Translations:Victor of Aveyron/62/en

Section 3

My third object was to extend the sphere of his ideas, by giving him new wants, and multiplying his relations and connections with surrounding objects. If the progress of this child towards civilization; if my success in developing his intelligence has been hitherto so slow and difficult, it ought to be attributed to the almost innumerable obstacles which I have had to encounter in accomplishing this third object. I have given him successively toys of every sort; more than once, for whole hours, I have endeavored to make him acquainted with the use of them, and I have had the mortification cation to observe, that, so far from interesting his attention, these various objects only tended to excite fretfulness and impatience; so much so, that he was continually endeavoring to conceal or destroy them when a favorable opportunity occurred. As an instance of this disposition, after having been some time confined in his chair, with nine-pins placed before him, in order to amuse him in that situation; in consequence of being irritated by this kind of restraint that was imposed upon him, he took it into his head, one day, as he was alone in the chamber, to throw them into the fire; before the flames of which he was immediately after found warming himself, with an expression of great delight.