December 20, 1900.
My dear Mr. Copeland;
I venture to write to you because I am afraid that if I do not
explain why I have stopped writing themes, you will think I have
become discouraged, or perhaps that to escape criticism I have
beat a cowardly retreat from your class. Please do not think
either of these very unpleasant thoughts. I am not discouraged,
nor am I afraid. I am confident that I could go on writing themes
like those I have written, and I suppose I should get through the
course with fairly good marks; but this sort of literary
patch-work has lost all interest for me. I have never been
satisfied with my work; but I never knew what my difficulty was
until you pointed it out to me. When I came to your class last
October, I was trying with all my might to be like everybody
else, to forget as entirely as possible my limitations and
peculiar environment. Now, however, I see the folly of attempting
to hitch one's wagon to a star with harness that does not belong
to it.
I have always accepted other peoples experiences and observations
as a matter of course. It never occurred to me that it might be
worth while to make my own observations and describe the
experiences peculiarly my own. Henceforth I am resolved to be
myself, to live my own life and write my own thoughts when I have
any. When I have written something that seems to be fresh and
spontaneous and worthy of your criticisms, I will bring it to
you, if I may, and if you think it good, I shall be happy; but if
your verdict is unfavorable, I shall try again and yet again
until I have succeeded in pleasing you...
TO MRS. LAURENCE HUTTON
14 Coolidge Avenue, Cambridge,
December 27, 1900.
...So you read about our class luncheon in the papers? How in the
world do the papers find out everything, I wonder. I am sure no
reporter was present. I had a splendid time; the toasts and
speeches were great fun. I only spoke a few words, as I did not
know I was expected to speak until a few minutes before I was
called upon. I think I wrote you that I had been elected
Vice-President of the Freshman Class of Radcliffe.
Did I tell you in my last letter that I had a new dress, a real
party dress with low neck and short sleeves and quite a train? It
is pale blue, trimmed with chiffon of the same color. I have worn
it only once, but then I felt that Solomon in all his glory was
not to be compared with me! Anyway, he certainly never had a
dress like mine!...
A gentleman in Philadelphia has just written to my teacher about
a deaf and blind child in Paris, whose parents are Poles. The
mother is a physician and a brilliant woman, he says. This little
boy could speak two or three languages before he lost his hearing
through sickness, and he is now only about five years old. Poor
little fellow, I wish I could do something for him; but he is so
young, my teacher thinks it would be too bad to separate him from
his mother. I have had a letter from Mrs. Thaw with regard to the
possibility of doing something for these children. Dr. Bell
thinks the present census will show that there are more than a
thousand in the United States alone [The number of deaf-blind
young enough to be benefited by education is not so large as
this; but the education of this class of defectives has been
neglected.]; and Mrs. Thaw thinks if all my friends were to unite
their efforts, "it would be an easy matter to establish at the
beginning of this new century a new line upon which mercy might
travel," and the rescue of these unfortunate children could be
accomplished....
TO MR. WILLIAM WADE
Cambridge, February 2, 1901.
...By the way, have you any specimens of English braille
especially printed for those who have lost their sight late in
life or have fingers hardened by long toil, so that their touch
is less sensitive than that of other blind people? I read an
account of such a system in one of my English magazines, and I am
anxious to know more about it. If it is as efficient as they say,
I see no reason why English braille should not be adopted by the
blind of all countries. Why, it is the print that can be most
readily adapted to many different languages. Even Greek can be
embossed in it, as you know. Then, too, it will be rendered still
more efficient by the "interpointing system," which will save an
immense amount of space and paper. There is nothing more absurd,
I think, than to have five or six different prints for the
blind....
This letter was written in response to a tentative offer from the
editor of The Great Round World to have the magazine published in
raised type for the blind, if enough were willing to subscribe.
It is evident that the blind should have a good magazine, not a
special magazine for the blind, but one of our best monthlies,
printed in embossed letters. The blind alone could not support
it, but it would not take very much money to make up the
additional expense.
To THE GREAT ROUND WORLD
Cambridge, Feb. 16, 1901.
The Great Round World,
New York City.
Gentlemen: I have only to-day found time to reply to your
interesting letter. A little bird had already sung the good news
in my ear; but it was doubly pleasant to have it straight from
you.
It would be splendid to have The Great Round World printed in
"language that can be felt." I doubt if any one who enjoys the
wondrous privilege of seeing can have any conception of the boon
such a publication as you contemplate would be to the sightless.
To be able to read for one's self what is being willed, thought
and done in the world--the world in whose joys and sorrows,
failures and successes one feels the keenest interest--that would
indeed be a happiness too deep for words. I trust that the effort
of The Great Round World to bring light to those who sit in
darkness will receive the encouragement and support it so richly
deserves.
I doubt, however, if the number of subscribers to an embossed
edition of The Great Round World would ever be large; for I am
told that the blind as a class are poor. But why should not the
friends of the blind assist The Great Round World, if necessary?
Surely there are hearts and hands ever ready to make it possible
for generous intentions to be wrought into noble deeds.
Wishing you godspeed in an undertaking that is very dear to my
heart, I am, etc.
TO MISS NINA RHOADES
Cambridge, Sept. 25, 1901.
...We remained in Halifax until about the middle of August....
Day after day the Harbor, the warships, and the park kept us busy
thinking and feeling and enjoying.... When the Indiana visited
Halifax, we were invited to go on board, and she sent her own
launch for us. I touched the immense cannon, read with my fingers
several of the names of the Spanish ships that were captured at
Santiago, and felt the places where she had been pierced with
shells. The Indiana was the largest and finest ship in the
Harbor, and we felt very proud of her.
After we left Halifax, we visited Dr. Bell at Cape Breton. He has
a charming, romantic house on a mountain called Beinn Bhreagh,
which overlooks the Bras d'Or Lake....
Dr. Bell told me many interesting things about his work. He had
just constructed a boat that could be propelled by a kite with
the wind in its favor, and one day he tried experiments to see if
he could steer the kite against the wind. I was there and really
helped him fly the kites. On one of them I noticed that the
strings were of wire, and having had some experience in bead
work, I said I thought they would break. Dr. Bell said "No!" with
great confidence, and the kite was sent up. It began to pull and
tug, and lo, the wires broke, and off went the great red dragon,
and poor Dr. Bell stood looking forlornly after it. After that he
asked me if the strings were all right and changed them at once
when I answered in the negative. Altogether we had great fun....
TO DR. EDWARD EVERETT HALE [Read by Dr. Hale at the celebration
of the centenary of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, at Tremont Temple,
Boston, Nov. 11, 1901.]
Cambridge, Nov. 10, 1901.
My teacher and I expect to be present at the meeting tomorrow in
commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of Dr. Howe's
birth; but I very much doubt if we shall have an opportunity to
speak with you; so I am writing now to tell you how delighted I
am that you are to speak at the meeting, because I feel that you,
better than any one I know will express the heartfelt gratitude
of those who owe their education, their opportunities, their
happiness to him who opened the eyes of the blind and gave the
dumb lip language.
Sitting here in my study, surrounded by my books, enjoying the
sweet and intimate companionship of the great and the wise, I am
trying to realize what my life might have been, if Dr. Howe had
failed in the great task God gave him to perform. If he had not
taken upon himself the responsibility of Laura Bridgman's
education and led her out of the pit of Acheron back to her human
inheritance, should I be a sophomore at Radcliffe College
to-day--who can say? But it is idle to speculate about what might
have been in connection with Dr. Howe's great achievement.
I think only those who have escaped that death-in-life existence,
from which Laura Bridgman was rescued, can realize how isolated,
how shrouded in darkness, how cramped by its own impotence is a
soul without thought or faith or hope. Words are powerless to
describe the desolation of that prison-house, or the joy of the
soul that is delivered out of its captivity. When we compare the
needs and helplessness of the blind before Dr. Howe began his
work, with their present usefulness and independence, we realize
that great things have been done in our midst. What if physical
conditions have built up high walls about us? Thanks to our
friend and helper, our world lies upward; the length and breadth
and sweep of the heavens are ours!
It is pleasant to think that Dr. Howe's noble deeds will receive
their due tribute of affection and gratitude, in the city, which
was the scene of his great labors and splendid victories for
humanity.
With kind greetings, in which my teacher joins me, I am
Affectionately your friend,
HELEN KELLER.
TO THE HON. GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR
Cambridge, Mass., November 25, 1901.
My Dear Senator Hoar:--
I am glad you liked my letter about Dr. Howe. It was written out
of my heart, and perhaps that is why it met a sympathetic
response in other hearts. I will ask Dr. Hale to lend me the
letter, so that I can make a copy of it for you.
You see, I use a typewriter--it is my right hand man, so to
speak. Without it I do not see how I could go to college. I write
all my themes and examinations on it, even Greek. Indeed, it has
only one drawback, and that probably is regarded as an advantage
by the professors; it is that one's mistakes may be detected at a
glance; for there is no chance to hide them in illegible writing.
I know you will be amused when I tell you that I am deeply
interested in politics. I like to have the papers read to me, and
I try to understand the great questions of the day; but I am
afraid my knowledge is very unstable; for I change my opinions
with every new book I read. I used to think that when I studied
Civil Government and Economics, all my difficulties and
perplexities would blossom into beautiful certainties; but alas,
I find that there are more tares than wheat in these fertile
fields of knowledge....
III: A SUPPLEMENTARY ACCOUNT OF HELEN KELLER'S LIFE AND EDUCATION
CHAPTER I. The Writing of the Book
It is fitting that Miss Keller's "Story of My Life" should appear at
this time. What is remarkable in her career is already accomplished,
and whatever she may do in the future will be but a relatively slight
addition to the success which distinguishes her now. That success has
just been assured, for it is her work at Radcliffe during the last two
years which has shown that she can carry her education as far as if
she were studying under normal conditions. Whatever doubts Miss Keller
herself may have had are now at rest.
Several passages of her autobiography, as it appeared in serial form,
have been made the subject of a grave editorial in a Boston newspaper,
in which the writer regretted Miss Keller's apparent disillusionment in
regard to the value of her college life. He quoted the passages in which
she explains that college is not the "universal Athens" she had hoped to
find, and cited the cases of other remarkable persons whose college life
had proved disappointing. But it is to be remembered that Miss Keller
has written many things in her autobiography for the fun of writing
them, and the disillusion, which the writer of the editorial took
seriously, is in great part humorous. Miss Keller does not suppose her
views to be of great importance, and when she utters her opinions on
important matters she takes it for granted that her reader will receive
them as the opinions of a junior in college, not of one who writes with
the wisdom of maturity. For instance, it surprised her that some people
were annoyed at what she said about the Bible, and she was amused that
they did not see, what was plain enough, that she had been obliged
to read the whole Bible in a course in English literature, not as a
religious duty put upon her by her teacher or her parents.
I ought to apologize to the reader and to Miss Keller for presuming
to say what her subject matter is worth, but one more explanation is
necessary. In her account of her early education Miss Keller is not
giving a scientifically accurate record of her life, nor even of the
important events. She cannot know in detail how she was taught, and her
memory of her childhood is in some cases an idealized memory of what
she has learned later from her teacher and others. She is less able to
recall events of fifteen years ago than most of us are to recollect our
childhood. That is why her teacher's records may be found to differ in
some particulars from Miss Keller's account.
The way in which Miss Keller wrote her story shows, as nothing else can
show, the difficulties she had to overcome. When we write, we can go
back over our work, shuffle the pages, interline, rearrange, see how
the paragraphs look in proof, and so construct the whole work before
the eye, as an architect constructs his plans. When Miss Keller puts her
work in typewritten form, she cannot refer to it again unless some one
reads it to her by means of the manual alphabet.
