DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0324
288
HISTORY OR THE SAVAGE OF AVEYNON.
a thing altogether new to him. The sense of taste was
improved in a still greater degree. The articles of food
on which he subsisted for some time after his arrival at
Paris, were excessively disgusting ; he dragged them
about his room, and ate them out of his hand besmeared
with filth. So great was the change which had taken
place in this respect, that he now threw away the con-
tents of his plate, if any particle of dust or dirt had fallen
upon it, and after he had broken his walnuts with his
foot, he cleaned them in the most careful manner.
The developement of the understanding of this youth
by giving him new wants and multiplying his relations
with surrounding objects, was a business of much greater
difficulty. Toys of every kind were given him, and the
greatest pains were taken to teach him the use of them,
but instead of engaging his attention, they only tended
to excite fretfulness and impatience, so that whenever
a favourable opportunity offered, he always endeavoured
to conceal or destroy them.
M. Itard, however, invented some means of attaching
him to certain amusements connected with his appetite
for food. One of these was to place in an inverted
position, several goblets or cups, under which he put a
chesnut, and to raise them one after the other, excepting
that which inclosed the fruit. He then replaced them,
and by signs, desired the youth to look for the chesnut,
and he never failed to pitch at first on the gobblet beneath
which the recompence of his attention was concealed.
This simple effort of memory, his instructor gradually
rendered more complicated, and his experiments were
attended with results equally satisfactory. His discern-
ment in these cases was, however, merely excited by
the instinct of appetite. To render his attention less in-
terested and less animal, he afterwards put under the
goblets things which were not eatable. These he found
with
HISTORY OR THE SAVAGE OF AVEYNON.
a thing altogether new to him. The sense of taste was
improved in a still greater degree. The articles of food
on which he subsisted for some time after his arrival at
Paris, were excessively disgusting ; he dragged them
about his room, and ate them out of his hand besmeared
with filth. So great was the change which had taken
place in this respect, that he now threw away the con-
tents of his plate, if any particle of dust or dirt had fallen
upon it, and after he had broken his walnuts with his
foot, he cleaned them in the most careful manner.
The developement of the understanding of this youth
by giving him new wants and multiplying his relations
with surrounding objects, was a business of much greater
difficulty. Toys of every kind were given him, and the
greatest pains were taken to teach him the use of them,
but instead of engaging his attention, they only tended
to excite fretfulness and impatience, so that whenever
a favourable opportunity offered, he always endeavoured
to conceal or destroy them.
M. Itard, however, invented some means of attaching
him to certain amusements connected with his appetite
for food. One of these was to place in an inverted
position, several goblets or cups, under which he put a
chesnut, and to raise them one after the other, excepting
that which inclosed the fruit. He then replaced them,
and by signs, desired the youth to look for the chesnut,
and he never failed to pitch at first on the gobblet beneath
which the recompence of his attention was concealed.
This simple effort of memory, his instructor gradually
rendered more complicated, and his experiments were
attended with results equally satisfactory. His discern-
ment in these cases was, however, merely excited by
the instinct of appetite. To render his attention less in-
terested and less animal, he afterwards put under the
goblets things which were not eatable. These he found
with