We early learned to talk with Laura. She used the single-handed alphabet, making each letter very carefully for those who had not learned to understand her rapidly. As soon as you recognized the letter you tapped her hand gently as a sign for her to give the next one. When answering, you formed the letters in the hollow of her hand, which partly closed over your fingers while she quickly grasped your meaning. Conversation was carried on rapidly with those accustomed to talk with her. She was in the habit of speaking certain words and making some abbreviations, thus saving time. By feeling of the lips and throat of her interlocutor she had learned to articulate certain sounds. If you asked her to rehearse her little vocabulary, she would first spell the word on her fingers and then pronounce it. “Doc—Doc” was the abbreviation for her beloved “Doctor,” as my father was universally called at the institutions under his charge. She had nearly sixty sounds for persons.[6] My father regretted later that he had not taught Laura to speak. He was one of the earliest advocates in America of teaching articulation to deaf-mutes. One of his battles royal was with the authorities at Hartford, who were much opposed to this system, now the universally accepted one. I remember the visit of a German deaf-mute to my father when I was a child. He arranged that our cook, who was of the same nationality, should have a little talk with the man. When informed afterward that he was deaf she refused to believe it! Footnote 6: See Dr. Francis Lieber’s account of Laura Bridgman’s vocal sounds printed by the Smithsonian Institution in Vol. II of the _Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VII YOUNG AMERICA GOES TO SCHOOL _Our Schools and Teachers.—The South Boston Omnibus.—A Grand School Sleigh-ride.—Memories of the Adams Family.—A Picnic on the State House Steps._