Victor of Aveyron

Feral children constitute a controversial topic to the specialists in the Human Sciences, given the social, psychological, and linguistic implications -among many others- that secluding a child from society at an early age has. I am about to consider what Victor of Aveyron, a Feral child found in France in the 1800's who went through a long process of growing up in the wild, finding his place in society, and trying to adapt to a new life: that of humans.

According to the L’Enfant Sauvage movie, Victor had a severe wound on his throat, perhaps caused in his early years by an attempt of assassination by his caretakers.  Having been abandoned in the wild, he had to adapt to the environment, feeding himself from the plants and animals that surrounded him, and acquiring extraordinary physical abilities that rarely could average children imitate. When Dr. Itard and Madame Guérin took over his re-education, Victor showed response to neither the presence of other humans, nor to heat, words, or noises. However, in later clinical psychology experiments, he proved to respond to the crack of a walnut (which would demonstrate his selective hearing), and showed interest in going towards the sunlight and nature. His biggest pleasures in life seemed to derive from nature, like when he contemplated nature through the window when he drank water.

Dr. Itard carried out experiments to teach Victor the name of some objects, and asked him to withdraw them from other rooms, but he missed the ability to generalize that a hammer could be any hammer, not necessarily that one in the other room, and to bring objects at a random order because he missed the capacity to see the general objective of tasks. He also missed the ability to empathize with other humans -though he did so little by little, especially with Madame Guérin- and to recognize himself in the mirror, contrary to some apes. Other experiments included teaching him the alphabet, the drawings and symbols of some words, and writing his name.  Even though Dr. Itard was very eager to complete every ambitious task, Victor soon lacked interest, not to mention that he was often punished if his behavior or response were not correct (as in Skinner’s Behaviorism). Other than the above, Victor lacked the human abilities to feel compassion for others and to judge a situation by himself, but he did cry when Dr. Itard was being unfair to him, showing an apparent sight of morality.

He had little progress over the years: he paid more and more attention, used his memory more effectively, became neater, produced more sounds to make himself understood, discovered his imagination and learned to play. He started using all his senses to get new knowledge and carry out tasks. He then learned some adjectives and finally he began writing. He never learned to speak more than a few words (perhaps Broca’s aphasia?), but he could write his needs. After six years he moved out to live a life of his own.

 What I can say as an educator is that human nature is a constant, and there might be forces that lead us to behave in special ways.  According to Chomsky (and Lenneberg, 1976), the critical period for children to acquire language is before puberty, but even children like Victor can slowly adapt to society if provided with the right input, and a loving environment that fosters their learning. As Tomasello (2003) puts it: “when we learn we learn in symbols… We go to school to become symbolic. Language is symbolic, which is why it’s so difficult”.  Nature will always drag Victor to climb the trees, but nurture will tell him what other things the tree is useful for.