This difficulty is in part obviated by the use of her braille machine,
which makes a manuscript that she can read; but as her work must be put
ultimately in typewritten form, and as a braille machine is somewhat
cumbersome, she has got into the habit of writing directly on her
typewriter. She depends so little on her braille manuscript, that, when
she began to write her story more than a year ago and had put in
braille a hundred pages of material and notes, she made the mistake of
destroying these notes before she had finished her manuscript. Thus she
composed much of her story on the typewriter, and in constructing it
as a whole depended on her memory to guide her in putting together the
detached episodes, which Miss Sullivan read over to her.
Last July, when she had finished under great pressure of work her final
chapter, she set to work to rewrite the whole story. Her good friend,
Mr. William Wade, had a complete braille copy made for her from the
magazine proofs. Then for the first time she had her whole manuscript
under her finger at once. She saw imperfections in the arrangement of
paragraphs and the repetition of phrases. She saw, too, that her story
properly fell into short chapters and redivided it.
Partly from temperament, partly from the conditions of her work, she has
written rather a series of brilliant passages than a unified narrative;
in point of fact, several paragraphs of her story are short themes
written in her English courses, and the small unit sometimes shows its
original limits.
In rewriting the story, Miss Keller made corrections on separate
pages on her braille machine. Long corrections she wrote out on her
typewriter, with catch-words to indicate where they belonged. Then she
read from her braille copy the entire story, making corrections as she
read, which were taken down on the manuscript that went to the printer.
During this revision she discussed questions of subject matter and
phrasing. She sat running her finger over the braille manuscript,
stopping now and then to refer to the braille notes on which she had
indicated her corrections, all the time reading aloud to verify the
manuscript.
She listened to criticism just as any author listens to his friends or
his editor. Miss Sullivan, who is an excellent critic, made suggestions
at many points in the course of composition and revision. One newspaper
suggested that Miss Keller had been led into writing the book and had
been influenced to put certain things into it by zealous friends. As a
matter of fact, most of the advice she has received and heeded has led
to excisions rather than to additions. The book is Miss Keller's and is
final proof of her independent power.
CHAPTER II. PERSONALITY
Mark Twain has said that the two most interesting characters of the
nineteenth century are Napoleon and Helen Keller. The admiration with
which the world has regarded her is more than justified by what she has
done. No one can tell any great truth about her which has not already
been written, and all that I can do is to give a few more facts about
Miss Keller's work and add a little to what is known of her personality.
Miss Keller is tall and strongly built, and has always had good health.
She seems to be more nervous than she really is, because she expresses
more with her hands than do most English-speaking people. One reason
for this habit of gesture is that her hands have been so long her
instruments of communication that they have taken to themselves the
quick shiftings of the eye, and express some of the things that we say
in a glance. All deaf people naturally gesticulate. Indeed, at one time
it was believed that the best way for them to communicate was through
systematized gestures, the sign language invented by the Abbe de l'Epee.
When Miss Keller speaks, her face is animated and expresses all the
modes of her thought--the expressions that make the features eloquent
and give speech half its meaning. On the other hand she does not know
another's expression. When she is talking with an intimate friend,
however, her hand goes quickly to her friend's face to see, as she says,
"the twist of the mouth." In this way she is able to get the meaning of
those half sentences which we complete unconsciously from the tone of
the voice or the twinkle of the eye.
Her memory of people is remarkable. She remembers the grasp of fingers
she has held before, all the characteristic tightening of the muscles
that makes one person's handshake different from that of another.
The trait most characteristic, perhaps, of Miss Keller (and also of Miss
Sullivan) is humour. Skill in the use of words and her habit of playing
with them make her ready with mots and epigrams.
Some one asked her if she liked to study.
"Yes," she replied, "but I like to play also, and I feel sometimes as if
I were a music box with all the play shut up inside me."
When she met Dr. Furness, the Shakespearean scholar, he warned her not
to let the college professors tell her too many assumed facts about
the life of Shakespeare; all we know, he said, is that Shakespeare was
baptized, married, and died.
"Well," she replied, "he seems to have done all the essential things."
Once a friend who was learning the manual alphabet kept making "g,"
which is like the hand of a sign-post, for "h," which is made with two
fingers extended. Finally Miss Keller told him to "fire both barrels."
Mr. Joseph Jefferson was once explaining to Miss Keller what the bumps
on her head meant.
"That," he said, "is your prize-fighting bump."
"I never fight," she replied, "except against difficulties."
Miss Keller's humour is that deeper kind of humour which is courage.
Thirteen years ago she made up her mind to learn to speak, and she gave
her teacher no rest until she was allowed to take lessons, although wise
people, even Miss Sullivan, the wisest of them all, regarded it as an
experiment unlikely to succeed and almost sure to make her unhappy. It
was this same perseverance that made her go to college. After she had
passed her examinations and received her certificate of admission,
she was advised by the Dean of Radcliffe and others not to go on. She
accordingly delayed a year. But she was not satisfied until she had
carried out her purpose and entered college.
Her life has been a series of attempts to do whatever other people do,
and to do it as well. Her success has been complete, for in trying to
be like other people she has come most fully to be herself. Her
unwillingness to be beaten has developed her courage. Where another
can go, she can go. Her respect for physical bravery is like
Stevenson's--the boy's contempt for the fellow who cries, with a touch
of young bravado in it. She takes tramps in the woods, plunging through
the underbrush, where she is scratched and bruised; yet you could not
get her to admit that she is hurt, and you certainly could not persuade
her to stay at home next time.
So when people try experiments with her, she displays a sportsmanlike
determination to win in any test, however unreasonable, that one may
wish to put her to.
If she does not know the answer to a question, she guesses with
mischievous assurance. Ask her the colour of your coat (no blind person
can tell colour), she will feel it and say "black." If it happens to be
blue, and you tell her so triumphantly, she is likely to answer, "Thank
you. I am glad you know. Why did you ask me?"
Her whimsical and adventuresome spirit puts her so much on her mettle
that she makes rather a poor subject for the psychological experimenter.
Moreover, Miss Sullivan does not see why Miss Keller should be subjected
to the investigation of the scientist, and has not herself made many
experiments. When a psychologist asked her if Miss Keller spelled on her
fingers in her sleep, Miss Sullivan replied that she did not think
it worth while to sit up and watch, such matters were of so little
consequence.
Miss Keller likes to be part of the company. If any one whom she is
touching laughs at a joke, she laughs, too, just as if she had heard
it. If others are aglow with music, a responding glow, caught
sympathetically, shines in her face. Indeed, she feels the movements
of Miss Sullivan so minutely that she responds to her moods, and so she
seems to know what is going on, even though the conversation has not
been spelled to her for some time. In the same way her response to music
is in part sympathetic, although she enjoys it for its own sake.
Music probably can mean little to her but beat and pulsation. She cannot
sing and she cannot play the piano, although, as some early experiments
show, she could learn mechanically to beat out a tune on the keys. Her
enjoyment of music, however, is very genuine, for she has a tactile
recognition of sound when the waves of air beat against her. Part of her
experience of the rhythm of music comes, no doubt, from the vibration
of solid objects which she is touching: the floor, or, what is more
evident, the case of the piano, on which her hand rests. But she seems
to feel the pulsation of the air itself. When the organ was played for
her in St. Bartholomew's, the whole building shook with the great
pedal notes, but that does not altogether account for what she felt and
enjoyed. The vibration of the air as the organ notes swelled made her
sway in answer. Sometimes she puts her hand on a singer's throat to
feel the muscular thrill and contraction, and from this she gets genuine
pleasure. No one knows, however, just what her sensations are. It is
amusing to read in one of the magazines of 1895 that Miss Keller "has
a just and intelligent appreciation of different composers from having
literally felt their music, Schumann being her favourite." If she knows
the difference between Schumann and Beethoven, it is because she has
read it, and if she has read it, she remembers it and can tell any one
who asks her.
Miss Keller's effort to reach out and meet other people on their own
intellectual ground has kept her informed of daily affairs. When her
education became more systematic and she was busy with books, it would
have been very easy for Miss Sullivan to let her draw into herself, if
she had been so inclined. But every one who has met her has given
his best ideas to her and she has taken them. If, in the course of a
conversation, the friend next to her has ceased for some moments to
spell into her hand, the question comes inevitably, "What are you
talking about?" Thus she picks up the fragments of the daily intercourse
of normal people, so that her detailed information is singularly full
and accurate. She is a good talker on the little occasional affairs of
life.
Much of her knowledge comes to her directly. When she is out walking she
often stops suddenly, attracted by the odour of a bit of shrubbery. She
reaches out and touches the leaves, and the world of growing things is
hers, as truly as it is ours, to enjoy while she holds the leaves in her
fingers and smells the blossoms, and to remember when the walk is done.
When she is in a new place, especially an interesting place like
Niagara, whoever accompanies her--usually, of course, Miss Sullivan--is
kept busy giving her an idea of visible details. Miss Sullivan, who
knows her pupil's mind, selects from the passing landscape essential
elements, which give a certain clearness to Miss Keller's imagined
view of an outer world that to our eyes is confused and overloaded with
particulars. If her companion does not give her enough details,
Miss Keller asks questions until she has completed the view to her
satisfaction.
She does not see with her eyes, but through the inner faculty to serve
which eyes were given to us. When she returns from a walk and tells some
one about it, her descriptions are accurate and vivid. A comparative
experience drawn from written descriptions and from her teacher's words
has kept her free from errors in her use of terms of sound and
vision. True, her view of life is highly coloured and full of poetic
exaggeration; the universe, as she sees it, is no doubt a little better
than it really is. But her knowledge of it is not so incomplete as one
might suppose. Occasionally she astonishes you by ignorance of some fact
which no one happens to have told her; for instance, she did not know,
until her first plunge into the sea, that it is salt. Many of the
detached incidents and facts of our daily life pass around and over her
unobserved; but she has enough detailed acquaintance with the world to
keep her view of it from being essentially defective.
Most that she knows at first hand comes from her sense of touch. This
sense is not, however, so finely developed as in some other blind
people. Laura Bridgman could tell minute shades of difference in the
size of thread, and made beautiful lace. Miss Keller used to knit and
crochet, but she has had better things to do. With her varied powers and
accomplishments, her sense of touch has not been used enough to develop
it very far beyond normal acuteness. A friend tried Miss Keller one
day with several coins. She was slower than he expected her to be in
identifying them by their relative weight and size. But it should be
said she almost never handles money--one of the many sordid and petty
details of life, by the way, which she has been spared.
She recognizes the subject and general intention of a statuette six
inches high. Anything shallower than a half-inch bas-relief is a blank
to her, so far as it expresses an idea of beauty. Large statues, of
which she can feel the sweep of line with her whole hand, she knows in
their higher esthetic value. She suggests herself that she can know
them better than we do, because she can get the true dimensions and
appreciate more immediately the solid nature of a sculptured figure.
When she was at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston she stood on a
step-ladder and let both hands play over the statues. When she felt a
bas-relief of dancing girls she asked, "Where are the singers?" When
she found them she said, "One is silent." The lips of the singer were
closed.
It is, however, in her daily life that one can best measure the delicacy
of her senses and her manual skill. She seems to have very little sense
of direction. She gropes her way without much certainty in rooms where
she is quite familiar. Most blind people are aided by the sense of
sound, so that a fair comparison is hard to make, except with other
deaf-blind persons. Her dexterity is not notable either in comparison
with the normal person, whose movements are guided by the eye, or, I am
told, with other blind people. She has practised no single constructive
craft which would call for the use of her hands. When she was twelve,
her friend Mr. Albert H. Munsell, the artist, let her experiment with a
wax tablet and a stylus. He says that she did pretty well and managed to
make, after models, some conventional designs of the outlines of leaves
and rosettes. The only thing she does which requires skill with
the hands is her work on the typewriter. Although she has used the
typewriter since she was eleven years old, she is rather careful than
rapid. She writes with fair speed and absolute sureness. Her manuscripts
seldom contain typographical errors when she hands them to Miss Sullivan
to read. Her typewriter has no special attachments. She keeps the
relative position of the keys by an occasional touch of the little
finger on the outer edge of the board.
