“drop,” and perhaps an adverb or two like “fast” or “slowly,” and an adjective, “round.” Sometimes there is an awkward hitch and I have to abandon the attempt to teach him some particular word, referring to it again when his vocabulary has been increased in some other direction.

A certain point once passed, it was surprising with what rapidity I proceeded. One word led to another, a number of words to phrases and these to complete sentences. I finally dropped into a way of talking to him about the objects with which we were working, much as I would have talked to a bright child. I was conscious at times that only a small part of what I was saying was understood, but it accustomed him to hearing the words that he knew, used in association with others to form complete statements.

In my search for objects to use in the instruction of Ulysses I happened upon a lump of chalk. With this I sketched various things on a smooth plank of dark wood, and found that they were readily recognized by my pupil. From this I suddenly conceived a new idea. I sent to Madras and had a large, firm blackboard made and ordered chalk and erasers. Then I began a systematic and determined effort to teach Ulysses to read and write.

There is one element that enters into all teaching, of which it is difficult to give any conception in a narrative of results, and that is time. I had been steadily at work with Ulysses for nearly a year before I began to use the blackboard, and after I adopted that assistant it was many months ere important results began to show themselves. Any one who has ever labored with a well-meaning but obtuse pupil, will appreciate how slow and discouraging at times my work must have been. He will also understand how the progress, trifling, when considered day by day, amounted to a good deal when viewed in the aggregate.

I readily taught Ulysses to hold the chalk in the fingers of his proboscis, and to mark with it upon the blackboard. He understood that he was to imitate, as nearly as possible, the marks that I made. In this way I taught him to print the letters of the English alphabet in clumsy characters several inches in size. Gradually he became more expert in making them, and learned the names by which they were called. It was a great triumph for me when I first succeeded in getting him to write the letters of his own name as I called them off, and saw myself the proud possessor of an elephant who could write his autograph, perhaps the first of his species that ever performed that enlightened but compromising feat.

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