This page has been validated.
44
LABOUR AND CHILDHOOD

workman. When a question is asked him he repeats it noiselessly with his lips before he can understand it; but he has made good progress, and speaks and sings too, though with expressionless tones very like a phonograph.

Then there are not only various kinds of word-deafness; there are at least two kinds of word-blindness. In one of these the storage place for written words is damaged. In the other this storage place is intact, but there is no access between it and the visual path. Such a case often becomes an enigma to all. The word-blind child may be clever, good at hand work, quick and responsive, and perhaps to complete his extraordinariness he is gifted with a splendid visual memory, draws well, has a good memory for numerals, and is good at arithmetic. Dr. Thomas describes one of these children. The teacher, bewildered by the boy's intelligence, yet declared he must have a poor memory, since he could not remember how to make letters! Alas! it was not will power that was wanting. He strove hard to learn to read, but all in vain. His writing to dictation was a puzzle—every word wrong, mere meaningless groups of letters. His teacher did her best for him. He was so quick at arithmetic, and could multiply figures so rapidly on the blackboard,