THE FORBIDDEN EXPERIMENT: The Story of the...

THE FORBIDDEN EXPERIMENT: The Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron by Roger Shattuck (Kodansha Globe: $13.; 220 pp., illustrated). A reprint of a classic study. In January, 1800, a “brownish, naked, boy” emerged from the woods in France and immediately commanded the attention of psychologists, physicians and anthropologists. Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard, a young doctor who had devised a successful method of instructing deaf mute children, spent years trying to teach Victor, the “Wild Boy,” to speak and to discover what secrets of Natural Man lurked in his soul. Although he made some progress, Victor never really spoke, which led Itard to conclude--as later cases indicate--that children who fail to learn a primary language by age 6 never become truly articulate.