One last observation I must make about the pronouns. The third person singular or plural would have been difficult to Anna, since, being blind, she could not have distinguished whether the action spoken of had been done by one person or by several; by "him," in fact, or by "they." The pronouns which she can most readily comprehend are the first and second; and to these I generally confine her. For "he" or "they" I have substituted "one:" "One strikes the table."
Anna might have been taught the others; but she would often probably have been mistaken in their application, and would perhaps have ended by supposing that there was no positive rule in their regard, and that they might be used as it were at random.
People only learn willingly what they can clearly comprehend; and if children dislike instruction, the fault is almost always with the master. If the latter would but bring his intelligence to the level of his pupils, he might be almost certain of their attention.
To sum up the whole, I will give the order in which I taught her the different parts of speech necessary for the knowledge of a language. The substantive, because, being itself an object, it falls more immediately beneath the [{331}] recognition of the senses; the verb, because by the verb alone we speak, and without it there could be no language; the preposition, because it indicates the nature of the action expressed by the verb; and finally, the adjective and the adverb. I had many reasons for keeping back these two last to the end. Neither of them is essential to a phrase which can be complete without them. Anna would have been much retarded in her progress if I had stopped to teach her the attributes of words, when words themselves were what she wanted. She could learn language only by use and habit; and it was of the highest importance that she should acquire that habit as speedily as possible. I threw aside, therefore, without hesitation, all that could embarrass her progress, and confined myself, in the first instance, to such things as it was absolutely essential she should know, in order to be able to converse at all. It may be asked why I taught her to make phrases by means of whole words, instead of giving her the letters of the alphabet and teaching her to make words themselves. The result of the mode I did adopt must be my answer. Anna has already a clear idea of language; all her acquisitions in the way of words are classed in her mind as in a dictionary, and ready to come forth at a moment's notice. The reason for this rapid progress is very plain. It is far less troublesome to take a whole word, and put it in the grammatical order it ought to occupy, than to be obliged to make the word itself by means of separate letters. She had need of all her attention to learn the elements of a phrase; and it would have been imprudent to weaken that attention by directing it also to learn the elements of words. I divided difficulties in order to overcome them: this was the secret of my method, and the cause of its success. My lessons were also almost or entirely an amusement to her; and sometimes I composed a phrase which she first read, and acted afterward. Sometimes it was I who performed the action, while she gave me an account of what I had done in writing.
It was a lesson at once in reading and in writing, in hearing and in speaking; and the moment we had got thus far, communication by means of language was established between us. I had given my lessons at first by words or phrases written in a book; but now, to test more perfectly the knowledge she had acquired, and to prevent her reading becoming a mere matter of form and guess-work, I cut all her phrases into words, gummed them upon cardboard, and threw them pell-mell into a box, from which she had to take out every separate word that she required for a phrase. This new exercise vexed her very much at first; but if it was tedious, it was also sure. By degrees she became accustomed to it, and at last seemed to prefer it to the book, probably because it admitted of greater facilities for varying her phrases. Nevertheless it was troublesome work; and I was curious to see if Anna would seek, of her own accord, to arrange her words in such a way as to avoid the trouble of hunting through the whole mass for every separate one she wanted. It seemed not unlikely, for she was very ingenious; and so, in fact, it happened.
From time to time I observed that she put aside certain words, and kept them separate from the others; and it was impossible to mistake her exultation when these selected words were called for in her lesson. Of course I saw them as she put them by; and, in order to encourage her, I managed to introduce them pretty often into our conversations. Acting also upon this hint, I had a drawer divided into small compartments placed in the table at which she took her lessons. Each compartment was intended for a separate class of words, but she was permitted to arrange them according to her own ideas; and the moment a word had been examined and understood, she placed it in the compartment to which she imagined it belonged. Nouns, pronouns, verbs, articles—each [{332}] had their separate partition; but I observed, with delight, that when I gave her the verb "to drink," instead of placing it with the other verbs, she put it at once into the compartment she had destined for liquids. Having remarked that it was always employed with these substantives, it naturally struck her that its proper place would be among them. To casual observers this may seem but a trifling thing to mention, but it was an act of reasoning; and in their half-mutilated natures the whole power of instruction hangs so entirely on the capacity for passing by an act of reason from one fact to another, from the known to that which is still unknown, that every indication which a pupil gives of possessing such capacity is hailed with delight by her teacher as an assurance of further progress. Without it he knows that instruction would be impossible.
