In the year 1887 something like the old in terest was aroused by accounts of the brilliant deaf, dumb and blind child in Alabama, Helen Keller. This child had lost sight and hearing at 19 months as a result of a serious illness. Like Laura she kept actively interested in all that surrounded her, and like Laura she de veloped her own little language of signs. When she was six years old, her friends, who knew of Laura Bridgman's case, applied to Boston for a teacher. In the following year Miss Annie M. Sullivan was sent. This lady was able to put herself in touch with Helen in a very short time and in a marvelous way. In fact, she has proved herself to be a most remarkable teacher. Following in general the methods adopted in teaching Laura, Miss Sullivan began her work by putting Helen in possession of the manual alphabet. A doll was happily chosen to begin with; and with the doll on the child's lap, the teacher formed in Helen's hand the finger let ters Other familiar objects were simi larly introduced, and strange as it may seem, that which had taken three months to reach in Laura's case in Helen's took but a few days; or, in Miss Sullivan's words, was not more than a week before she understood that all things were thus identified.* Her teacher writes : °Never did a child apply herself more joyfully to any task than did Helen to the acquisition of new words. In a few days she had mastered the manual alphabet and learned upward of 100 names.) After teaching verbs and prepositions through action and position Miss Sullivan made a departure. She began to use new words in connection with old words, letting Helen under stand them if possible from the context. The child adopted these words °often without in quiry.° In this way she became familiar with the use of many words whose meaning never had to be explained to her.
As to the letters of the raised alphabet, Miss Sullivan writes: °Incredible as it may seem, she learned all the letters both capital and small in one day.° Then came the primer; then pencil writing than which there is scarcely a more diffi cult exercise for the blind to learn; and yet Helen °wrote without assistance a correctly spelled and legible letter to one of her cousins; and this was only a little more than a month after her first lesson in chirography.° Braille, or tangible point writing, became a constant de light to her.
Words like "perhaps° and °suppose° and those indicative of abstract ideas she learned more through association and repetition than through any explanation of her teacher. The child had the language sense largely developed. Much of the time when no one was talking with her she was reading in books printed in raised letters. in trying to account for Helen's wonderful familiarity with idiomatic English, considers of great significance the statement of Miss Sullivan, that "long before she could read them [the books] . . she would amuse herself for hours each day in carefully passing her fingers over the words, searching for such words as she knew.° In 1888, when Helen was eight years old her teacher took her to South Boston, where she could have the advantage of all the appliances and embossed books that a school for the blind affords.
Thenceforth an account of her progress reads like a romance. It was no more difficult for her to learn a new word in German or in Greek than in English; and she took great delight in picking up and using French or Greek phrases. And when later she came to study these lan guages, she seemed to advance without effort in the knowledge of them. The educators of the deaf, who have good reason to comprehend the exceeding difficulty of teaching their pupils to articulate intelligibly, feel that Helen Keller's rapid mastery of speech is by all odds her most wonderful achievement. After she had been in South Boston some little time she heard of a Swedish girl afflicted like herself, who had learned to speak, and she said, "I must learn to speak.° Miss Sullivan took her to Miss Sarah Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, and though Helen's only means of learning the position of the vocal organs in speech was to put her fingers on the lips, tongue, teeth and throat of the speaker, she learned in 10 lessons to articulate so well that she could carry on an intelligible and audible conversa tion, having communication addressed to her spelled into her hand by the manual alphabet. She has learned since that time to read from the lips and throat of a speaker by placing her fingers lightly on them; so that any one sitting near her can converse with her just as though she could both hear and see. She spent a win ter at the Wright-Humason Private School for the Deaf, where she improved her articulation. When Helen was 16 years old she entered the Cambridge School for Girls, Miss Sullivan ac companying her. There, under the guidance of Mr. Arthur Gilman, the director of the school, she took the course preparatory to entering Radcliffe College. At the end of one year she took the regular required examinations in the history of Greece and Rome, in English, in Latin, in elementary French, in elementary Ger man and in advanced German. As the ques tions and other matter were read into her hand by Mr. Gilman himself, Helen wrote her an swers and translations on an ordinary type writer. She passed the tests in every subject, taking "honors" in English and German. Mr. Gilman writes: "I think that I may say that no candidate in Harvard or Radcliffe College was graded higher than Helen in English.° She entered Radcliffe in 1900 and was graduated from it in due course in 1904, receiving her A.B.
•cum laudel or with distinction. Miss Sullivan remained with her throughout, acting every where as interpreter. Miss Keller still lives with this faithful friend who is now Mrs. Macy. She spends much time reading and writing and studying; in fact she is essentially a student and a thinker and is not, as is often hinted, depend ent for ideas upon those about her. Neither is she merely intellectual, being unusually capa able in the practical affairs of the household. She has a very normal interest in her personal appearance and has cultivated a charming social personality.