instruction, demonstrate that concepts
are formed without words.

With reference to the manner in which uneducated deaf-mutes speak, the
following examples are characteristic performances in gesture-language:

One deaf-mute asks another, "Stay, go you?" (look of inquiry). Answer:
"Go, I" (i. e., "Do you stay or go?" "I go"). "Hunter hare shoots."

"Arm, man, be strong," means, "The man's arm is strong."

"N., spectacles, see," means, "N. sees with the spectacles."

"Run I finished, go to sleep," means, "When I had finished running, I
went to sleep." "Money, you?" means, "Have you money?"

One of the most interesting sights I know of, in a psychological and
physiological point of view, is a conversation in gesture and pantomime
between two or three children born totally deaf, who do not know that
they are observed. I am indebted to Director Oehlwein, of Weimar, for
the opportunity of such observations, as also for the above questions
and answers. Especially those children (of about seven years) not yet
instructed in articulation employ an astonishing number of looks and
gestures, following one upon another with great rapidity, in order to
effect an understanding with one another. They understand one another
very easily, but, because their gestures, and particularly their
excessively subtilized play of feature, do not appear in ordinary life,
these children are just as hard to understand for the uninitiated as are
men who speak a wholly foreign language without any gestures. Even the
eye of the deaf-mute has a different expression from that of the person
who talks. The look seems more "interested," and manifestly far fewer
unnecessary movements of the eyes and contractions of the facial muscles
are made by the deaf-mute than by the child of the same age who has his
hearing.

Further, deaf-mutes, even those of small ability, imitate all sorts of
movements that are plainly visible much better, in general, than do
persons with all their senses. I made, in presence of the children,
several not very easy crossings of the fingers, put my hands in
different positions, and the like--movements that they could not ever
have seen--and I was surprised that some of the children at once made
them deftly, whereas ordinary children, first consider a long time, and
then imitate clumsily. It is doubtless this exaltation of the imitative
functions in deaf-mute children which makes it appear as if they
themselves invented their gestur