Translations:Victor of Aveyron/75/en

At the beginning of the month Nivôse, I made a remark still more interesting. One day whilst he was in the kitchen, busy in boiling potatoes, two persons, behind him, were disputing with great warmth, without his appearing to pay the least attention to them. A third came in, who joined in the discussion, and began all his replies with these words: “ Ok! it is different.” I remarked, that every time this person permitted lus favorite exclamation to escape him, “ Oh!" the Savage of Aveyron suddenly turned his head. I made, in the evening, about the hour of his going to bed, some experiments with regard to this particular sound, and I derived from them very nearly the same results. I tried all the other vowels without any success. This preference for o induced me to give him a name, which, according to the French pronunciation, terminates in that vowel. I made the choice of that of Victor. This name he continues to have, and when it is spoken in a loud voice, he seldom fails to turn his head or to run to me. It is, probably, for the same reason, that, he has since understood the meaning t s> atl ^ e monosyllable no } which I often make use of, when I wish to make him correct the blunders which he is now and then guilty of in our little exercises and amusements. Whilst these developments of the organ of the hearing were going on, in a slow but perceptible manner, the voice continued mute, and was unable to utter those articulate sounds which the ear appeared to distinguish; at the same time the vocal organs did not exhibit, in their exterior conformation, any mark of imperfection; nor was there any reason to suspect it in their interior structure. There was indeed observable, on the upper and anterior part of the neck, a scar of considerable extent, which might excite some doubt with regard to the soundness of the subjacent parts, if the suspicion were not done away by the appearance of the scar. It seems in reality to be a wound made by some cutting* instrument; but, by observing its superficial appearance, I should be inclined to believe that it did not reach deeper than the integuments and that it was united by what surgeons call the first intention. It is to be presumed that a hand more disposed than adapted to acts of cruelty, wished to make an attempt upon the life of this child; and that, left for dead in the woods, he owed, to the timely succor of nature, the speedy cure of his wound; which could not have been so readily effected, if the muscular and cartilaginous parts, belonging to the organ of voice, had been divided. fins consideration leads me to think, that v hen the ear began to perceive some certain sounds, if the voice did not repeat them, it was not on that account fair to infer any organic lesion; but that we ought to ascribe the fact to the influence of unfavorable circumstances. The total disuse of exercise renders our organs inapt for their functions, and if those already formed are so powerfully affected by this inaction, what will be the case with those, which are growing aucl developing without the assistance of any agent that was calculated, to call them into action? Eighteen months at least are necessary, of careful and assiduous education, before a child can lisp a few words: have we then a right to expect, that a rude inhabitant of the forest, who has been in society only fourteen or fifteen months, five or six of which he has passed among the deaf and dumb, should have already acquired the faculty of articulate speech! Not only is such a thing impossible, but it will require, in order to arrive at this important point of his education, much more time, and much more labor, than is necessary for children in general. This child knows nothing; but lies and possesses, to an eminent degree, the susceptibility of learning everything. an innate propensity to imitation; excessive flexibility and sensibility of all the organs; a perpetual motion of the tongue; a consistency almost gelatinous of the larynx: in one word, everything concurs to aid the production of that kind of articulate and almost indescribable utterance, which may be regarded as the involuntary apprenticeship of the voice: this is still farther assisted by occasional coughing and sneezing, the crying of children, and even their tears, those tears which we should consider as the marks of a lively excitability, but likewise as a powerful stimulus, continually applied, and especially at the times most seasonable for the simultaneous development of the organs of respiration, voice, and speech. Let these advantages be allowed to me, and I will answer for the result. If it is granted me, that we ought no longer to depend on the youth of Victor; that we should allow him also the fostering resources of nature, which can create new methods of education when accidental causes have deprived her of those which she had originally planned. At least I can produce some facts which may justify this hope.