will suppose an intelligent person in the full exercise of all his powers, mental and bodily, to be entirely destitute of all knowledge of language. This we may consider to be an impossibility, for without language it would not be possible for the mind to become at all extensively developed, but for the sake of argument we will suppose the case. What ideas of things, their properties and their relations, could a mind thus situated contain? Certainly they could be nothing more than memories or remembrances of impressions or perceptions. In what way could a person so situated proceed to express to another person one of his ideas? He has no name for it. He has never expressed it by name, even to himself. He has no significant emblem or representative of the idea. How can he express it? To a person thus situated, the only available means of communicating his ideas would be gesture or natural imitative action, which we call pantomime. If he attempt to give an account of actions that he has performed, he must perform a complete repetition of them. If he attempt to describe the effect of actions that were performed by others upon him, he can do it only by replacing himself in the same, or similar circumstances, and receiving, or seeming to receive, the same actions. If he attempt to describe the properties of objects that he has seen, or with which he is familiar, he must show the effect that those properties have produced upon him. In an intelligent, active child, just beginning to express his wants, wishes and ideas, we find a realization of the above supposed case, exeept the developed mind. We here find pantomime subserving a most important use, viz, that of a sort of stepping-stone from a condition of entire destitution of all knowledge of conventional, oral or written language up towards the complete knowledge of it and all kinds of abstractions. This is a fact of which experienced instructors of the deaf and dumb are well aware, though one which many. learned and philosophical men fail to perceive, viz, that the initiatory process of learning language is always in pantomime or indicative action. Without the use of it the infantile mind could never be initiated into a knowledge of the meaning of spoken language. This results necessarily from the purely arbitrary and conventional character of oral or alphabetical language.

But to return to our question. How does the mind acquire a

knowledge of conventional language? By precisely the same process with which it proceeds in obtaining its acquaintance with the whole material world, viz: by a continued course of repeated and reiterated sensations and perceptions. The signs for the ideas, audible and visible, being addressed to the sense of hearing or sight, each individual impression upon the organ of sense addressed, produces a distinct mental perception, which the memory retains; each repeated impression of the sign rendering the remembrance of it more and more perfect until the sound or sight of it instantly recalls to the mind the idea of the thing expressed. To illustrate this we will take any single object and its name, for instance, a tree. We will suppose the learner to be a little child who has not yet learned this name, or a foreigner beginning to learn the English language. The sound of the word tree, when first pronounced in the hearing of such a learner, conveys to his mind no idea. It is simply an audible sound. The object is indicated, and in connection with its indication, the name is pronounced. The learner heard the sound, and with his vocal organs imitates it. Perception of the object in connection with the sound of its name takes place in the mind of the learner. This process is repeated until such a familiarity with this connection is acquired as enables him to associate instantly the name of the object with the sight of it, or vice versâ, the idea of the object with the sound of its name.

In learning the audible names of all objects, and ideas perceived by the several senses, a similar process takes place. The rapidity of the progress, other circumstances being favorable, depends upon the frequency of the repetition of the impressions.

We have thus far explained the process of learning language by the ear. Let us now enquire how the knowledge of written language is acquired by one who has learned vocal language. We will take for example again the word tree. With the sound of this name the learner is perfectly familiar, so that it instantly reminds him of the object. Let the word tree be written and presented to his sight. Will the sight of the word reach his understanding? Surely not. Let him be taught to pronounce the several letters, t-r-e-e. Will he then comprehend its meaning?

Not yet. The idea of a tree has never yet entered his mind through the written word tree. It is his ear only and not his eye that has been educated to understand the word. How shall the idea of a tree be communicated to his mind through the written word? All the while he looks and spells, repeating the letters, the word conveys to him no intelligence, until it is pronounced in his hearing. With the sound of the word he is well acquainted, and he has learned to understand it with his eye, when he has learned to associate the sound of the word with the sight of the written characters used to express that sound. This is what we call learning to read, and from this it appears that what we call learning to read is (with those who possess the powers of hearing,) learning to transfer the knowledge of the ear to the eye, for in reading, even with those who are thoroughly versed in the use of language, the ideas do not reach the mind directly through the eye, but indirectly through the ear, as has been previously remarked, the sight of the word, by a sort of "tacit convention," (the result of repeated use,) awakening the remembrance of its sound previously made familiar to the ear. In the case of the deaf and dumb learning written language, and in case of studying an ideo-graphic language, the ideas may be made to enter the mind directly through the eye. We are aware that by many writers on language the practicability of a language purely ideo-graphical, reaching the mind directly through the eye is denied.

