Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 78.djvu/504

494 Facts of a strictly scientific character are furnished by the study of deaf-mutes. In my boyhood I was well acquainted with one of these so-called unfortunates. He was a blacksmith, having learned the trade from his father, and was associated with him in the business. When the father desired him to do anything he addressed him in his natural voice: "Dan, I want you to make a lot of horse-shoe nails"; or he might speak of something that had no connection with the shop as: "To-morrow we will plant corn." This young man had never had any systematic instruction and simply "picked up" his knowledge of English. In order to get some further light on the connexus of speech with thought I addressed a letter of inquiry to superintendent Jones of the Ohio Asylum for the Deaf. I quote from his reply.

The facts above reported, as well as those that have come under my own observation, partake largely of the mysterious. Speaking for myself, I can not comprehend how it is possible to carry on a process of reasoning wholly without the use of words. Such vagaries as we find in "Alice in Wonderland" are not the product of reason, but rather of the constructive imagination as distinguished from the creative. They are