A dirty and naked young boy covered with scabs and bruises crept out of the forest near a small town in Southern France on this date in 1800. Dubbed "The Wild Boy of Aveyron," the boy, who was about 12 or 13, had been wandering alone in the woods for an unknown number of years before being discovered. He was turned over to a young doctor in Paris, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, who named him Victor. Itard took on the study of Victor and his survival as his life's work, uncovering numerous insights into the teaching of the physically and psychologically challenged. Some of Itard's concepts live on in the teachings of childhood education expert Maria Montessori.

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