Those who assume this, however, are obliged to make an exception in favor of the deaf and dumb, and from this exception we are led to reflect upon the reason for which ideo-graphic language has come to be regarded so impracticable. Certainly it is not on account of any inherent deficiency in the power of visible signs to express ideas. The spirit can communicate with the outer world through the agency of any one of the senses at a time. Sight is not inferior to hearing in strength and quickness of perception. It is true, indeed, that the senses often act in concert, and thus by a sort of interaction or reciprocal action aid each other.

The perception of the mind acting through one of the senses is often modified by the contemporaneous, previous or succeed

ing action of another organ. So in the use of language the senses prompt and aid each other. As a simple, familiar instance of this, we may remark the manner in which we often correct the spelling of a word of doubtful orthography, in writing. We pronounce it. It sounds right. We write it spelling it in different ways, and look at it to see which appears most correct. In this case, the memory of the eye serves as a guide to the ear. Instructors of the deaf and dumb often see their pupils writing lessons from memory, when hesitating about the spelling of a word, stop and spell it on their fingers to satisfy themselves that it is right. Here we find the memory of the touch aiding the memory of the eye. Many other similar examples of this kind of interchange between the senses in the acquisition and use of language might be shown.

Having spoken of audible and visible language and described the manner in which the knowledge of these is acquired, we might, if our limits would allow, go on and demonstrate the practicability of a language addressed to the mind through either or all of the other senses. The mind acquires knowledge of the external world through each and all of the senses acting under a great variety of circumstances, and in variously combined action. Language is but a portion of the external world, or, more explicitly, the impressions produced upon the senses by the different forms under which language is addressed to the mind through the organs of sense, constitute a portion of the external world with which the mind has especially to do. The signs for ideas of which language is composed, may be addressed to the several senses as well as the forms and properties, actions and relations of things and persons. With audible and visible language we are all familiar. Language in a tangible form is in use among the blind and the deaf and dumb. If then we can speak to the mind through the ear and the eye, and the nerves generally, or the sense of touch, why should we not be able to hold conversation with it by its two remaining windows equally open with the former, viz: the nose and the mouth, the organs of smell and taste? This may be deemed quite fanciful, and indeed so far as any real utility is concerned, in all ordinary circumstances, it may be considered a mere fancy, except as a

matter of philosophical experiment, tending to demonstrate and illustrate more fully the general relation of language to the mind addressed through the senses.

We now return to the point from which we lately digressed, viz: the possibility of ideographic language. Had it not been for the fact, and a great fact indeed it is, that all the world had learned to speak before they learned to write, no intelligent thinking man would ever have doubted the practicability of making the eye by itself comprehend conventional signs for ideas, as well as the ear by itself. Prejudice existed in favor of audible language, from its long continued, extensive, universal use, and its more perfect ease and convenience. In reference to this point, a writer on language has expressed himself thus. After reasoning to prove the superiority of speech over every other form of language, he comes to this conclusion, that "speech alone is properly entitled to the name of language, because it alone can class and methodize ideas, and clothe them in forms which help to discriminate their various shades, and which memory easily retains; that written signs or characters invented by men who can speak, will na turally awaken ideas in the forms in which their language has clothed them, so as to convey them to the mind through those well known forms, and consequently through the words or sounds to which they have been given. Those who are deprived by nature of the sense of hearing, will make the best use they can of the senses which they possess. But, otherwise, speech is the basis of all other modes of communication between men, and all of these modes of communication, whatever be their forms, reach the mind only through the recollection of ideas as clothed in the words of a spoken language,"-to all of which we assent somewhat. "That speech alone is entitled to the name of language because it alone can class and methodize ideas and clothe them in forms which help to discriminate their various shades, and which memory easily retains," we demur decidedly at agreeing to, and, we think, with time and opportunity, could show good cause for our dissent from such a position. Indeed, we think, that were the eye to reply to such an assumption on the part of the ear, it would be inclined to say, and with some good reason, in the words of the lion, in the fable, to the artist who had just finish