Library Collections: Document: Full Text
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Laura Bridgman
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| 4 | The process of teaching her is of course slow and tedious; the different steps to it must be suggested by her successive attainments, for there are no precedents to go by; (2) but thus far the results have been most gratifying. She has not yet been long enough under instruction (four months only) to have got beyond the names of substances; the more difficult task of giving her a knowledge of names, expressive of qualities, feelings, &c. remains yet to be accomplished. No sure prognostic can be made, but much is to be hoped from the intelligence of the child, and the eager delight with which she lends all her attention, and the strong effort she evidently makes to gain new ideas; not from fear of punishment, or hope of reward, but from the pleasure which the exercise of the faculties confers upon her. No pains or expense will be spared in efforts to develop the moral and intellectual nature of this interesting child, and no opportunity lost, of gathering for science whatever mental phenomena her singular case may furnish. (3) (2) Julia Brace, the deaf, dumb, and blind girl, in the Institution for the Deaf Mutes, at Hartford, did not succeed in attaining a knowledge of the written signs significative of objects. Julia possessed her senses until the age of four years, and she is aided by a sense of smell, sharpened by practice, to the acuteness of the vulture, while Laura has it so imperfectly as that she may be said to be without smell. James Mitchell, whose case is noticed by Dugald Stewart and other philosophers, did not learn any system of arbitrary signs, nor is there any case on record of a person deprived of sight and hearing succeeding in doing so. (3) A further notice of the case will be found detailed in a note at the end of this Report. | |
