Translations:Victor of Aveyron/92/en

I pasted, on a board of two feet square, three pieces of paper of a very distinct form, and a very decided difference of color: there was one circular and red; another triangular and blue; and the third square and black. Three pieces of pasteboard, of the same color and figure, were, using a hole pierced in the middle of them, and nails properly arranged on the board, placed and left for some days on the respective models. Having afterward taken them away and presented them to Victor, they were replaced by him without any difficulty. I found, by inverting the board, ami by that means changing the order of the figures, that this first result of my experiment was not merely a matter of routine, but was the consequence of comparison. After some days I substituted another board in the place of the first: I there represented the same figures, but they were all of a uniform color. In the first, the pupil was assisted in his comparison both by the forms and the colors: in the second, he had no other guide than the observation of the forms. Almost immediately afterward I presented a third board to him, on which all the figures were equal, but the colors different; the same trials were always followed by the same results. I pay little regard to a few accidental negligences of attention. The facility with which these comparisons were formed induced me to present new ones to him. I made additions and variations in the two last tables. I added to that of the figures, other forms much less distinct, and to that of the colors, new colors, which had only a slight shade of difference between them. There was, for example, in the first, a parallelogram by the side of a square; and in the second, a pattern of celestial blue by the side of one of a grey blue. This gave rise to some blunders and perplexities, but they disappeared after a few days of exercise. These happy results emboldened me to try new changes, gradually increasing in difficulty; each day I added, I retrenched, I modified, and inti need the necessity of new comparisons and of new judgments. At length, the multiplicity and numberless complications of these little crises altogether exhausted his attention and docility. Then reappeared, in all their intensity, those emotions of impatience and of fury which burst out so violently during the first weeks of his residence at Paris, whenever lie was unexpectedly imprisoned in his chamber. This did not signify; it seemed to me that the moment has arrived when it behooved me no longer to appease these emotions by complaisance, but to endeavor to overcome them by decision. I then thought it my duty to persist. Thus, for instance, when being disgusted with a task, of which in fact he did not conceive the object, and with which of course it was very natural he should be fatigued; he took it into his head to seize the pieces of pasteboard, to throw them indignantly on the ground, and to run to his bed in a fury. I permitted him to pass one or two minutes quietly. I then returned to the business with the most perfect indifference: I made him gather up all the pieces of pasteboard which were scattered in his chamber, and gave him no respite until they were replaced in their proper order. My perseverance lasted only a few days; for it was at length overcome by the unconquerable independence of his spirit, his emotions of anger became more frequent, more violent, and resembled the paroxysms of rage similar to those of which I have already spoken; but with this striking difference, that the effects of his passion were now less directed towards persons than things. He Would, when he was in this humor, gnaw the bedclothes, even the mantle-piece, throwing about in his chamber the fire-irons, the cintiers, and the burning coals, and conclude the scene by falling into convulsions, which seemed to be of a nature somewhat analogous to those of epilepsy, a complete suspension of the sensorial functions. I was obliged to yield when things had arrived at this pitch: and yet my acquiescence had no other effect than to increase the evil; its paroxysms became more frequent, and liable to be renewed by the least opposition, often even without any evident cause.