DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70302#0329
HISTORY OF THE SAVAGE OF AVEYNON.
293
astonishing, for it requires no previous instruction to make
him comprehend the meaning of signs which he has never
seen before.
We shall not enter into a minute detail of the means
employed to exercise Victor’s intellectual faculties, with
regard to the objects of his appetites ; these consisted only
in placing between him and his wants, such obstacles as
he could not surmount, without perpetually exercising his
attention, memory, judgment, and all the functions of his
senses. Thus all the faculties subservient to his instruc-
tion were developed, and nothing more required to be
done, than to find out the most easy method of turning
them to account.
Little progress had been made with regard to the sense
of hearing, so that in this respect Victor was only on a
level with one of the deaf and dumb, and this considera-
tion induced M. Itard to try the method adopted in that
institution. He drew upon a black board the figures of
various objects, as a key, scissars, a hammer, &c. and sus-
pending beneath each of them the object represented,
he left him for some time. They were then taken away
and given to Victor. After a few unsuccessful experi-
ments, Victor learned to replace them in proper order,
not by memory, but by a comparison of the figure with
the object. Having gained this object, M. Itard now pro-
ceeded to the second degree of comparison, which is far
more difficult than the former. The instructors of the
deaf and dumb, having taught the relation which the
thing bears to the design, place above the latter the letters
which form the name of the object represented by the
figure. They then erase the figure, and leave only the
alphabetical signs. This change of design, the object of
which soon becomes familiar to the deaf and the dumb,
proved, however, an insurmountable obstacle to the far-
ther progress of young Victor, who, notwithstanding all
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293
astonishing, for it requires no previous instruction to make
him comprehend the meaning of signs which he has never
seen before.
We shall not enter into a minute detail of the means
employed to exercise Victor’s intellectual faculties, with
regard to the objects of his appetites ; these consisted only
in placing between him and his wants, such obstacles as
he could not surmount, without perpetually exercising his
attention, memory, judgment, and all the functions of his
senses. Thus all the faculties subservient to his instruc-
tion were developed, and nothing more required to be
done, than to find out the most easy method of turning
them to account.
Little progress had been made with regard to the sense
of hearing, so that in this respect Victor was only on a
level with one of the deaf and dumb, and this considera-
tion induced M. Itard to try the method adopted in that
institution. He drew upon a black board the figures of
various objects, as a key, scissars, a hammer, &c. and sus-
pending beneath each of them the object represented,
he left him for some time. They were then taken away
and given to Victor. After a few unsuccessful experi-
ments, Victor learned to replace them in proper order,
not by memory, but by a comparison of the figure with
the object. Having gained this object, M. Itard now pro-
ceeded to the second degree of comparison, which is far
more difficult than the former. The instructors of the
deaf and dumb, having taught the relation which the
thing bears to the design, place above the latter the letters
which form the name of the object represented by the
figure. They then erase the figure, and leave only the
alphabetical signs. This change of design, the object of
which soon becomes familiar to the deaf and the dumb,
proved, however, an insurmountable obstacle to the far-
ther progress of young Victor, who, notwithstanding all
< the