Miss Keller's reading of the manual alphabet by her sense of touch seems
to cause some perplexity. Even people who know her fairly well have
written in the magazines about Miss Sullivan's "mysterious telegraphic
communications" with her pupil. The manual alphabet is that in use among
all educated deaf people. Most dictionaries contain an engraving of the
manual letters. The deaf person with sight looks at the fingers of his
companion, but it is also possible to feel them. Miss Keller puts her
fingers lightly over the hand of one who is talking to her and gets the
words as rapidly as they can be spelled. As she explains, she is not
conscious of the single letters or of separate words. Miss Sullivan and
others who live constantly with the deaf can spell very rapidly--fast
enough to get a slow lecture, not fast enough to get every word of a
rapid speaker.
Anybody can learn the manual letters in a few minutes, use them slowly
in a day, and in thirty days of constant use talk to Miss Keller or any
other deaf person without realizing what his fingers are doing. If more
people knew this, and the friends and relatives of deaf children learned
the manual alphabet at once the deaf all over the world would be happier
and better educated.
Miss Keller reads by means of embossed print or the various kinds of
braille. The ordinary embossed book is made with roman letters, both
small letters and capitals. These letters are of simple, square, angular
design. The small letters are about three-sixteenths of an inch high,
and are raised from the page the thickness of the thumbnail. The books
are large, about the size of a volume of an encyclopedia. Green's "Short
History of the English People" is in six large volumes. The books are
not heavy, because the leaves with the raised type do not lie close. The
time that one of Miss Keller's friends realizes most strongly that she
is blind is when he comes on her suddenly in the dark and hears the
rustle of her fingers across the page.
The most convenient print for the blind is braille, which has several
variations, too many, indeed--English, American, New York Point. Miss
Keller reads them all. Most educated blind people know several, but it
would save trouble if, as Miss Keller suggests, English braille were
universally adopted. The facsimile on page xv [omitted from etext] gives
an idea of how the raised dots look. Each character (either a letter or
a special braille contraction) is a combination made by varying in place
and number points in six possible positions. Miss Keller has a braille
writer on which she keeps notes and writes letters to her blind friends.
There are six keys, and by pressing different combinations at a stroke
(as one plays a chord on the piano) the operator makes a character at a
time in a sheet of thick paper, and can write about half as rapidly
as on a typewriter. Braille is especially useful in making single
manuscript copies of books.
Books for the blind are very limited in number. They cost a great deal
to publish and they have not a large enough sale to make them profitable
to the publisher; but there are several institutions with special funds
to pay for embossed books. Miss Keller is more fortunate than most blind
people in the kindness of her friends who have books made especially for
her, and in the willingness of gentlemen, like Mr. E. E. Allen of the
Pennsylvania Institute for the Instruction of the Blind, to print, as he
has on several occasions, editions of books that she has needed.
Miss Keller does not as a rule read very fast, but she reads
deliberately, not so much because she feels the words less quickly than
we see then, as because it is one of her habits of mind to do things
thoroughly and well. When a passage interests her, or she needs to
remember it for some future use, she flutters it off swiftly on the
fingers of her right hand. Sometimes this finger-play is unconscious.
Miss Keller talks to herself absent-mindedly in the manual alphabet.
When she is walking up or down the hall or along the veranda, her hands
go flying along beside her like a confusion of birds' wings.
There is, I am told, tactile memory as well as visual and aural memory.
Miss Sullivan says that both she and Miss Keller remember "in their
fingers" what they have said. For Miss Keller to spell a sentence in the
manual alphabet impresses it on her mind just as we learn a thing from
having heard it many times and can call back the memory of its sound.
Like every deaf or blind person, Miss Keller depends on her sense of
smell to an unusual degree. When she was a little girl she smelled
everything and knew where she was, what neighbour's house she was
passing, by the distinctive odours. As her intellect grew she became
less dependent on this sense. To what extent she now identifies objects
by their odour is hard to determine. The sense of smell has fallen into
disrepute, and a deaf person is reluctant to speak of it. Miss Keller's
acute sense of smell may account, however, in some part for that
recognition of persons and things which it has been customary to
attribute to a special sense, or to an unusual development of the power
that we all seem to have of telling when some one is near.
The question of a special "sixth sense," such as people have ascribed.
to Miss Keller, is a delicate one. This much is certain, she cannot have
any sense that other people may not have, and the existence of a special
sense is not evident to her or to any one who knows her. Miss Keller is
distinctly not a singular proof of occult and mysterious theories,
and any attempt to explain her in that way fails to reckon with her
normality. She is no more mysterious and complex than any other person.
All that she is, all that she has done, can be explained directly,
except such things in every human being as never can be explained. She
does not, it would seem, prove the existence of spirit without matter,
or of innate ideas, or of immortality, or anything else that any other
human being does not prove. Philosophers have tried to find out what was
her conception of abstract ideas before she learned language. If she had
any conception, there is no way of discovering it now; for she cannot
remember, and obviously there was no record at the time. She had no
conception of God before she heard the word "God," as her comments very
clearly show.
Her sense of time is excellent, but whether it would have developed as
a special faculty cannot be known, for she has had a watch since she was
seven years old.
Miss Keller has two watches, which have been given her. They are, I
think, the only ones of their kind in America. The watch has on the back
cover a flat gold indicator which can be pushed freely around from left
to right until, by means of a pin inside the case, it locks with the
hour hand and takes a corresponding position. The point of this gold
indicator bends over the edge of the case, round which are set eleven
raised points--the stem forms the twelfth. Thus the watch, an ordinary
watch with a white dial for the person who sees, becomes for a blind
person by this special attachment in effect one with a single raised
hour hand and raised figures. Though there is less than half an inch
between the points--a space which represents sixty minutes--Miss Keller
tells the time almost exactly. It should be said that any double-case
watch with the crystal removed serves well enough for a blind person
whose touch is sufficiently delicate to feel the position of the hands
and not disturb or injure them.
The finer traits of Miss Keller's character are so well known that one
needs not say much about them. Good sense, good humour, and imagination
keep her scheme of things sane and beautiful. No attempt is made by
those around her either to preserve or to break her illusions. When she
was a little girl, a good many unwise and tactless things that were
said for her benefit were not repeated to her, thanks to the wise
watchfulness of Miss Sullivan. Now that she has grown up, nobody thinks
of being less frank with her than with any other intelligent young
woman. What her good friend, Charles Dudley Warner, wrote about her in
Harper's Magazine in 1896 was true then, and it remains true now:
"I believe she is the purest-minded human ever in existence.... The
world to her is what her own mind is. She has not even learned
that exhibition on which so many pride themselves, of 'righteous
indignation.'
"Some time ago, when a policeman shot dead her dog, a dearly loved daily
companion, she found in her forgiving heart no condemnation for the
man; she only said, 'If he had only known what a good dog she was, he
wouldn't have shot her.' It was said of old time, 'Lord forgive them,
they know not what they do!'
"Of course the question will arise whether, if Helen Keller had not
been guarded from the knowledge of evil, she would have been what she
is to-day.... Her mind has neither been made effeminate by the weak and
silly literature, nor has it been vitiated by that which is suggestive
of baseness. In consequence her mind is not only vigorous, but it is
pure. She is in love with noble things, with noble thoughts, and with
the characters of noble men and women."
She still has a childlike aversion to tragedies. Her imagination is so
vital that she falls completely under the illusion of a story, and lives
in its world. Miss Sullivan writes in a letter of 1891:
"Yesterday I read to her the story of 'Macbeth,' as told by Charles
and Mary Lamb. She was very greatly excited by it, and said: 'It is
terrible! It makes me tremble!' After thinking a little while, she
added, 'I think Shakespeare made it very terrible so that people would
see how fearful it is to do wrong.'"
Of the real world she knows more of the good and less of the evil than
most people seem to know. Her teacher does not harass her with the
little unhappy things; but of the important difficulties they have
been through, Miss Keller was fully informed, took her share of
the suffering, and put her mind to the problems. She is logical and
tolerant, most trustful of a world that has treated her kindly.
Once when some one asked her to define "love," she replied, "Why, bless
you, that is easy; it is what everybody feels for everybody else."
"Toleration," she said once, when she was visiting her friend Mrs.
Laurence Hutton, "is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same
effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle."
She has a large, generous sympathy and absolute fairness of temper. So
far as she is noticeably different from other people she is less bound
by convention. She has the courage of her metaphors and lets them take
her skyward when we poor self-conscious folk would think them rather
too bookish for ordinary conversation. She always says exactly what she
thinks, without fear of the plain truth; yet no one is more tactful and
adroit than she in turning an unpleasant truth so that it will do the
least possible hurt to the feelings of others. Not all the attention
that has been paid her since she was a child has made her take herself
too seriously. Sometimes she gets started on a very solemn preachment.
Then her teacher calls her an incorrigible little sermonizer, and she
laughs at herself. Often, however, her sober ideas are not to be laughed
at, for her earnestness carries her listeners with her. There is never
the least false sententiousness in what she says. She means everything
so thoroughly that her very quotations, her echoes from what she has
read, are in truth original.
Her logic and her sympathy are in excellent balance. Her sympathy is
of the swift and ministering sort which, fortunately, she has found
so often in other people. And her sympathies go further and shape her
opinions on political and national movements. She was intensely pro-Boer
and wrote a strong argument in favour of Boer independence. When she was
told of the surrender of the brave little people, her face clouded
and she was silent a few minutes. Then she asked clear, penetrating
questions about the terms of the surrender, and began to discuss them.
Both Mr. Gilman and Mr. Keith, the teachers who prepared her for
college, were struck by her power of constructive reasoning; and she was
excellent in pure mathematics, though she seems never to have enjoyed
it much. Some of the best of her writing, apart from her fanciful
and imaginative work, is her exposition in examinations and technical
themes, and in some letters which she found it necessary to write to
clear up misunderstandings, and which are models of close thinking
enforced with sweet vehemence.
She is an optimist and an idealist.
"I hope," she writes in a letter, "that L---- isn't too practical, for
if she is, I'm afraid she'll miss a great deal of pleasure."
In the diary that she kept at the Wright-Humason School in New York she
wrote on October 18, 1894, "I find that I have four things to learn in
my school life here, and indeed, in life--to think clearly without hurry
or confusion, to love everybody sincerely, to act in everything with the
highest motives, and to trust in dear God unhesitatingly."
CHAPTER III. EDUCATION
It is now sixty-five years since Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe knew that he
had made his way through Laura Bridgman's fingers to her intelligence.
The names of Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller will always be linked
together, and it is necessary to understand what Dr. Howe did for his
pupil before one comes to an account of Miss Sullivan's work. For Dr.
Howe is the great pioneer on whose work that of Miss Sullivan and other
teachers of the deaf-blind immediately depends.
Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe was born in Boston, November 10, 1801, and died
in Boston, January 9, 1876. He was a great philanthropist, interested
especially in the education of all defectives, the feeble-minded, the
blind, and the deaf. Far in advance of his time he advocated many public
measures for the relief of the poor and the diseased, for which he was
laughed at then, but which have since been put into practice. As head
of the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, he heard of Laura
Bridgman and had her brought to the Institution on October 4, 1837.
Laura Bridgman was born at Hanover, New Hampshire, December 21, 1829; so
she was almost eight years old when Dr. Howe began his experiments with
her. At the age of twenty-six months scarlet fever left her without
sight or hearing. She also lost her sense of smell and taste. Dr. Howe
was an experimental scientist and had in him the spirit of New England
transcendentalism with its large faith and large charities. Science and
faith together led him to try to make his way into the soul which he
believed was born in Laura Bridgman as in every other human being.
