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Some kind of language seems necessary for every human being; the cravings of the social nature are loud and constant, and cannot be gratified except by some medium of communication for the feelings. The intellect cannot be developed unless all the modifications of thought have some sign even, by which they can be recalled. Hence men are compelled by a kind of inward force to form languages; and they do form them under all and every circumstance. The social organ presents the natural and most perfect medium through which, by attaching a meaning to every modulation of voice, a perfect system of communication is kept up. The question whether a people could exist without language would be about as reasonable as it would be to ask whether they can exist without hands; it is as natural for men to converse as it is for them to eat; if they cannot speak they will converse by signs, as, if they had no hands, they would feed themselves with their toes. Children then, prompted by nature, associate their thoughts with audible words, and learn language without any special instruction. If you make the sound, represented by the letters a p p l e, when you hold up the fruit to a child, he naturally associates that sound with it, and will imitate the sound, even without your trying to make him do so; if the child be deaf so that he cannot hear the word which you speak, of course he cannot imitate it, and as such, of course, he must be forever dumb. But the desire to associate the thing with a sign still remains, and he has the same power of imitation as others, except in regard to words; if therefore you make a visible sign when you show him the apple, as by doubling the fist, the fist afterwards becomes to him the name or sign for the apple. But suppose the child cannot see the apple, suppose he be blind as well as deaf. What then? he has the same intellectual nature, -- put the apple in his hand, let him feel it, smell it, taste it, -- put your clenched hand in his at the same time, and several times, until he associates this sign with the thing, and when he wishes for the fruit he will hold up his little fist, and delight your heart by this sign, which is just as much a word, as though he had said apple! out aloud.

Reasoning in this way I undertook the task of instructing Laura Bridgman and the result has been what it will ever be where nature is followed as our guide.

This simple process is readily understood; but simple signs, and names of objects being easy enough, it is often asked, how can a knowledge of qualities which have no positive existence be communicated? Just as easily, 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.

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 cognisable 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. There is not time however in this brief report to enlarge upon this point.

Much surprise has been expressed by some who are conversant with the difficulties of the teaching, &c. of mutes, that Laura should have attained the use of verbs without more special instruction. It may be said in reply, that no minute and perfect account of the various steps in the process of her instruction has ever yet been published; and that moreover the difficulties in the use of the verbs are in reality much less than is usually supposed.