one. The signification of the cooing
and the grunting sounds remains the same. The former indicates desire of
food; the latter the need of relieving the bowels. As if to exercise the
vocal cords, extraordinarily high tones are now produced, which may be
regarded as signs of pleasure in his own power. An imperfect language
has thus already been formed imperceptibly, although no single object is
as yet designated by a sound assigned to it _alone_. The articulation
has made progress, for on the three hundred and sixty-eighth day
appeared the first distinct _s_, in the syllable _ssi_; quite
incidentally, to be sure.

The most important advance consists in the now awakened _understanding
of spoken words_. The ability to learn, or the capability of being
trained, has emerged almost as if it had come in a night.

For it did not require frequent repetition of the question, "How tall is
the child?" along with holding up his arms, in order to make him execute
this movement every time that he heard the words, "Wie gross?" ("How
tall?") or "ooss," nay, even merely "oo." It was easy, too, to induce
him to take an ivory ring, lying before him attached to a thread, into
his hand, and reach it to me prettily when I held out my hand and said,
"Where is the ring?" and, after it had been grasped, said, "Give." In
the same way, the child holds the biscuit, which he is carrying to his
mouth, to the lips of the person who says pleasantly to him, "Give"; and
he has learned to move his head sidewise hither and thither when he
hears "No, no." If we say to him, when he wants food or an object he has
seen, "Bitte, bitte" (say "Please"), he puts his hands together in a
begging attitude, a thing which seemed at first somewhat hard for him to
learn. Finally, he had at this time been taught to respond to the
question, "Where is the little rogue?" by touching the side of his head
with his hand (a movement he had often made of himself before).

From this it appears beyond a doubt that now (rather late in comparison
with other children) the association of words heard with certain
movements is established, inasmuch as upon acoustic impressions--at
least upon combined impressions of hearing and of sight, which are
repeated in like fashion--like movements follow, and indeed follow
invariably with the expression of great satisfaction on the countenance.
Yet this connection between the sensorium and the motorium is not yet
stable, for there follows not sel