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 partes tres” is nothing to it.  Like him, he must go hunting, as if for a needle in a haystack, for the word to put first.  It is the last idea in his sign-sentence.  Then he slowly learns to pick out the words and arrange them in English order—­an order, as I said before, not founded on philosophical principles, but in most instances wholly arbitrary.  This is by no means an easy task.  Years of training do not ensure him against ludicrous lapses.  A fair percentage of the whole number educated learn to construct sentences with tolerable accuracy; a smaller percentage of these acquire fluency, precision and, in some rare instances, grace of expression; but a large proportion never become good English scholars.

The method of beginning their instruction is by means of simple familiar objects, or, where these cannot be obtained, illustrations of them.  A picture of a horse is placed, at one end of the teacher’s blackboard.  Instantly two fingers of each hand go up to the top of each little head.  If it were a picture of an animal with longer ears, each would make an ass of himself.  So far so good, only they do not know the name of this animal, familiar as they are with him.  The teacher writes the name under the picture.  The article “A” is also written, which, though it puzzles them, they must take on trust.  It cannot be explained at this stage.  The teacher then holds up an ear of corn.  Of course they know that very well, and make the sign for it, shelling the fore finger.  It is then laid upon the opposite end of the blackboard, and its name written under it.  A short pause, with a glance first at the horse and then at the corn, soon brings out the sign for “eats,” which is written in its proper place, and the sentence is complete.  The little “ignorants,” as they are dubbed by the older pupils, are then plunged head and ears into the task of learning to form the written characters as well as the construction of sentences.  It is setting foot in an unexplored wilderness.  No ray of light penetrates the darkness of that wilderness save the tiny torch just placed in their hands.