r any very clear
expression of those ideas with less than a year's instruction, nor
would you expect him to appreciate the delicate beauties of the
_Odyssey_ in that length of time. The progress of the deaf mute in
any language, even the most simply constructed, is greatly slower than
that of the hearing child. The latter is assisted at every step by
his previous knowledge of his vernacular. The former does not think in
words, as you have done from your earliest recollection. Undertake to
do your thinking in a foreign tongue, of which you have but a limited
knowledge: the attempt is discouraging. The deaf mute thinks in signs.
This, his only vehicle of thought, is a hindrance instead of a help in
learning written language, there being no analogy whatever between the
two methods of expressing ideas.

With these tremendous odds against him the deaf-mute child is set to
the task of acquiring a knowledge of written language. His ideas (in
signs) shape themselves in this wise: "Horses, two, run fast." Of
course he does not think these words. The idea of a horse, its shape
and color, is probably imaged in his mind, or if the horse be not
present to his sight, the sign which he uses for that animal comes
into his thought. He next touches or grasps or holds up two of his
fingers, which he uses on all occasions to express number. Then
the idea of running by means of its sign, and lastly that of speed,
suggest themselves, the last two, however, being probably closely
connected, as in our own minds.

Observe, here, that the order in which the thoughts arrange themselves
is different from the manner of those who think by means of words. The
main idea is "horse," and he gives it the preference, as the older and
more simply constructed languages always did. It is reserved for our
cultured and perfected language to describe an object before
telling what that object is. Who will say that it is according to
philosophical principles that we say, "A fine large red apple,"
instead of "An apple, fine, red, large"? A deaf-mute boy tells me that
he saw two dogs fighting yesterday. He explains it in signs in this
manner: "Dogs, two, fight; first, second ear bit, blood much. Second
ran, hid; saw yesterday, I." Thus the fact is arranged in his mind.
Let him attempt to translate--for it is nothing but translation--this
simple statement into English. The perplexity which first seizes the
hapless school-boy over his "Gallia est omnis divisa in