Translations:Victor of Aveyron/85/en

• It is not improper to remark, that I have not experienced any difficulty in my first aim. Whenever his wants are concerned, his attention, his memory, and his intelligence seemed to raise him above himself; it is a remark that might have been made on every trial, and which, if it had been duly reflected upon, would have led us to anticipate the most successful result. I do not scruple to say, that I regard, as a great proof of intelligence, his having been able to learn, at the end of six weeks of residence in society, to prepare his food, with all the care and attention to minutiae, of which Citizen Bonaterre has given us an account. “ His occupation, during his stay at Rhodes,” says this naturalist, “ consisted in shelling kidney beans[; and he executed this task with as great a degree of discernment, as could have been shown by a person who was the most habituated to the employment. As he knew, by experience, that these vegetable faculties which might be subservient to his instruction; and now we had nothing? more to do than to find out the easiest means of turning them to account.