possessed by her in common with all.

262  

"But to effect this -- to furnish her with a guide through life and a support in death, much is to be done, and much is to be avoided. None but those who have seen her engaged in the task, and have witnessed the difficulty of teaching her the meaning of such words as remember, hope, forget, expect, will conceive the difficulties in her way; but they, too, have seen her unconquerable resolution and her unquenchable thirst for knowledge; and they will not condemn as visionary such pleasing anticipations. . . .

263  

"By her teachers, then, and by all concerned, the attempt to develop the whole nature of this interesting being will be continued with all the zeal which affection can inspire; it will be continued, too, with a full reliance upon the innate powers of the human soul; and with an humble confidence that it will have the blessing of Him who hears even the young ravens when they cry."

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My father's Report for 1841 shows great progress made by Laura in every way. She could now use the manual alphabet readily; could read simple texts and delighted in doing so; was continually questioning about everything. She was taken to a barn, and asked, "Do horses sit up late? "On being told that horses do not sit up she laughed, and corrected herself. "Do horses stand up late? "

265  

She asks why cows have horns.

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"To keep bad cows off when they trouble them."

267  

"Do bad cows know to go away when good cow pushes them? "then after some moments of silent thought: "Why do cows have two horns? to push two cows? "

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My father concludes the Report thus:

269  

"During the past year she has shown very great inquisitiveness in relation to the origin of things. She knows that men made houses, furniture, etc., but of her own accord seems to infer that they did not make themselves, or natural objects. She therefore asks, 'Who made dogs, horses and sheep? 'She has got from books, and perhaps from other children, the word God, but has formed no definite idea on the subject. Not long since, when her teacher was explaining the structure of a house, she was puzzled to know 'how masons piled up bricks before floor was made to stand on? 'When this was explained she asked, 'When did masons make Jennette's parlour; before all Gods make all folks? '

270  

"I am now occupied in devising various ways of giving her an idea of immaterial power by means of the attraction of magnets, the pushing of vegetation, etc., and intend attempting to convey to her some adequate idea of the great Creator and Ruler of all things.

271  

"I am fully aware of the immeasurable importance of the subject, and of my own inadequacy; I am aware too that pursue what course I may, I shall incur more of human censure than of approbation; but incited by the warmest affection for the child, and guided by the best exercise of the humble abilities which God has given me, I shall go on in the attempt to give her a faint idea of the power and love of that Being, whose praise she is every day so clearly proclaiming by her glad enjoyment of the existence which he has given her."

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In the eleventh Report, for 1842, in his account of Laura's progress in physical and mental development, he says:

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"It is often asked, how can a knowledge of qualities which have no positive existence be communicated? Just as easily as the names of objects, and just as they are taught to common children; when a child bites a sweet apple, or a sour one, he perceives the difference of taste; he hears you use one sound, sweet, when you taste the one, another sound, sour, when you taste the other. These sounds are associated in his mind with those qualities; the deaf child sees the pucker of your lips, or some grimace when you taste the sour one, and that grimace perhaps is seized upon by him for a sign or a name for sour; and so with other physical qualities. The deaf, dumb, and blind child cannot hear your sound, cannot see your grimace, yet he perceives the quality of sweetness, and if you take pains to make some peculiar sign two or three times when the quality is perceived, he will associate that sign with the quality, and have a name for it.

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"It will be said that qualities have no existence, being mere abstractions, and that when we say sweet apple, the child will think it is a compound name for the individual apple, or if he does not do this, that he cannot know whether by the word sweet we mean the quality of sweetness or the quality of soundness. This is true; at first the child does not know to what the sound sweet refers; he may misuse it often, but by imitation, by observation, he at last gets it right, and applies the word sweet to every thing whose qualities revive the same sensation as the sweet apple did; he then uses the word sweet in the abstract, not as a parrot, but understandingly, simply because the parrot has not the mental organization which fits it to understand qualities, and the child has. Now the transition from physical to mental qualities is very easy; the child has dormant within his bosom every mental quality that the man has; every emotion and every passion has its natural language; and it is a law of nature that the exhibition of this natural language calls into activity the like mental quality in the beholder. The difference between joy and sorrow, between a smile and a frown, is just as cognizable by a child as the difference between a sweet apple and a sour one; and through the same mental process by which a mute attaches signs to the physical quality, he may (with a little more pains), be made to attach them to the moral qualities. . . .

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