that she was completely puzzled. Has the brain then different storage places for letters and numerals? It appears so. And there are varieties of even this strange defect, for there are children who can learn their letters, but stick (for a good physiological reason) at the combinations of them!
What would have been the treatment of such children long ago? What is the treatment they receive in some places even to-day? No doubt they would have been, no doubt they still are, punished. For punishment is a short cut towards many supposed goals, and the tradition of it has come down, sanctioned by the authority of wise men, who knew no more about the brain than Plato knew about Lake Michigan! "There are all degrees of word blindness," writes Dr. Kerr, "from the ordinary bad speller to the individual who cannot recognize any word." And there are all degrees of word-deaf people, from the person (so common!) who has difficulty in remembering what he has heard to the person who cannot remember spoken words at all in the ordinary way. And the failure of these is not the result of the activity of the old Adam in them, but of weakness and defect. It may be overcome in part—or it may be altogether beyond the power of the victim or his friends to improve matters. In any