His plan was to teach Laura by means of raised types. He pasted raised
labels on objects and made her fit the labels to the objects and the
objects to the labels. When she had learned in this way to associate
raised words with things, in much the same manner, he says, as a dog
learns tricks, he began to resolve the words into their letter elements
and to teach her to put together "k-e-y," "c-a-p." His success convinced
him that language can be conveyed through type to the mind of the
blind-deaf child, who, before education, is in the state of the baby who
has not learned to prattle; indeed, is in a much worse state, for the
brain has grown in years without natural nourishment.
After Laura's education had progressed for two months with the use only
of raised letters, Dr. Howe sent one of his teachers to learn the manual
alphabet from a deaf-mute. She taught it to Laura, and from that time on
the manual alphabet was the means of communicating with her.
After the first year or two Dr. Howe did not teach Laura Bridgman
himself, but gave her over to other teachers, who under his direction
carried on the work of teaching her language.
Too much cannot be said in praise of Dr. Howe's work. As an investigator
he kept always the scientist's attitude. He never forgot to keep
his records of Laura Bridgman in the fashion of one who works in
a laboratory. The result is, his records of her are systematic and
careful. From a scientific standpoint it is unfortunate that it was
impossible to keep such a complete record of Helen Keller's development.
This in itself is a great comment on the difference between Laura
Bridgman and Helen Keller. Laura always remained an object of curious
study. Helen Keller became so rapidly a distinctive personality that she
kept her teacher in a breathless race to meet the needs of her pupil,
with no time or strength to make a scientific study.
In some ways this is unfortunate. Miss Sullivan knew at the beginning
that Helen Keller would be more interesting and successful than Laura
Bridgman, and she expresses in one of her letters the need of keeping
notes. But neither temperament nor training allowed her to make her
pupil the object of any experiment or observation which did not help in
the child's development. As soon as a thing was done, a definite goal
passed, the teacher did not always look back and describe the way she
had come. The explanation of the fact was unimportant compared to the
fact itself and the need of hurrying on. There are two other reasons why
Miss Sullivan's records are incomplete. It has always been a severe tax
on her eyes to write, and she was early discouraged from publishing data
by the inaccurate use made of what she at first supplied.
When she first wrote from Tuscumbia to Mr. Michael Anagnos, Dr. Howes
son-in-law and his successor as Director of the Perkins Institution,
about her work with her pupil, the Boston papers began at once to
publish exaggerated accounts of Helen Keller. Miss Sullivan protested.
In a letter dated April 10, 1887, only five weeks after she went to
Helen Keller, she wrote to a friend:
"--sent me a Boston Herald containing a stupid article about Helen. How
perfectly absurd to say that Helen is 'already talking fluently!' Why,
one might just as well say that a two-year-old child converses fluently
when he says 'apple give,' or 'baby walk go.' I suppose if you included
his screaming, crowing, whimpering, grunting, squalling, with occasional
kicks, in his conversation, it might be regarded as fluent--even
eloquent. Then it is amusing to read of the elaborate preparation I
underwent to fit me for the great task my friends entrusted to me. I am
sorry that preparation didn't include spelling, it would have saved me
such a lot of trouble."
On March 4, 1888, she writes in a letter:
"Indeed, I am heartily glad that I don't know all that is being said and
written about Helen and myself. I assure you I know quite enough. Nearly
every mail brings some absurd statement, printed or written. The truth
is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it
and invent ridiculous embellishments. One paper has Helen demonstrating
problems in geometry by means of her playing blocks. I expect to hear
next that she has written a treatise on the origin and future of the
planets!"
In December, 1887, appeared the first report of the Director of the
Perkins Institution, which deals with Helen Keller. For this report
Miss Sullivan prepared, in reluctant compliance with the request of
Mr. Anagnos, an account of her work. This with the extracts from her
letters, scattered through the report, is the first valid source of
information about Helen Keller. Of this report Miss Sullivan wrote in a
letter dated October 30, 1887:
"Have you seen the paper I wrote for the 'report'? Mr. Anagnos was
delighted with it. He says Helen's progress has been 'a triumphal march
from the beginning,' and he has many flattering things to say about
her teacher. I think he is inclined to exaggerate; at all events, his
language is too glowing, and simple facts are set forth in such a manner
that they bewilder one. Doubtless the work of the past few months does
seem like a triumphal march to him; but then people seldom see the
halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is
achieved."
As Mr. Anagnos was the head of a great institution, what he said had
much more effect than the facts in Miss Sullivan's account on which he
based his statements. The newspapers caught Mr. Anagnos's spirit and
exaggerated a hundred-fold. In a year after she first went to Helen
Keller, Miss Sullivan found herself and her pupil the centre of a
stupendous fiction. Then the educators all over the world said their
say and for the most part did not help matters. There grew up a mass of
controversial matter which it is amusing to read now. Teachers of the
deaf proved a priori that what Miss Sullivan had done could not be,
and some discredit was reflected on her statements, because they were
surrounded by the vague eloquence of Mr. Anagnos. Thus the story of
Helen Keller, incredible when told with moderation, had the misfortune
to be heralded by exaggerated announcements, and naturally met either an
ignorant credulity or an incredulous hostility.
In November, 1888, another report of the Perkins Institution appeared
with a second paper by Miss Sullivan, and then nothing official was
published until November, 1891, when Mr. Anagnos issued the last Perkins
Institution report containing anything about Helen Keller. For this
report Miss Sullivan wrote the fullest and largest account she has
ever written; and in this report appeared the "Frost King," which is
discussed fully in a later chapter. Then the controversy waxed fiercer
than ever.
Finding that other people seemed to know so much more about Helen Keller
than she did, Miss Sullivan kept silent and has been silent for ten
years, except for her paper in the first Volta Bureau Souvenir of Helen
Keller and the paper which, at Dr. Bell's request, she prepared in 1894
for the meeting at Chautauqua of the American Association to Promote the
Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. When Dr. Bell and others tell her, what
is certainly true from an impersonal point of view, that she owes it
to the cause of education to write what she knows, she answers very
properly that she owes all her time and all her energies to her pupil.
Although Miss Sullivan is still rather amused than distressed when some
one, even one of her friends, makes mistakes in published articles
about her and Miss Keller, still she sees that Miss Keller's book should
include all the information that the teacher could at present furnish.
So she consented to the publication of extracts from letters which she
wrote during the first year of her work with her pupil. These letters
were written to Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins, the only person to whom Miss
Sullivan ever wrote freely. Mrs. Hopkins has been a matron at the
Perkins Institution for twenty years, and during the time that Miss
Sullivan was a pupil there she was like a mother to her. In these
letters we have an almost weekly record of Miss Sullivan's work. Some of
the details she had forgotten, as she grew more and more to generalize.
Many people have thought that any attempt to find the principles in
her method would be nothing but a later theory superimposed on Miss
Sullivan's work. But it is evident that in these letters she was making
a clear analysis of what she was doing. She was her own critic, and in
spite of her later declaration, made with her modest carelessness, that
she followed no particular method, she was very clearly learning from
her task and phrasing at the time principles of education of unique
value not only in the teaching of the deaf but in the teaching of all
children. The extracts from her letters and reports form an important
contribution to pedagogy, and more than justify the opinion of Dr.
Daniel C. Gilman, who wrote in 1893, when he was President of Johns
Hopkins University:
"I have just read... your most interesting account of the various steps
you have taken in the education of your wonderful pupil, and I hope you
will allow me to express my admiration for the wisdom that has guided
your methods and the affection which has inspired your labours."
Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan was born at Springfield, Massachusetts.
Very early in her life she became almost totally blind, and she entered
the Perkins Institution October 7, 1880, when she was fourteen years
old. Later her sight was partially restored.
Mr. Anagnos says in his report of 1887: "She was obliged to begin her
education at the lowest and most elementary point; but she showed from
the very start that she had in herself the force and capacity which
insure success.... She has finally reached the goal for which she strove
so bravely. The golden words that Dr. Howe uttered and the example that
he left passed into her thoughts and heart and helped her on the road
to usefulness; and now she stands by his side as his worthy successor
in one of the most cherished branches of his work.... Miss Sullivan's
talents are of the highest order."
In 1886 she graduated from the Perkins Institution. When Captain Keller
applied to the director for a teacher, Mr. Anagnos recommended her. The
only time she had to prepare herself for the work with her pupil was
from August, 1886, when Captain Keller wrote, to February, 1887. During
this time she read Dr. Howe's reports. She was further aided by the fact
that during the six years of her school life she had lived in the
house with Laura Bridgman. It was Dr. Howe who, by his work with Laura
Bridgman, made Miss Sullivan's work possible: but it was Miss Sullivan
who discovered the way to teach language to the deaf-blind.
It must be remembered that Miss Sullivan had to solve her problems
unaided by previous experience or the assistance of any other teacher.
During the first year of her work with Helen Keller, in which she taught
her pupil language, they were in Tuscumbia; and when they came North
and visited the Perkins Institution, Helen Keller was never a regular
student there or subject to the discipline of the Institution. The
impression that Miss Sullivan educated Helen Keller "under the direction
of Mr. Anagnos" is erroneous. In the three years during which at
various times Miss Keller and Miss Sullivan were guests of the Perkins
Institution, the teachers there did not help Miss Sullivan, and Mr.
Anagnos did not even use the manual alphabet with facility as a means
of communication. Mr. Anagnos wrote in the report of the Perkins
Institution, dated November 27, 1888: "At my urgent request, Helen,
accompanied by her mother and her teacher, came to the North in the
last week of May, and spent several months with us as our guests....
We gladly allowed her to use freely our library of embossed books, our
collection of stuffed animals, sea-shells, models of flowers and plants,
and the rest of our apparatus for instructing the blind through the
sense of touch. I do not doubt that she derived from them much pleasure
and not a little profit. But whether Helen stays at home or makes
visits in other parts of the country, her education is always under
the immediate direction and exclusive control of her teacher. No one
interferes with Miss Sullivan's plans, or shares in her tasks. She
has been allowed entire freedom in the choice of means and methods for
carrying on her great work; and, as we can judge by the results, she
has made a most judicious and discreet use of this privilege. What
the little pupil has thus far accomplished is widely known, and her
wonderful attainments command general admiration; but only those who
are familiar with the particulars of the grand achievement know that the
credit is largely due to the intelligence, wisdom, sagacity, unremitting
perseverance and unbending will of the instructress, who rescued the
child from the depths of everlasting night and stillness, and watched
over the different phases of her mental and moral development with
maternal solicitude and enthusiastic devotion."
Here follow in order Miss Sullivan's letters and the most important
passages from the reports. I have omitted from each succeeding report
what has already been explained and does not need to be repeated. For
the ease of the reader I have, with Miss Sullivan's consent, made the
extracts run together continuously and supplied words of connection and
the resulting necessary changes in syntax, and Miss Sullivan has made
slight changes in the phrasing of her reports and also of her letters,
which were carelessly written. I have also italicized a few important
passages. Some of her opinions Miss Sullivan would like to enlarge and
revise. That remains for her to do at another time. At present we have
here the fullest record that has been published. The first letter is
dated March 6, 1887, three days after her arrival in Tuscumbia.
...It was 6.30 when I reached Tuscumbia. I found Mrs. Keller and Mr.
James Keller waiting for me. They said somebody had met every train for
two days. The drive from the station to the house, a distance of one
mile, was very lovely and restful. I was surprised to find Mrs. Keller
a very young-looking woman, not much older than myself, I should think.
