Some years ago in New England, a little girl named Laura Bridgman, when she was only 2 years of age, was stricken with a mysterious malady, which left her deaf, dumb, and blind. A doctor, Samuel G. Howe, heard of her pathetic condition, and thought he would endeavor to break through her prison house of darkness. He tried an experiment: by placing her fingertips on his lips and reading to her for fifteen minutes every day at a certain time, for ten consecutive days. At the end of ten days, he stopped to see if she would show any signs of awareness. For several days, she didn’t.
And then one day, just at that time, she showed signs of irritability and annoyance and frustration. That was the first great step. Then Dr. Howe knew that he had broken through. From that time on, her