_S----._ A thing to eat.

_Father._ Yes, but what would you call it?

_S----._ A biscuit.

His Father broke it into halves, and showed one half.

_Father._ What would you call this?

_S----._ was silent, and his sister was applied to, who answered,
"Half a biscuit."

_Father._ Very well; that's all at present.

The father prudently stopped here, that he might not confuse his
pupil's understanding. Those only who have attempted to teach children
can conceive how extremely difficult it is to fix their attention, or
to make them seize the connection of ideas, which it appears to us
almost impossible to miss. Children are well occupied in examining
external objects, but they must also attend to words as well as
things. One of the great difficulties in early instruction arises from
the want of words: the pupil very often has acquired the necessary
ideas, but they are not associated in his mind with the words which
his tutor uses; these words are then to him mere sounds, which suggest
no correspondent thoughts. Words, as M. Condillac well observes,[9]
are essential to our acquisition of knowledge; they are the medium
through which one set of beings can convey the result of their
experiments and observations to another; they are, in all mental
processes, the algebraic signs which assist us in solving the most
difficult problems. What agony does a foreigner, knowing himself to be
a man of sense, appear to suffer, when, for want of language, he
cannot in conversation communicate his knowledge, explain his reasons,
enforce his arguments, or make his wit intelligible? In vain he has
recourse to the language of action. The language of action, or, as
Bacon calls it, of "transitory hieroglyphic," is expressive, but
inadequate. As new ideas are collected in the mind, new signs are
wanted, and the progress of the understanding would be early and
fatally impeded by the want of language. M. de la Condamine tells us
that there is a nation who have no sign to express the number three
but this word, _poellartarrorincourac_. These people having begun, as
Condillac observes, in such an incommodious manner, it is not
surprising that they have not advanced further in their knowledge of
arithmetic: they have got no further than the number three; their
knowledge of arithmetic stops for ever at _poellartarrorincourac_. But
even this cumbersome sign is better than none. Those who have the
misfortune to be born deaf and dumb, continue for