Translations:Victor of Aveyron/90/en

It is well known that, in the instruction of the deaf and dumb, this first step of comparison is commonly succeeded by a second, which is much more difficult. After having taught, by repeated comparisons, the relation which the thing bears to the design, they place behind the latter all the letters which form the name of the object represented by the figure. This done, they efface the figure, and there remain only the alphabetical signs. The pupil in the school of the deaf and dumb perceives, in this second step, only a change of design, which to him still continues the sign of the object. It was not the same with Victor, who, notwithstanding the most frequent repetitions, notwithstanding the protracted exhibition of the thing below the name belonging to it, could never know the thing by the word. It took me no time to account for this difficulty; it was easy to understand why it was insurmountable. Between the figure of an object and its alphabetical representation, the distance is immense, and so much greater to the pupil, as it presents itself to him at the very threshold of instruction. If the deaf and dumb are not arrested by it in the progress of their improvement, the reason is, that they, of all children, are the most attentive, and the most observing. Accustomed from their earliest infancy to understand and to speak by the eyes, they are, more than any other persons, exercised in perceiving the mutual relations of visible objects.