Captain Keller met us in the yard and gave me a cheery welcome and a
hearty handshake. My first question was, "Where is Helen?" I tried with
all my might to control the eagerness that made me tremble so that I
could hardly walk. As we approached the house I saw a child standing in
the doorway, and Captain Keller said, "There she is. She has known all
day that some one was expected, and she has been wild ever since her
mother went to the station for you." I had scarcely put my foot on the
steps, when she rushed toward me with such force that she would have
thrown me backward if Captain Keller had not been behind me. She felt
my face and dress and my bag, which she took out of my hand and tried to
open. It did not open easily, and she felt carefully to see if there was
a keyhole. Finding that there was, she turned to me, making the sign
of turning a key and pointing to the bag. Her mother interfered at this
point and showed Helen by signs that she must not touch the bag. Her
face flushed, and when her mother attempted to take the bag from her,
she grew very angry. I attracted her attention by showing her my watch
and letting her hold it in her hand. Instantly the tempest subsided, and
we went upstairs together. Here I opened the bag, and she went through
it eagerly, probably expecting to find something to eat. Friends had
probably brought her candy in their bags, and she expected to find some
in mine. I made her understand, by pointing to a trunk in the hall and
to myself and nodding my head, that I had a trunk, and then made the
sign that she had used for eating, and nodded again. She understood in a
flash and ran downstairs to tell her mother, by means of emphatic signs,
that there was some candy in a trunk for her. She returned in a few
minutes and helped me put away my things. It was too comical to see her
put on my bonnet and cock her head first on one side, then on the other,
and look in the mirror, just as if she could see. Somehow I had expected
to see a pale, delicate child--I suppose I got the idea from Dr. Howe's
description of Laura Bridgman when she came to the Institution. But
there's nothing pale or delicate about Helen. She is large, strong, and
ruddy, and as unrestrained in her movements as a young colt. She has
none of those nervous habits that are so noticeable and so distressing
in blind children. Her body is well formed and vigorous, and Mrs. Keller
says she has not been ill a day since the illness that deprived her
of her sight and hearing. She has a fine head, and it is set on her
shoulders just right. Her face is hard to describe. It is intelligent,
but lacks mobility, or soul, or something. Her mouth is large and finely
shaped. You see at a glance that she is blind. One eye is larger than
the other, and protrudes noticeably. She rarely smiles; indeed, I have
seen her smile only once or twice since I came. She is unresponsive and
even impatient of caresses from any one except her mother. She is very
quick-tempered and wilful, and nobody, except her brother James, has
attempted to control her. The greatest problem I shall have to solve is
how to discipline and control her without breaking her spirit. I shall
go rather slowly at first and try to win her love. I shall not attempt
to conquer her by force alone; but I shall insist on reasonable
obedience from the start. One thing that impresses everybody is Helen's
tireless activity. She is never still a moment. She is here, there, and
everywhere. Her hands are in everything; but nothing holds her attention
for long. Dear child, her restless spirit gropes in the dark. Her
untaught, unsatisfied hands destroy whatever they touch because they do
not know what else to do with things.
She helped me unpack my trunk when it came, and was delighted when
she found the doll the little girls sent her. I thought it a good
opportunity to teach her her first word. I spelled "d-o-l-l" slowly in
her hand and pointed to the doll and nodded my head, which seems to be
her sign for possession. Whenever anybody gives her anything, she points
to it, then to herself, and nods her head. She looked puzzled and felt
my hand, and I repeated the letters. She imitated them very well and
pointed to the doll. Then I took the doll, meaning to give it back to
her when she had made the letters; but she thought I meant to take it
from her, and in an instant she was in a temper, and tried to seize the
doll. I shook my head and tried to form the letters with her fingers;
but she got more and more angry. I forced her into a chair and held her
there until I was nearly exhausted. Then it occurred to me that it
was useless to continue the struggle--I must do something to turn the
current of her thoughts. I let her go, but refused to give up the doll.
I went downstairs and got some cake (she is very fond of sweets). I
showed Helen the cake and spelled "c-a-k-e" in her hand, holding the
cake toward her. Of course she wanted it and tried to take it; but
I spelled the word again and patted her hand. She made the letters
rapidly, and I gave her the cake, which she ate in a great hurry,
thinking, I suppose, that I might take it from her. Then I showed her
the doll and spelled the word again, holding the doll toward her as I
held the cake. She made the letters "d-o-l"' and I made the other "l"
and gave her the doll. She ran downstairs with it and could not be
induced to return to my room all day.
Yesterday I gave her a sewing-card to do. I made the first row of
vertical lines and let her feel it and notice that there were several
rows of little holes. She began to work delightedly and finished the
card in a few minutes, and did it very neatly indeed. I thought I would
try another word; so I spelled "c-a-r-d." She made the "c-a," then
stopped and thought, and making the sign for eating and pointing
downward she pushed me toward the door, meaning that I must go
downstairs for some cake. The two letters "c-a," you see, had reminded
her of Fridays "lesson"--not that she had any idea that cake was the
name of the thing, but it was simply a matter of association, I suppose.
I finished the word "c-a-k-e" and obeyed her command. She was delighted.
Then I spelled "d-o-l-l" and began to hunt for it. She follows with her
hands every motion you make, and she knew that I was looking for the
doll. She pointed down, meaning that the doll was downstairs. I made
the signs that she had used when she wished me to go for the cake,
and pushed her toward the door. She started forward, then hesitated a
moment, evidently debating within herself whether she would go or not.
She decided to send me instead. I shook my head and spelled "d-o-l-l"
more emphatically, and opened the door for her; but she obstinately
refused to obey. She had not finished the cake she was eating, and I
took it away, indicating that if she brought the doll I would give her
back the cake. She stood perfectly still for one long moment, her face
crimson; then her desire for the cake triumphed, and she ran downstairs
and brought the doll, and of course I gave her the cake, but could not
persuade her to enter the room again.
She was very troublesome when I began to write this morning. She kept
coming up behind me and putting her hand on the paper and into the
ink-bottle. These blots are her handiwork. Finally I remembered the
kindergarten beads, and set her to work stringing them. First I put on
two wooden beads and one glass bead, then made her feel of the string
and the two boxes of beads. She nodded and began at once to fill the
string with wooden beads. I shook my head and took them all off and made
her feel of the two wooden beads and the one glass bead. She examined
them thoughtfully and began again. This time she put on the glass bead
first and the two wooden ones next. I took them off and showed her that
the two wooden ones must go on first, then the glass bead. She had no
further trouble and filled the string quickly, too quickly, in fact.
She tied the ends together when she had finished the string, and put the
beads round her neck. I did not make the knot large enough in the next
string, and the beads came off as fast as she put them on; but she
solved the difficulty herself by putting the string through a bead and
tying it. I thought this very clever. She amused herself with the
beads until dinner-time, bringing the strings to me now and then for my
approval.
My eyes are very much inflamed. I know this letter is very carelessly
written. I had a lot to say, and couldn't stop to think how to express
things neatly. Please do not show my letter to any one. If you want to,
you may read it to my friends.
Monday P.M.
I had a battle royal with Helen this morning. Although I try very hard
not to force issues, I find it very difficult to avoid them.
Helen's table manners are appalling. She puts her hands in our plates
and helps herself, and when the dishes are passed, she grabs them and
takes out whatever she wants. This morning I would not let her put
her hand in my plate. She persisted, and a contest of wills followed.
Naturally the family was much disturbed, and left the room. I locked
the dining-room door, and proceeded to eat my breakfast, though the food
almost choked me. Helen was lying on the floor, kicking and screaming
and trying to pull my chair from under me. She kept this up for half an
hour, then she got up to see what I was doing. I let her see that I was
eating, but did not let her put her hand in the plate. She pinched me,
and I slapped her every time she did it. Then she went all round the
table to see who was there, and finding no one but me, she seemed
bewildered. After a few minutes she came back to her place and began to
eat her breakfast with her fingers. I gave her a spoon, which she threw
on the floor. I forced her out of the chair and made her pick it up.
Finally I succeeded in getting her back in her chair again, and held the
spoon in her hand, compelling her to take up the food with it and put
it in her mouth. In a few minutes she yielded and finished her breakfast
peaceably. Then we had another tussle over folding her napkin. When she
had finished, she threw it on the floor and ran toward the door. Finding
it locked, she began to kick and scream all over again. It was another
hour before I succeeded in getting her napkin folded. Then I let her out
into the warm sunshine and went up to my room and threw myself on the
bed exhausted. I had a good cry and felt better. I suppose I shall have
many such battles with the little woman before she learns the only two
essential things I can teach her, obedience and love.
Good-by, dear. Don't worry; I'll do my best and leave the rest to
whatever power manages that which we cannot. I like Mrs. Keller very
much.
Tuscumbia, Alabama, March 11, 1887.
Since I wrote you, Helen and I have gone to live all by ourselves in
a little garden-house about a quarter of a mile from her home, only a
short distance from Ivy Green, the Keller homestead. I very soon made up
my mind that I could do nothing with Helen in the midst of the family,
who have always allowed her to do exactly as she pleased. She has
tyrannized over everybody, her mother, her father, the servants, the
little darkies who play with her, and nobody had ever seriously disputed
her will, except occasionally her brother James, until I came; and
like all tyrants she holds tenaciously to her divine right to do as she
pleases. If she ever failed to get what she wanted, it was because of
her inability to make the vassals of her household understand what it
was. Every thwarted desire was the signal for a passionate outburst, and
as she grew older and stronger, these tempests became more violent. As I
began to teach her, I was beset by many difficulties. She wouldn't yield
a point without contesting it to the bitter end. I couldn't coax her
or compromise with her. To get her to do the simplest thing, such as
combing her hair or washing her hands or buttoning her boots, it was
necessary to use force, and, of course, a distressing scene followed.
The family naturally felt inclined to interfere, especially her father,
who cannot bear to see her cry. So they were all willing to give in for
the sake of peace. Besides, her past experiences and associations were
all against me. I saw clearly that it was useless to try to teach her
language or anything else until she learned to obey me. I have thought
about it a great deal, and the more I think, the more certain I am that
obedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too,
enter the mind of the child. As I wrote you, I meant to go slowly at
first. I had an idea that I could win the love and confidence of my
little pupil by the same means that I should use if she could see and
hear. But I soon found that I was cut off from all the usual approaches
to the child's heart. She accepted everything I did for her as a matter
of course, and refused to be caressed, and there was no way of appealing
to her affection or sympathy or childish love of approbation. She would
or she wouldn't, and there was an end of it. Thus it is, we study, plan
and prepare ourselves for a task, and when the hour for action arrives,
we find that the system we have followed with such labour and pride does
not fit the occasion; and then there's nothing for us to do but rely on
something within us, some innate capacity for knowing and doing, which
we did not know we possessed until the hour of our great need brought it
to light.
I had a good, frank talk with Mrs. Keller, and explained to her how
difficult it was going to be to do anything with Helen under the
existing circumstances. I told her that in my opinion the child ought
to be separated from the family for a few weeks at least--that she must
learn to depend on and obey me before I could make any headway. After a
long time Mrs. Keller said that she would think the matter over and
see what Captain Keller thought of sending Helen away with me. Captain
Keller fell in with the scheme most readily and suggested that the
little garden-house at the "old place" be got ready for us. He said that
Helen might recognize the place, as she had often been there, but she
would have no idea of her surroundings, and they could come every day to
see that all was going well, with the understanding, of course, that she
was to know nothing of their visits. I hurried the preparations for our
departure as much as possible, and here we are.
The little house is a genuine bit of paradise. It consists of one large
square room with a great fireplace, a spacious bay-window, and a small
room where our servant, a little negro boy, sleeps. There is a piazza in
front, covered with vines that grow so luxuriantly that you have to part
them to see the garden beyond. Our meals are brought from the house,
and we usually eat on the piazza. The little negro boy takes care of the
fire when we need one, so I can give my whole attention to Helen.
