Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1892-11-30
Willie Robin, of Texas, Deaf, Dumb and
Blind.
How HE IS TAUGHT BY Miss EFFIE j.
THAYEK

IHAYEK.
In ThrockmortOn county, Texas, a
little child was born named Willie
Robin. After fifteen months of life she
became blind, deaf and dumb. She
was cut off from all means of com
munication with the rest of the world,
except by the sense of touch. The child
wasfinally taken to the Perkins Insti-
tute for the Blind, near Boston.
The young woman who devoted her.
self to the labor of leading this little
one out of this black and soundless de-
sert is Miss Fife J. Thayer. whose par
ents live at II Brooklyn avenue, Brook
Ign. All that the child learns she gets
through this young woman. To her
Miss Thayer is light and voice and pro-
tection-the only means she has of
touching the world
Before Miss Thayer began her work
the child was carefully examined by
Boston specialists. 1t was found that
the optic and auditory nerves were
completely paralyzed. So dense is the
darkness in which the child lives that
she cannot distinguish even light from
shadow. 1t is all night for her-night
and silence. On December 90. 1890. the
first lesson was given her.
1t would seem, when one first thinks
of it, that it would be impossible to
establish communication with such a
being. Her mind was certainly almost
blank, and it is not easy to think how
the teacher could reach in and take
hold of the few tendrils of thought that
might have reached out even in such
darkness and silence. Miss Thaver did
this, and to-day the child has a vocab-
MARY of about 800 words, asks questions
and understands answers, reads a bit,
and is in many ways as far advanced
as the average hearing and seeing child
of her age.
Miss Thayer's first difficulty was to
get acquainted with the child, In a
few weeks she had her tanned SO that
she would hug and kiss her at times,
and would have hours when she would
be perfectly uractable and obedient.
The first word she taught the child
was hat.
At her first interview with the child
she noticed that it felt around the
floor and picked up shallow basket.
1t felt the basket carefully and put it
on its head. This gave Miss Thayer
the idea of teaching the child the word
hat. She took Willie, as the child is
called, upon her lap. She caught hold
of her right wrist and made her little
fingers feel a dozen hats of different
kinds. Miss Thayer would make the
blind alphabet letters for hat against
the palm of the little ones hand after
feeling each hat. Then she would
form Willie's fingers into the shapes of
the letters. Finally Willie understood
that the personality outside of her was
signalling to her the sign for the OBJ
ject which felt such and such a way.
1t was the first ray of light into the
darkness.
To make sure that Willie understood,
Miss Thayer taught her another word,
fan, in the same way. Then she taught
her the word ring. These lessons were
repeated again and again for ten days.
At the end of that time a whole flood
of light burst into the child's mind.
She grasped the abstract thought that
objects had names. She became eager
for knowledge. She searched about
for objects, and wanted to get the name
for each
After the noun came the verb. This
Miss Thayer taught by acting. For
instance, she would press against the
palm of the little hand the letters of
sit down. Then she would push the
child into a chair. Frequent repeti-
lions of this and other actions, with
their accompanying verbs soon got the
vero idea into the child's mind So
the lessons went on, until now the child
knows the names and shapes of about
400 objects, has a certain understand
ing of 100 verbs, and has an idea of the
meaning of many adjectives, preposi-
lions and adverbs.