When Anna was first introduced into my establishment, she evidently comprehended that she had fallen among strangers. She brought us her poor playthings, and insisted on our examining them attentively, for she was a baby still; a baby of twenty years of age indeed, but as anxious to be caressed and as requiring of notice as a child of two years old. When led in the evening to her bedside, she immediately began to undress herself, and the next morning rose gaily, showing herself much pleased with the good bed in which she had passed the night. She made a little inclination of the head to the sister who waited on her, as if to salute her. At breakfast we observed that she ate with more cleanliness and propriety than is usual among the blind.
Her first regular lesson was to knit; and we found it far less difficult to teach her the stitch itself than to habituate her to work steadily for a long time together. She had evidently no idea of making it the regular occupation of the day. She would begin by knitting a little; then she would undo or tear up all that was already done; and this would happen regularly over and over again at least twenty times a day. It was weary work at first; but after a time we managed to turn this dislike for continuous occupation into a means of teaching her more important things. The moment she threw aside her work, we took it up, and pretended to insist upon her continuing it; and then at last, when we saw that she was quite vexed and wearied out by our solicitations, we used to offer her her letters. She would take them, and, evidently to avoid further worry, begin to study them; but the letters, like the knitting, were soon flung aside, and then the work once more was put into her hands. In this way, and while she fancied she was only indulging in her own caprices, we were advancing steadily toward our object—training her to occupation, and giving her the means of future communication with her fellow-creatures. We also discovered that it was quite possible to pique her out of her idle habits; for one day in the earlier period of her education, when she happened to be more than usually idle and inattentive, her mistress led her toward a class of children busily employed in working, and said to her by signs, "These little children work; and you, who are twice their size, do you wish to sit there doing nothing?" From that time we had less trouble with her; and once she had learned to knit well and easily, this kind of work seemed to become a positive necessity to her. She delighted in feeling with her fingers the progress she was making, and the needles were scarcely ever out of her hands. When Sunday came, she asked as usual for her knitting, and was terribly disappointed when she found that it was withheld. I took the opportunity to give her an idea of time— avery important point in her future education; so I said to her, "You shall not knit to-day; but after having slept once more—to-morrow in fact—the needles shall be given to you again." I foresaw this to be an explanation that would need repeating; and [{333}] accordingly, the very next Sunday, she asked again for her knitting, and was again refused. She was vexed at first, but grew calm directly I had assured her she should have it "on the morrow."
Many weeks afterward, and when she seemed quite to understand that work on this day was forbidden, she came with a very serious countenance and demanded her knitting; then bursting into a fit of laughing, made signs that she knew she was not to knit on that day, but that to-morrow she should have her work again. She obtained a knowledge of the past and future much sooner than she did of the present, using the signs expressive of the two first long before she made an attempt even at the latter.
It was a matter of great importance that she should understand them all; therefore I not only introduced them over and over again in our conversations, in order to render her familiar with them, but I watched her carefully to see that she made a right use of them in her communications with her companions. A circumstance at last occurred which satisfied me that she was perfect in the lesson. On the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga she went with the other children to a church where the festival was being celebrated. On her return she expressed her gratitude for the pleasure she had received, and the next morning I observed that she told every one she met that "yesterday she had been to such a church;" while the day afterward I perceived that in telling the same story she made the sign of "yesterday" twice over—a proof how perfectly she comprehended the nature and division of time.