She was greatly excited at first, and kicked and screamed herself into a
sort of stupor, but when supper was brought she ate heartily and seemed
brighter, although she refused to let me touch her. She devoted herself
to her dolls the first evening, and when it was bedtime she undressed
very quietly, but when she felt me get into bed with her, she jumped out
on the other side, and nothing that I could do would induce her to get
in again. But I was afraid she would take cold, and I insisted that she
must go to bed. We had a terrific tussle, I can tell you. The struggle
lasted for nearly two hours. I never saw such strength and endurance in
a child. But fortunately for us both, I am a little stronger, and quite
as obstinate when I set out. I finally succeeded in getting her on the
bed and covered her up, and she lay curled up as near the edge of the
bed as possible.
The next morning she was very docile, but evidently homesick. She kept
going to the door, as if she expected some one, and every now and then
she would touch her cheek, which is her sign for her mother, and shake
her head sadly. She played with her dolls more than usual, and would
have nothing to do with me. It is amusing and pathetic to see Helen with
her dolls. I don't think she has any special tenderness for them--I
have never seen her caress them; but she dresses and undresses them many
times during the day and handles them exactly as she has seen her mother
and the nurse handle her baby sister.
This morning Nancy, her favourite doll, seemed to have some difficulty
about swallowing the milk that was being administered to her in large
spoonfuls; for Helen suddenly put down the cup and began to slap her on
the back and turn her over on her knees, trotting her gently and patting
her softly all the time. This lasted for several minutes; then this mood
passed, and Nancy was thrown ruthlessly on the floor and pushed to one
side, while a large, pink-cheeked, fuzzy-haired member of the family
received the little mother's undivided attention.
Helen knows several words now, but has no idea how to use them, or that
everything has a name. I think, however, she will learn quickly enough
by and by. As I have said before, she is wonderfully bright and active
and as quick as lightning in her movements.
March 13, 1887.
You will be glad to hear that my experiment is working out finely. I
have not had any trouble at all with Helen, either yesterday or to-day.
She has learned three new words, and when I give her the objects, the
names of which she has learned, she spells them unhesitatingly; but she
seems glad when the lesson is over.
We had a good frolic this morning out in the garden. Helen evidently
knew where she was as soon as she touched the boxwood hedges, and made
many signs which I did not understand. No doubt they were signs for the
different members of the family at Ivy Green.
I have just heard something that surprised me very much. It seems that
Mr. Anagnos had heard of Helen before he received Captain Keller's
letter last summer. Mr. Wilson, a teacher at Florence, and a friend
of the Kellers', studied at Harvard the summer before and went to the
Perkins Institution to learn if anything could be done for his friend's
child. He saw a gentleman whom he presumed to be the director, and told
him about Helen. He says the gentleman was not particularly interested,
but said he would see if anything could be done. Doesn't it seem strange
that Mr. Anagnos never referred to this interview?
March 20, 1887.
My heart is singing for joy this morning. A miracle has happened!
The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and
behold, all things are changed!
The wild little creature of two weeks ago has been transformed into
a gentle child. She is sitting by me as I write, her face serene and
happy, crocheting a long red chain of Scotch wool. She learned the
stitch this week, and is very proud of the achievement. When she
succeeded in making a chain that would reach across the room, she patted
herself on the arm and put the first work of her hands lovingly against
her cheek. She lets me kiss her now, and when she is in a particularly
gentle mood, she will sit in my lap for a minute or two; but she does
not return my caresses. The great step--the step that counts--has been
taken. The little savage has learned her first lesson in obedience, and
finds the yoke easy. It now remains my pleasant task to direct and mould
the beautiful intelligence that is beginning to stir in the child-soul.
Already people remark the change in Helen. Her father looks in at us
morning and evening as he goes to and from his office, and sees her
contentedly stringing her beads or making horizontal lines on her
sewing-card, and exclaims, "How quiet she is!" When I came, her
movements were so insistent that one always felt there was something
unnatural and almost weird about her. I have noticed also that she eats
much less, a fact which troubles her father so much that he is anxious
to get her home. He says she is homesick. I don't agree with him; but I
suppose we shall have to leave our little bower very soon.
Helen has learned several nouns this week. "M-u-g" and "m-i-l-k," have
given her more trouble than other words. When she spells "milk," she
points to the mug, and when she spells "mug," she makes the sign for
pouring or drinking, which shows that she has confused the words. She
has no idea yet that everything has a name.
Yesterday I had the little negro boy come in when Helen was having
her lesson, and learn the letters, too. This pleased her very much and
stimulated her ambition to excel Percy. She was delighted if he made
a mistake, and made him form the letter over several times. When he
succeeded in forming it to suit her, she patted him on his woolly head
so vigorously that I thought some of his slips were intentional.
One day this week Captain Keller brought Belle, a setter of which he
is very proud, to see us. He wondered if Helen would recognize her old
playmate. Helen was giving Nancy a bath, and didn't notice the dog at
first. She usually feels the softest step and throws out her arms to
ascertain if any one is near her. Belle didn't seem very anxious to
attract her attention. I imagine she has been rather roughly handled
sometimes by her little mistress. The dog hadn't been in the room more
than half a minute, however, before Helen began to sniff, and dumped
the doll into the wash-bowl and felt about the room. She stumbled
upon Belle, who was crouching near the window where Captain Keller was
standing. It was evident that she recognized the dog; for she put her
arms round her neck and squeezed her. Then Helen sat down by her and
began to manipulate her claws. We couldn't think for a second what she
was doing; but when we saw her make the letters "d-o-l-l" on her own
fingers, we knew that she was trying to teach Belle to spell.
March 28, 1887.
Helen and I came home yesterday. I am sorry they wouldn't let us
stay another week; but I think I have made the most I could of the
opportunities that were mine the past two weeks, and I don't expect that
I shall have any serious trouble with Helen in the future. The back of
the greatest obstacle in the path of progress is broken. I think "no"
and "yes," conveyed by a shake or a nod of my head, have become facts
as apparent to her as hot and cold or as the difference between pain and
pleasure. And I don't intend that the lesson she has learned at the cost
of so much pain and trouble shall be unlearned. I shall stand between
her and the over-indulgence of her parents. I have told Captain and Mrs.
Keller that they must not interfere with me in any way. I have done my
best to make them see the terrible injustice to Helen of allowing her to
have her way in everything, and I have pointed out that the processes of
teaching the child that everything cannot be as he wills it, are apt to
be painful both to him and to his teacher. They have promised to let me
have a free hand and help me as much as possible. The improvement they
cannot help seeing in their child has given them more confidence in me.
Of course, it is hard for them. I realize that it hurts to see their
afflicted little child punished and made to do things against her will.
Only a few hours after my talk with Captain and Mrs. Keller (and they
had agreed to everything), Helen took a notion that she wouldn't use
her napkin at table. I think she wanted to see what would happen. I
attempted several times to put the napkin round her neck; but each time
she tore it off and threw it on the floor and finally began to kick the
table. I took her plate away and started to take her out of the room.
Her father objected and said that no child of his should be deprived of
his food on any account.
Helen didn't come up to my room after supper, and I didn't see her again
until breakfast-time. She was at her place when I came down. She had put
the napkin under her chin, instead of pinning it at the back, as was her
custom. She called my attention to the new arrangement, and when I did
not object she seemed pleased and patted herself. When she left the
dining-room, she took my hand and patted it. I wondered if she was
trying to "make up." I thought I would try the effect of a little
belated discipline. I went back to the dining-room and got a napkin.
When Helen came upstairs for her lesson, I arranged the objects on the
table as usual, except that the cake, which I always give her in bits
as a reward when she spells a word quickly and correctly, was not there.
She noticed this at once and made the sign for it. I showed her the
napkin and pinned it round her neck, then tore it off and threw it on
the floor and shook my head. I repeated this performance several times.
I think she understood perfectly well; for she slapped her hand two or
three times and shook her head. We began the lesson as usual. I gave
her an object, and she spelled the name (she knows twelve now). After
spelling half the words, she stopped suddenly, as if a thought had
flashed into her mind, and felt for the napkin. She pinned it round her
neck and made the sign for cake (it didn't occur to her to spell the
word, you see). I took this for a promise that if I gave her some cake
she would be a good girl. I gave her a larger piece than usual, and she
chuckled and patted herself.
April 3, 1887.
We almost live in the garden, where everything is growing and blooming
and glowing. After breakfast we go out and watch the men at work. Helen
loves to dig and play in the dirt like any other child. This morning she
planted her doll and showed me that she expected her to grow as tall
as I. You must see that she is very bright, but you have no idea how
cunning she is.
At ten we come in and string beads for a few minutes. She can make a
great many combinations now, and often invents new ones herself. Then I
let her decide whether she will sew or knit or crochet. She learned to
knit very quickly, and is making a wash-cloth for her mother. Last week
she made her doll an apron, and it was done as well as any child of her
age could do it. But I am always glad when this work is over for the
day. Sewing and crocheting are inventions of the devil, I think. I'd
rather break stones on the king's highway than hem a handkerchief. At
eleven we have gymnastics. She knows all the free-hand movements and the
"Anvil Chorus" with the dumb-bells. Her father says he is going to fit
up a gymnasium for her in the pump-house; but we both like a good romp
better than set exercises. The hour from twelve to one is devoted to
the learning of new words. BUT YOU MUSTN'T THINK THIS IS THE ONLY TIME
I SPELL TO HELEN; FOR I SPELL IN HER HAND EVERYTHING WE DO ALL DAY LONG,
ALTHOUGH SHE HAS NO IDEA AS YET WHAT THE SPELLING MEANS. After dinner I
rest for an hour, and Helen plays with her dolls or frolics in the yard
with the little darkies, who were her constant companions before I came.
Later I join them, and we make the rounds of the outhouses. We visit the
horses and mules in their stalls and hunt for eggs and feed the turkeys.
Often, when the weather is fine, we drive from four to six, or go to see
her aunt at Ivy Green or her cousins in the town. Helen's instincts are
decidedly social; she likes to have people about her and to visit her
friends, partly, I think, because they always have things she likes
to eat. After supper we go to my room and do all sorts of things until
eight, when I undress the little woman and put her to bed. She sleeps
with me now. Mrs. Keller wanted to get a nurse for her, but I concluded
I'd rather be her nurse than look after a stupid, lazy negress. Besides,
I like to have Helen depend on me for everything, AND I FIND IT MUCH
EASIER TO TEACH HER THINGS AT ODD MOMENTS THAN AT SET TIMES.
On March 31st I found that Helen knew eighteen nouns and three verbs.
Here is a list of the words. Those with a cross after them are words she
asked for herself: DOLL, MUG, PIN, KEY, DOG, HAT, CUP, BOX, WATER, MILK,
CANDY, EYE (X), FINGER (X), TOE (X), HEAD (X), CAKE, BABY, MOTHER, SIT,
STAND, WALK. On April 1st she learned the nouns KNIFE, FORK, SPOON,
SAUCER, TEA, PAPA, BED, and the verb RUN.
April 5, 1887.
I must write you a line this morning because something very important
has happened. Helen has taken the second great step in her education.
She has learned that EVERYTHING HAS A NAME, AND THAT THE MANUAL ALPHABET
IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING SHE WANTS TO KNOW.
In a previous letter I think I wrote you that "mug" and "milk" had given
Helen more trouble than all the rest. She confused the nouns with the
verb "drink." She didn't know the word for "drink," but went through
the pantomime of drinking whenever she spelled "mug" or "milk." This
morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name for "water."
When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats
my hand. I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" and thought no more about it until after
breakfast. Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word
I might succeed in straightening out the "mug-milk" difficulty. We went
out to the pump-house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout
while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I
spelled "w-a-t-e-r" in Helen's free hand. The word coming so close upon
the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her.
She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light came into
her face. She spelled "water" several times. Then she dropped on the
ground and asked for its name and pointed to the pump and the trellis,
and suddenly turning round she asked for my name. I spelled "Teacher."
