Foreword "Savage girls and wild boys - a history of feral children" by Michael Newton

These are tales of pursuit. The pursuers are various: the young French surgeon flushed with the possibilities of a great enterprise; the wearied, sardonic Scottish doctor; the village priest willing to believe; the eccentric judge; the gentleman of leisure; the errant aristocrat. Yet the object of their pursuit is constant. All of them seek the truth, one that is embodied in another human being; and, for each one, that truth is something that can only be found in the exceptional fate of this boy, of this girl. That is the end of their quest: to fix for a moment the fleeting truth glimpsed within the life, the eyes, the soul, of the wild child.

'Wild child' or 'feral child': the phrase covers a multitude of stories. Mostly it describes children brought up by animals; but over the last few centuries these words have been applied to children who have grown up alone in the wildness, lost in the woods and forests. More strangely the same phrases are also used for those few children who have lived through another, perhaps crueller kind of loneliness, locked for long years in solitary confinement in single rooms. What unites all these stories is the image of a human life developing in complete isolation, cut off from all human contact.

Such stories have afforded generations of scholars, writers and philosophers insights into the very essence of humanity. These children raise the deepest and most insoluble of questions : what is human nature? Does such a thing even exist? How do we differ from otehr animals? Where does our identity come from? And the inevitable silence of these children provokes a further mystery: what part does language play in creating our humanity?

Come on, poor babe
Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens 
To be thy nurses! Wloves and bears, they say,
Casting their savageness aside, have done
Like offices of pity.
   William Shakespeare, from 'The Winter's Tale'

sidenote: ikiru added. thanks for the tip. djm. but i have to say i don't like all of akira kurosawa's movies. especially the making process of them are almost inhuman for human director s and assistant directors. His philosophy is like to promote that of a thornbird. One has to impale itself to let out the cooing for the numb world.