Page:Wiggin--Marm Lisa.djvu/60

were no mental processes existing; they are there, but in a very enfeebled state. Of course she should have been under skilled teaching the last six years, but, late as it is, we could not think of giving up a child who can talk, use her right hand, dress herself, go upon errands, recognize colors, wash dishes; who is apparently neither vicious nor cunning, but who, on the contrary, has lived four years under the same roof with Mrs. S. Cora Grubb without rebellion or violence or treachery! Why, dear girls, such a task, if it did not appeal to one on the moral, certainly would on the intellectual side. Marm Lisa will teach us more in a year, you may be sure, than we shall teach her. Let us keep a record of our experiments; drop all materials that seem neither to give her sensations nor wake her discriminative power, and choose others that speak to her more clearly. Let us watch her closely, both to penetrate the secret of her condition and to protect the other children. What a joy, what a triumph, to say to her some dear day, a few years hence, 'You poor, motherless bairn, we have swept away the cobwebs of your dreams, given you back your will, put a clue to things in