Just then the nurse brought Helen's little sister into the pump-house,
and Helen spelled "baby" and pointed to the nurse. All the way back to
the house she was highly excited, and learned the name of every object
she touched, so that in a few hours she had adDED THIRTY NEW WORDS TO
HER VOCABULARY. HERE ARE SOME OF THEM: DOOR, OPEN, SHUT, GIVE, GO, COME,
and a great many more.
P.S.--I didn't finish my letter in time to get it posted last night; so
I shall add a line. Helen got up this morning like a radiant fairy. She
has flitted from object to object, asking the name of everything and
kissing me for very gladness. Last night when I got in bed, she stole
into my arms of her own accord and kissed me for the first time, and I
thought my heart would burst, so full was it of joy.
April 10, 1887.
I see an improvement in Helen day to day, almost from hour to hour.
Everything must have a name now. Wherever we go, she asks eagerly for
the names of things she has not learned at home. She is anxious for her
friends to spell, and eager to teach the letters to every one she meets.
She drops the signs and pantomime she used before, as soon as she has
words to supply their place, and the acquirement of a new word affords
her the liveliest pleasure. And we notice that her face grows more
expressive each day.
I HAVE DECIDED NOT TO TRY TO HAVE REGULAR LESSONS FOR THE PRESENT. I AM
GOING TO TREAT HELEN EXACTLY LIKE A TWO-YEAR-OLD CHILD. IT OCCURRED
TO ME THE OTHER DAY THAT IT IS ABSURD TO REQUIRE A CHILD TO COME TO A
CERTAIN PLACE AT A CERTAIN TIME AND RECITE CERTAIN LESSONS, WHEN HE HAS
NOT YET ACQUIRED A WORKING VOCABULARY. I sent Helen away and sat down
to think. I asked myself, "How does a normal child learn language?" The
answer was simple, "By imitation." The child comes into the world with
the ability to learn, and he learns of himself, provided he is supplied
with sufficient outward stimulus. He sees people do things, and he
tries to do them. He hears others speak, and he tried to speak. BUT LONG
BEFORE HE UTTERS HIS FIRST WORD, HE UNDERSTANDS WHAT IS SAID TO HIM. I
have been observing Helen's little cousin lately. She is about fifteen
months old, and already understands a great deal. In response to
questions she points out prettily her nose, mouth, eye, chin, cheek,
ear. If I say, "Where is baby's other ear?" she points it out correctly.
If I hand her a flower, and say, "Give it to mamma," she takes it to
her mother. If I say, "Where is the little rogue?" she hides behind her
mother's chair, or covers her face with her hands and peeps out at me
with an expression of genuine roguishness. She obeys many commands
like these: "Come," "Kiss," "Go to papa," "Shut the door," "Give me
the biscuit." But I have not heard her try to say any of these words,
although they have been repeated hundreds of times in her hearing, and
it is perfectly evident that she understands them. These observations
have given me a clue to the method to be followed in teaching Helen
language.I SHALL TALK INTO HER HAND AS WE TALK INTO THE BABY'S EARS. I
shall assume that she has the normal child's capacity of assimilation
and imitation. I SHALL USE COMPLETE SENTENCES IN TALKING TO HER, and
fill out the meaning with gestures and her descriptive signs when
necessity requires it; but I shall not try to keep her mind fixed on any
one thing. I shall do all I can to interest and stimulate it, and wait
for results.
April 24, 1887.
The new scheme works splendidly. Helen knows the meaning of more than
a hundred words now, and learns new ones daily without the slightest
suspicion that she is performing a most difficult feat. She learns
because she can't help it, just as the bird learns to fly. But don't
imagine that she "talks fluently." Like her baby cousin, she expresses
whole sentences by single words. "Milk," with a gesture means, "Give me
more milk." "Mother," accompanied by an inquiring look, means, "Where
is mother?" "Go" means, "I want to go out." But when I spell into her
hand, "Give me some bread," she hands me the bread, or if I say, "Get
your hat and we will go to walk," she obeys instantly. The two words,
"hat" and "walk" would have the same effect; BUT THE WHOLE SENTENCE,
REPEATED MANY TIMES DURING THE DAY, MUST IN TIME IMPRESS ITSELF UPON THE
BRAIN, AND BY AND BY SHE WILL USE IT HERSELF.
We play a little game which I find most useful in developing the
intellect, and which incidentally answers the purpose of a language
lesson. It is an adaptation of hide-the-thimble. I hide something, a
ball or a spool, and we hunt for it. When we first played this game two
or three days ago, she showed no ingenuity at all in finding the object.
She looked in places where it would have been impossible to put the ball
or the spool. For instance, when I hid the ball, she looked under her
writing-board. Again, when I hid the spool, she looked for it in a
little box not more than an inch long; and she very soon gave up the
search. Now I can keep up her interest in the game for an hour or
longer, and she shows much more intelligence, and often great ingenuity
in the search. This morning I hid a cracker. She looked everywhere
she could think of without success, and was evidently in despair when
suddenly a thought struck her, and she came running to me and made me
open my mouth very wide, while she gave it a thorough investigation.
Finding no trace of the cracker there, she pointed to my stomach and
spelled "eat," meaning, "Did you eat it?"
Friday we went down town and met a gentleman who gave Helen some candy,
which she ate, except one small piece which she put in her apron pocket.
When we reached home, she found her mother, and of her own accord said,
"Give baby candy." Mrs. Keller spelled, "No--baby eat--no." Helen went
to the cradle and felt of Mildred's mouth and pointed to her own teeth.
Mrs. Keller spelled "teeth." Helen shook her head and spelled "Baby
teeth--no, baby eat--no," meaning of course, "Baby cannot eat because
she has no teeth."
May 8, 1887.
No, I don't want any more kindergarten materials. I used my little stock
of beads, cards and straws at first because I didn't know what else to
do; but the need for them is past, for the present at any rate.
I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of
education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every
child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if
the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less
showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and
combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a
little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build
a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of
coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching
fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid
of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual
experiences.
Helen is learning adjectives and adverbs as easily as she learned nouns.
The idea always precedes the word. She had signs for SMALL and LARGE
long before I came to her. If she wanted a small object and was given a
large one, she would shake her head and take up a tiny bit of the skin
of one hand between the thumb and finger of the other. If she wanted to
indicate something large, she spread the fingers of both hands as wide
as she could, and brought them together, as if to clasp a big ball. The
other day I substituted the words SMALL and LARGE for these signs, and
she at once adopted the words and discarded the signs. I can now tell
her to bring me a large book or a small plate, to go upstairs slowly, to
run fast and to walk quickly. This morning she used the conjunction AND
for the first time. I told her to shut the door, and she added, "and
lock."
She came tearing upstairs a few minutes ago in a state of great
excitement. I couldn't make out at first what it was all about. She kept
spelling "dog--baby" and pointing to her five fingers one after another,
and sucking them. My first thought was, one of the dogs has hurt
Mildred; but Helen's beaming face set my fears at rest. Nothing would
do but I must go somewhere with her to see something. She led the way to
the pump-house, and there in the corner was one of the setters with five
dear little pups! I taught her the word "puppy" and drew her hand
over them all, while they sucked, and spelled "puppies." She was much
interested in the feeding process, and spelled "mother-dog" and "baby"
several times. Helen noticed that the puppies' eyes were closed, and
she said, "Eyes--shut. Sleep--no," meaning, "The eyes are shut, but the
puppies are not asleep." She screamed with glee when the little things
squealed and squirmed in their efforts to get back to their mother, and
spelled, "Baby--eat large." I suppose her idea was "Baby eats much." She
pointed to each puppy, one after another, and to her five fingers, and I
taught her the word FIVE. Then she held up one finger and said "baby."
I knew she was thinking of Mildred, and I spelled, "One baby and five
puppies." After she had played with them a little while, the thought
occurred to her that the puppies must have special names, like people,
and she asked for the name of each pup. I told her to ask her father,
and she said, "No--mother." She evidently thought mothers were more
likely to know about babies of all sorts. She noticed that one of the
puppies was much smaller than the others, and she spelled "small,"
making the sign at the same time, and I said "very small." She evidently
understood that VERY was the name of the new thing that had come into
her head; for all the way back to the house she used the word VERY
correctly. One stone was "small," another was "very small." When she
touched her little sister, she said: "Baby--small. Puppy--very small."
Soon after, she began to vary her steps from large to small, and little
mincing steps were "very small." She is going through the house now,
applying the new words to all kinds of objects.
Since I have abandoned the idea of regular lessons, I find that Helen
learns much faster. I am convinced that the time spent by the teacher
in digging out of the child what she has put into him, for the sake of
satisfying herself that it has taken root, is so much time thrown away.
IT'S MUCH BETTER, I THINK, TO ASSUME THAT THE CHILD IS DOING HIS PART,
AND THAT THE SEED YOU HAVE SOWN WILL BEAR FRUIT IN DUE TIME. It's only
fair to the child, anyhow, and it saves you much unnecessary trouble.
May 16, 1887.
We have begun to take long walks every morning, immediately after
breakfast. The weather is fine, and the air is full of the scent of
strawberries. Our objective point is Keller's Landing, on the Tennessee,
about two miles distant. We never know how we get there, or where we are
at a given moment; but that only adds to our enjoyment, especially when
everything is new and strange. Indeed, I feel as if I had never seen
anything until now, Helen finds so much to ask about along the way. We
chase butterflies, and sometimes catch one. Then we sit down under a
tree, or in the shade of a bush, and talk about it. Afterwards, if it
has survived the lesson, we let it go; but usually its life and beauty
are sacrificed on the altar of learning, though in another sense it
lives forever; for has it not been transformed into living thoughts? It
is wonderful how words generate ideas! Every new word Helen learns seems
to carry with it necessity for many more. Her mind grows through its
ceaseless activity.
Keller's Landing was used during the war to land troops, but has long
since gone to pieces, and is overgrown with moss and weeds. The solitude
of the place sets one dreaming. Near the landing there is a beautiful
little spring, which Helen calls "squirrel-cup," because I told her the
squirrels came there to drink. She has felt dead squirrels and rabbits
and other wild animals, and is anxious to see a "walk-squirrel,"
which interpreted, means, I think, a "live squirrel." We go home about
dinner-time usually, and Helen is eager to tell her mother everything
she has seen. THIS DESIRE TO REPEAT WHAT HAS BEEN TOLD HER SHOWS A
MARKED ADVANCE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HER INTELLECT, AND IS AN INVALUABLE
STIMULUS TO THE ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE. I ASK ALL HER FRIENDS TO
ENCOURAGE HER TO TELL THEM OF HER DOINGS, AND TO MANIFEST AS MUCH
CURIOSITY AND PLEASURE IN HER LITTLE ADVENTURES AS THEY POSSIBLY CAN.
This gratifies the child's love of approbation and keeps up her interest
in things. This is the basis of real intercourse. She makes many
mistakes, of course, twists words and phrases, puts the cart before the
horse, and gets herself into hopeless tangles of nouns and verbs; but so
does the hearing child. I am sure these difficulties will take care of
themselves. The impulse to tell is the important thing. I supply a word
here and there, sometimes a sentence, and suggest something which she
has omitted or forgotten. Thus her vocabulary grows apace, and the new
words germinate and bring forth new ideas; and they are the stuff out of
which heaven and earth are made.
May 22, 1887.
My work grows more absorbing and interesting every day. Helen is a
wonderful child, so spontaneous and eager to learn. She knows about 300
words now and A GREAT MANY COMMON IDIOMS, and it is not three months yet
since she learned her first word. It is a rare privilege to watch
the birth, growth, and first feeble struggles of a living mind; this
privilege is mine; and moreover, it is given me to rouse and guide this
bright intelligence.
