Editing Victor of Aveyron (section)

==Education and later life==
It was said that even though he had been exposed to society and education, Victor had made little progress at the institution under Sicard. Many people questioned his ability to learn because of his initial state, and as Yousef explains, "it is one thing to say that the [person] of nature is not yet fully human; it is quite another thing to say that the [person] of nature cannot become fully human."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Yousef |first=Nancy |year=2001 |title=Savage or Solitary?: the Wild Child and Rousseau's Man of Nature |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=245–263 |doi=10.1353/jhi.2001.0021 |s2cid=171035302 }}</ref> After Sicard became frustrated with the lack of progress made by the boy, he was left to roam the institution by himself, until Itard decided to take the boy into his home to keep reports and monitor his development.

===Jean Marc Gaspard Itard===
[[Jean Marc Gaspard Itard]], a young medical student, effectively adopted Victor into his home and published reports on his progress. Itard believed two things separated humans from animals: [[empathy]] and language. He wanted to civilize Victor with the objectives of teaching him to speak and to communicate human emotion. Victor showed significant early progress in understanding language and reading simple words, but failed to progress beyond a rudimentary level. Itard wrote, "Under these circumstances his ear was not an organ for the appreciation of sounds, their articulations and their combinations; it was nothing but a simple means of self-preservation which warned of the approach of a dangerous animal or the fall of wild fruit."<ref name="itard"/>{{rp|26}}

The only two phrases Victor ever actually learned to spell out were ''lait'' ('[[milk]]') and ''Oh, Dieu'' ('Oh, God').<ref>{{cite book |last=Ingalls |first=Robert P. |year=1978 |title=Mental retardation: the changing outlook |location=New York |publisher=Wiley |page=86 |isbn=0-471-42716-0 }}</ref> It would seem, however, that Itard implemented more contemporary views when he was educating Victor. Rousseau appears to have believed "that natural association is based on reciprocally free and equal respect between people."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Winch |first=Christopher |year=1996 |title=Rousseau on Learning: a Re-evaluation |journal=Educational Theory |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=415–428 |doi=10.1111/j.1741-5446.1996.00415.x }}</ref> This notion of how to educate and to teach was something that, although it did not produce the effects hoped for, did prove to be a step towards new systems of [[pedagogy]]. By attempting to learn about the boy who lived in nature, education could be restructured and characterized.

Itard has been recognized as the founder of "oral education of the deaf; the field of [[otolaryngology]]; the use of behavior modification with severely impaired children; and special education for the mentally and physically handicapped."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Carrey |first=Normand J. |year=1995 |title=Itard's 1828 Memoir on 'Mutism Caused by a Lesion of the Intellectual Functions': a Historical Analysis |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry |volume=34 |issue=12 |pages=1655–1661 |doi=10.1097/00004583-199512000-00016 |pmid=8543537 }}</ref>

While Victor did not learn to speak the language that Itard tried to teach him, it seems that Victor did make progress in his behavior towards other people. At the Itard home, housekeeper Madame Guérin was setting the table one evening while crying over the loss of her husband. Victor stopped what he was doing and displayed consoling behavior towards her. Itard reported on this progress.<ref>{{cite book|last=Malson|first= L |date=1964|title=Les enfants sauvages. Mythe et réalité|location= Paris|publisher= Union générale des éditeurs|series= Collection 10/18|page= 234|lang=fr|trans-title=Feral children: Myths and reality}} cited by {{cite book |last1=Gaudreau |first1=Jean |last2=Canevaro |first2=Andrea |year=1990 |title=L'éducation des personnes handicapées hier et aujourd'hui |publisher=Les publications de la faculté des sciences de l'éducation - Université de Montréal |isbn=2-920298-67-4 |page=71 |lang=fr|trans-title=The education of handicapped people, yesterday and today}}</ref>

===Language===
When looking at the association between language and intellect, French society considered one with the other. Unless cared for by friends or family, the mute routinely ended up in horrible, ghastly conditions. However, around 1750, a French priest, [[Charles-Michel de l'Épée]], created the [[Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris]]
to educate the deaf and mute. His institution was made into a National Institute in 1790.<ref name="Shattuck">{{cite book
 |last= Shattuck
 |first= Roger
 |year= 1980
 |title= The Forbidden Experiment
 |url= https://archive.org/details/forbiddenexperim00shat
 |url-access= registration
 |location= New York
 |publisher= Farrar Straus Giroux
|isbn= 9780374157555
 }}</ref>{{rp|61}} This new interest and moral obligation towards the deaf and mute inspired Itard to nurture and attempt to teach Victor language. "He had [[John Locke|Locke]]'s and [[Étienne Bonnot de Condillac|Condillac]]'s theory that we are born with empty heads and that our ideas arise from what we perceive and experience. Having experienced almost nothing of society, the boy remained a savage."<ref name="shattuck"/>{{rp|73}}

Throughout the years Itard spent working with Victor, he made some gradual progress. Victor understood the meaning of actions and used what 20th-century writer [[Roger Shattuck]] describes as "action language," which Itard regarded as a kind of primitive form of communication.<ref name="Shattuck"/>{{rp|98}} However, Itard still could not get Victor to speak. He wondered why Victor would choose to remain silent when he had already proved that he was not, in fact, deaf. Victor also did not understand tones of voice. Itard proclaimed "Victor was the mental and psychological equivalent of someone born deaf and dumb. There would be little point in trying to teach him to speak by the normal means of repeating sounds if he didn't really hear them."<ref name="shattuck"/>{{rp|139–140}}

Shattuck critiques Itard's process of education, wondering why he never attempted to teach Victor to use [[sign language]]. Regardless, today there are certain hypotheses that Shattuck applies to Victor. "One is that the Wild Boy, though born normal, developed a serious mental or psychological disturbance before his abandonment. Precocious [[schizophrenia]], infantile psychosis, autism; a number of technical terms have been applied to his position. Several [[psychiatrist]]s I have consulted favour this approach. It provides both a motivation for abandonment and an explanation for his partial recovery under Itard's treatment."<ref name="shattuck"/>{{rp|169}}

Victor died of pneumonia in Paris in 1828 in the home of Madame Guérin.