It seems quite as rapid as talking.
We were present at the afternoon sermon, which lasted about half an
hour, the subject being that of Simeon in the Temple, and except to
express Simeon's name, there was no use at all made of the fingers. Dr.
Stone, the principal, had preached in the morning on the subject of
Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and when we went, the
children were being examined on the subject of this lecture. We _saw_ a
number of questions asked, but in this case the words were spelled in
order that Dr. Stone, who was teaching them, might be satisfied that
they understood the full meaning of the question in its grammatical
sense, as well as its general signification, and the answers were all
written down on large black boards. They wrote with prodigious rapidity
in large distinct writing--and the answers, which were all different and
showed they were not got up by rote, were in most cases very good. This
was being done by the eldest class, and some of the elder boys and girls
seemed full of intelligence. We saw minutely only what was going on in
this and in the youngest class, which was no less remarkable,
considering that some of the children had not been more than two or
three months in the Asylum, and when they came there had no idea of
either reading or writing.
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