If only I were better fitted for the great task! I feel every day more
and more inadequate. My mind is full of ideas; but I cannot get them
into working shape. You see, my mind is undisciplined, full of skips
and jumps, and here and there a lot of things huddled together in dark
corners. How I long to put it in order! Oh, if only there were some one
to help me! I need a teacher quite as much as Helen. I know that the
education of this child will be the distinguishing event of my life, if
I have the brains and perseverance to accomplish it. I have made up my
mind about one thing: Helen must learn to use books--indeed, we must
both learn to use them, and that reminds me--will you please ask Mr.
Anagnos to get me Perez's and Sully's Psychologies? I think I shall find
them helpful.
We have reading lessons every day. Usually we take one of the little
"Readers" up in a big tree near the house and spend an hour or two
finding the words Helen already knows. WE MAKE A SORT OF GAME OF IT and
try to see who can find the words most quickly, Helen with her fingers,
or I with my eyes, and she learns as many new words as I can explain
with the help of those she knows. When her fingers light upon words she
knows, she fairly screams with pleasure and hugs and kisses me for joy,
especially if she thinks she has me beaten. It would astonish you to see
how many words she learns in an hour in this pleasant manner. Afterward
I put the new words into little sentences in the frame, and sometimes it
is possible to tell a little story about a bee or a cat or a little boy
in this way. I can now tell her to go upstairs or down, out of doors
or into the house, lock or unlock a door, take or bring objects, sit,
stand, walk, run, lie, creep, roll, or climb. She is delighted with
action-words; so it is no trouble at all to teach her verbs. She is
always ready for a lesson, and the eagerness with which she absorbs
ideas is very delightful. She is as triumphant over the conquest of a
sentence as a general who has captured the enemy's stronghold.
One of Helen's old habits, that is strongest and hardest to correct, is
a tendency to break things. If she finds anything in her way, she flings
it on the floor, no matter what it is: a glass, a pitcher, or even a
lamp. She has a great many dolls, and every one of them has been broken
in a fit of temper or ennui. The other day a friend brought her a new
doll from Memphis, and I thought I would see if I could make Helen
understand that she must not break it. I made her go through the motion
of knocking the doll's head on the table and spelled to her: "No,
no, Helen is naughty. Teacher is sad," and let her feel the grieved
expression on my face. Then I made her caress the doll and kiss the hurt
spot and hold it gently in her arms, and I spelled to her, "Good Helen,
teacher is happy," and let her feel the smile on my face. She went
through these motions several times, mimicking every movement, then she
stood very still for a moment with a troubled look on her face, which
suddenly cleared, and she spelled, "Good Helen," and wreathed her face
in a very large, artificial smile. Then she carried the doll upstairs
and put it on the top shelf of the wardrobe, and she has not touched it
since.
Please give my kind regards to Mr. Anagnos and let him see my letter, if
you think best. I hear there is a deaf and blind child being educated at
the Baltimore Institution.
June 2, 1887.
The weather is scorching. We need rain badly. We are all troubled about
Helen. She is very nervous and excitable. She is restless at night and
has no appetite. It is hard to know what to do with her. The doctor says
her mind is too active; but how are we to keep her from thinking? She
begins to spell the minute she wakes up in the morning, and continues
all day long. If I refuse to talk to her, she spells into her own hand,
and apparently carries on the liveliest conversation with herself.
I gave her my braille slate to play with, thinking that the mechanical
pricking of holes in the paper would amuse her and rest her mind. But
what was my astonishment when I found that the little witch was writing
letters! I had no idea she knew what a letter was. She has often
gone with me to the post-office to mail letters, and I suppose I have
repeated to her things I wrote to you. She knew, too, that I sometimes
write "letters to blind girls" on the slate; but I didn't suppose that
she had any clear idea what a letter was. One day she brought me a sheet
that she had punched full of holes, and wanted to put it in an envelope
and take it to the post-office. She said, "Frank--letter." I asked
her what she had written to Frank. She replied, "Much words. Puppy
motherdog--five. Baby--cry. Hot. Helen walk--no. Sunfire--bad.
Frank--come. Helen--kiss Frank. Strawberries--very good."
Helen is almost as eager to read as she is to talk. I find she grasps
the import of whole sentences, catching from the context the meaning
of words she doesn't know; and her eager questions indicate the outward
reaching of her mind and its unusual powers.
The other night when I went to bed, I found Helen sound asleep with a
big book clasped tightly in her arms. She had evidently been reading,
and fallen asleep. When I asked her about it in the morning, she said,
"Book--cry," and completed her meaning by shaking and other signs of
fear. I taught her the word AFRAID, and she said: "Helen is not afraid.
Book is afraid. Book will sleep with girl." I told her that the book
wasn't afraid, and must sleep in its case, and that "girl" mustn't read
in bed. She looked very roguish, and apparently understood that I saw
through her ruse.
I am glad Mr. Anagnos thinks so highly of me as a teacher. But "genius"
and "originality" are words we should not use lightly. If, indeed, they
apply to me even remotely, I do not see that I deserve any laudation on
that account.
And right here I want to say something which is for your ears alone.
Something within me tells me that I shall succeed beyond my dreams. Were
it not for some circumstances that make such an idea highly improbable,
even absurd, I should think Helen's education would surpass in interest
and wonder Dr. Howe's achievement. I know that she has remarkable
powers, and I believe that I shall be able to develop and mould them. I
cannot tell how I know these things. I had no idea a short time ago how
to go to work; I was feeling about in the dark; but somehow I know
now, and I know that I know. I cannot explain it; but when difficulties
arise, I am not perplexed or doubtful. I know how to meet them; I seem
to divine Helen's peculiar needs. It is wonderful.
Already people are taking a deep interest in Helen. No one can see her
without being impressed. She is no ordinary child, and people's interest
in her education will be no ordinary interest. Therefore let us be
exceedingly careful what we say and write about her. I shall write
freely to you and tell you everything, on one condition: It is this:
you must promise never to show my letters to any one. My beautiful Helen
shall not be transformed into a prodigy if I can help it.
June 5, 1887.
The heat makes Helen languid and quiet. Indeed, the Tophetic weather
has reduced us all to a semi-liquid state. Yesterday Helen took off her
clothes and sat in her skin all the afternoon. When the sun got round to
the window where she was sitting with her book, she got up impatiently
and shut the window. But when the sun came in just the same, she came
over to me with a grieved look and spelled emphatically: "Sun is bad
boy. Sun must go to bed."
She is the dearest, cutest little thing now, and so loving! One day,
when I wanted her to bring me some water, she said: "Legs very tired.
Legs cry much."
She is much interested in some little chickens that are pecking their
way into the world this morning. I let her hold a shell in her hand, and
feel the chicken "chip, chip." Her astonishment, when she felt the tiny
creature inside, cannot be put in a letter. The hen was very gentle, and
made no objection to our investigations. Besides the chickens, we have
several other additions to the family--two calves, a colt, and a penful
of funny little pigs. You would be amused to see me hold a squealing
pig in my arms, while Helen feels it all over, and asks countless
questions--questions not easy to answer either. After seeing the chicken
come out of the egg, she asked: "Did baby pig grow in egg? Where are
many shells?"
Helen's head measures twenty and one-half inches, and mine measures
twenty-one and one-half inches. You see, I'm only one inch ahead!
June 12, 1887.
The weather continues hot. Helen is about the same--pale and thin; but
you mustn't think she is really ill. I am sure the heat, and not
the natural, beautiful activity of her mind, is responsible for her
condition. Of course, I shall not overtax her brain. We are bothered a
good deal by people who assume the responsibility of the world when God
is neglectful. They tell us that Helen is "overdoing," that her mind
is too active (these very people thought she had no mind at all a few
months ago!) and suggest many absurd and impossible remedies. But so far
nobody seems to have thought of chloroforming her, which is, I
think, the only effective way of stopping the natural exercise of her
faculties. It's queer how ready people always are with advice in any
real or imaginary emergency, and no matter how many times experience has
shown them to be wrong, they continue to set forth their opinions, as if
they had received them from the Almighty!
I am teaching Helen the square-hand letters as a sort of diversion.
It gives her something to do, and keeps her quiet, which I think is
desirable while this enervating weather lasts. She has a perfect mania
for counting. She has counted everything in the house, and is now busy
counting the words in her primer. I hope it will not occur to her to
count the hairs of her head. If she could see and hear, I suppose
she would get rid of her superfluous energy in ways which would not,
perhaps, tax her brain so much, although I suspect that the ordinary
child takes his play pretty seriously. The little fellow who whirls his
"New York Flyer" round the nursery, making "horseshoe curves" undreamed
of by less imaginative engineers, is concentrating his whole soul on his
toy locomotive.
She just came to say, with a worried expression, "Girl--not count
very large (many) words." I said, "No, go and play with Nancy." This
suggestion didn't please her, however; for she replied, "No. Nancy is
very sick." I asked what was the matter, and she said, "Much (many)
teeth do make Nancy sick." (Mildred is teething.)
I happened to tell her the other day that the vine on the fence was a
"creeper." She was greatly amused, and began at once to find analogies
between her movements and those of the plants. They run, creep, hop, and
skip, bend, fall, climb, and swing; but she tells me roguishly that she
is "walk-plant."
Helen held some worsted for me last night while I wound it. Afterward
she began to swing round and round, spelling to herself all the time,
"Wind fast, wind slow," and apparently enjoying her conceit very much.
June 15, 1887.
We had a glorious thunder-tempest last night, and it's much cooler
to-day. We all feel refreshed, as if we'd had a shower-bath. Helen's as
lively as a cricket. She wanted to know if men were shooting in the sky
when she felt the thunder, and if the trees and flowers drank all the
rain.
June 19, 1887.
My little pupil continues to manifest the same eagerness to learn as at
first. Her every waking moment is spent in the endeavour to satisfy her
innate desire for knowledge, and her mind works so incessantly that we
have feared for her health. But her appetite, which left her a few weeks
ago, has returned, and her sleep seems more quiet and natural. She will
be seven years old the twenty-seventh of this month. Her height is
four feet one inch, and her head measures twenty and one-half inches in
circumference, the line being drawn round the head so as to pass over
the prominences of the parietal and frontal bones. Above this line the
head rises one and one-fourth inches.
During our walks she keeps up a continual spelling, and delights to
accompany it with actions such as skipping, hopping, jumping, running,
walking fast, walking slow, and the like. When she drops stitches she
says, "Helen wrong, teacher will cry." If she wants water she says,
"Give Helen drink water." She knows four hundred words besides numerous
proper nouns. In one lesson I taught her these words: BEDSTEAD,
MATTRESS, SHEET, BLANKET, COMFORTER, SPREAD, PILLOW. The next day I
found that she remembered all but spread. The same day she had learned,
at different times, the words: hOUSE, WEED, DUST, SWING, MOLASSES, FAST,
SLOW, MAPLE-SUGAR and COUNTER, and she had not forgotten one of these
last. This will give you an idea of the retentive memory she possesses.
She can count to thirty very quickly, and can write seven of the
square-hand letters and the words which can be made with them. She seems
to understand about writing letters, and is impatient to "write Frank
letter." She enjoys punching holes in paper with the stiletto, and I
supposed it was because she could examine the result of her work; but we
watched her one day, and I was much surprised to find that she imagined
she was writing a letter. She would spell "Eva" (a cousin of whom she
is very fond) with one hand, then make believe to write it; then spell,
"sick in bed," and write that. She kept this up for nearly an hour.
She was (or imagined she was) putting on paper the things which had
interested her. When she had finished the letter she carried it to her
mother and spelled, "Frank letter," and gave it to her brother to
take to the post-office. She had been with me to take letters to the
post-office.
She recognizes instantly a person whom she has once met, and spells the
name. Unlike Laura Bridgman, she is fond of gentlemen, and we notice
that she makes friends with a gentleman sooner than with a lady.