Idiocy : and its treatment by the physiological method / by Edward Seguin.

  • Seguin, Edward, 1812-1880.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Idiocy : and its treatment by the physiological method / by Edward Seguin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    noise or movements of other children, will penetrate sooner or later into the blank organ. Surprise sounds, too, are tried occasionally to start up an unexpected sense of hearing. As soon as the child shows signs of sensibility to music, these various experiments must be made pleasant enough to transform the simple function of hearing into the capacities of auditing and listening. One, auditing is developed by giv- ing continuity to the tunes as if they were discoveries; the other, listening is created by breaking the continuity of the tune at its most interesting accent-point where in language we place the mark of interrogation; leaving the ear of the child hearing yet, and listening, as if thirsting for more. But above all, and for our present object, the teaching of music must be soon blended in that of speech, and first of voice. The voice which sings emits vowels; these vowels may be intoned by imitation to the diapason of the speech, and after a while supported by consonants. This transformation is brought on insensibly in the course of the musical training, and shall be more technically improved hereafter. If we now look back, we can see that we began to use music to please, to attract instinctive attention, to give a passive vibration to the muscles and nerves preparatory to and during exercises. We have used music to give perspicuity and con- tinuity to audition, and to support the organs of voice in learning to speak. Finally we shall find it intermingled with most of the exercises and habits of life of our pupils, as a happy, healthy stimulus. It was the most pleasing and unmeaning of our agents; it has become the most useful, it has adapted itself to our deepest purposes. When idiots cry we must remember that they are still children, some of them little infants. Many of them do not speak, they scarcely move, the5A have no other language than cries, no other gymnastic than the diaphragmatic spring-board upon which they exercise their vital organs in respiring and screaming. If we knew more, we should appreciate these voices, all significant of the wants, the love, the excitement of life reduced to its last limits of inwardness. Consulting our own sensations, we could remember how the chest requires expansion, and how often we have yawned with loud sigh after protracted silence and immobility; we ought sometimes