[…] he [child] has learned to associate with some of the objects familiar to him the names by which they are called; a result of much putting of the two together on the part of his instructors […] The association in question is doubtless at the outset no easy thing, even for the child; he does not readily catch the idea that a set of sounds belongs to and represents a thing- any more than, when older, the idea that a series of written characters represents a word; but their connection is set so often and so distinctly before him as to be learned at last, just as the connection is learned between sugar and pleasure to the taste, between a rod and retribution for misbehaviour.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.11

The learner grasps the conception, at least in a measure, and then associates his own word with it by a purely external tie, having been able, if so guided, to form the same association with any other existing or possible word, and not less easily and surely.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.18-19

Virtually the object aimed at is to find a signe which may henceforth be linked by association closely to the conception, and used to represent it in communication and in the processes of mental action.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.140