Library Collections: Document: Full Text
![]() |
Ninth Annual Report Of The Trustees Of The Perkins Institution And Massachusetts Asylum For The Blind
|
Previous Page Next Page All Pages
![]() |
Page 9: | |
103 | The notice of her intellectual progress has thus far related to her acquisition of language, and this, to her, was the principal occupation; other children learn language by mere imitation and without effort; she has to ask by a slow method, the name of every new thing; other children use words which they do not understand; but she wishes to know the force of every expression. Her knowledge of language however is no criterion of her knowledge of things; nor has she been taught mere words. She is like a child placed in a foreign country, where one or two persons only know her language, and she is constantly asking of them the names of the objects around her. | |
104 | The moral qualities of her nature have also developed themselves more clearly. She is remarkably correct in her deportment; and few children of her age evince so much sense of propriety in regard to appearance. Never, by any possibility, is she seen out of her room with her dress disordered; and if by chance any spot of dirt is pointed out to her on her person, or any little rent in her dress, she discovers a sense of shame, and hastens to remove it. | |
105 | She is never discovered in an attitude or an action, at which the most fastidious would revolt, but is remarkable for neatness, order, and propriety. | |
106 | There is one fact which is hard to explain in any way; it is the difference of her deportment persons of different sex. This was observable when she was only seven years old. She is very affectionate, and when with her friends of her own sex, she is constantly clinging to them, and often kissing and caressing them; and when she meets with strange ladies, she very soon becomes familiar, examines very freely their dress, and readily allows them to caress her. But with those of the other sex it is entirely different, and she repels every approach to familiarity. She is attached, indeed, to some, and is fond of being with them; but she will not sit upon their knee, for instance, or allow them to take her round the waist, or submit to those innocent familiarities which it is common to take with children of her age. | |
107 | This circumstance will be variously explained by those who have formed theories on the subject; and the inference from it, of a natural feeling of delicacy, will be opposed by some with the fact of the want of delicacy in savages: It will be denied, too, by those who have arrived at that extreme of refinement, which seems to approach the primitive state; who choose that dress shall not be covering, even in promiscuous assemblies; and who there shrink not from the dizzying dance, in which | |
108 |
"Round all the confines of the yielded waist, | |
109 | The fact is merely noticed for the consideration of others; its opposite should have been as unhesitatingly announced, had it existed. | |
110 | She seems to have, also, a remarkable degree of conscientiousness, for one of her age; she respects the rights of others, and will insist upon her own. | |
111 | She is fond of acquiring property, and seems to have an idea of ownership of things which she has long since laid aside, and no longer uses. She has never been known to take any thing belonging to another; and never but in one or two instances to tell a falsehood, and then only under strong temptation. Great care, indeed, has been taken, not to terrify her by punishment, or to make it so severe, as to tempt her to avoid it by duplicity, as children so often do. | |
112 | When she has done wrong, her teacher lets her know that she is grieved, and the tender nature of the child is shown by the ready tears of contrition, and the earnest assurances of amendment, with which she strives to comfort those whom she has pained. | |
113 | When she has done any thing wrong, and grieved her teacher, she does not strive to conceal it from her little companions, but communicates it to them, tells them "it is wrong," and says, "*_____* cannot love wrong girl." | |
114 | When she has any thing nice given to her, she is particularly desirous that those who happen to be ill, or afflicted in any way, should share with her, although they may not be those whom she particularly loves in other circumstances; nay! even if it be one whom she dislikes. She loves to be employed in attending the sick, and is most assiduous in her simple attentions, and tender and endearing in her demeanor. | |
115 | It has been remarked in former reports, that she can distinguish different degrees of intellect in others, and that she soon regarded almost with contempt, a new comer, when, after a few days, she discovered her weakness of mind. This unamiable part of her character has been more strongly developed during the past year. | |
116 | She chooses for her friends and companions, those children who are intelligent, and can talk best with her; and she evidently dislikes to be with those who are deficient in intellect, unless, indeed, she can make them serve her purposes, which she is evidently inclined to do. She takes advantage of them, and makes them wait upon her, in a manner that she knows she could not exact of others; and in various ways she shows her Saxon blood. |