When nineteen months old Helen Keller was stricken with an illness
which robbed her of both sight and hearing. The infant that is blind
and deaf is of course dumb also, for being unable to see or hear the
speech of others, the child cannot learn to imitate it.
Despite her enormous handicaps, Miss Keller to-day is a college
graduate, a public speaker, and the author of several charming books.
It need scarcely be explained that this miracle was not wrought by
self-help alone. But if she had not striven with all her might to
respond to the efforts of her devoted teacher, Miss Keller would not
to-day be mistress of the unusual talent for literary expression which
makes her contributions sure of a welcome in the columns of the leading
magazines.
From "The Story of My Life," by Helen Keller. Published by Doubleday,
Page & Co.
The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my
teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder
when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which
it connects. It was the third of March; 1887, three months before I
was seven years old.
On the afternoon of that eventful day I stood on the porch, dumb,
expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother's signs and from the
hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to
happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. The afternoon
sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell
on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the
familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the
sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel
or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me
continually for weeks, and a deep languor had succeeded this passionate
struggle.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a
tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and
anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and
sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to
happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was
without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near
the harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my
soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.
I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to
my mother. Some one took it, and I was caught up and held close in the
arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all
things else, to love me.
The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me
a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent
it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until
afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan
slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l." I was at once
interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally
succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish
pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand
and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a
word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in
monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in
this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them _pin_, _hat_,
_cup_, and a few verbs like _sit_, _stand_, and _walk_. But my teacher
had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has
a name.
One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big
rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me
understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had
had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had
tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is
_water_, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had
dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first
opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing
the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when
I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor
regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In
the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or
tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the
hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my
discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going
out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may
be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance
of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing
water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool
stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water,
first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed
upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness
as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow
the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that
"w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my
hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set
it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that
could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each
name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every
object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I
saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On
entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to
the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them
together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had
done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.
I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they
all were; but I do know that _mother_, _father_, _sister_, _teacher_
were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for me,
"like Aaron's rod, with flowers." It would have been difficult to find
a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that
eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the
first time longed for a new day to come.
I had now the key to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it.
Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the
words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were,
delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and
often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is
wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step
until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered
syllable and the sweep of thought in a line of Shakespeare.
At first, when my teacher told me about a new thing I asked very few
questions. My ideas were vague, and my vocabulary was inadequate; but
as my knowledge of things grew, and I learned more and more words, my
field of inquiry broadened, and I would return again and again to the
same subject, eager for further information. Sometimes a new word
revived an image that some earlier experience had engraved on my brain.
I remember the morning that I first asked the meaning of the word,
"love." This was before I knew many words. I had found a few early
violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher. She tried to
kiss me; but at that time I did not like to have any one kiss me except
my mother. Miss Sullivan put her arm gently round me and spelled into
my hand, "I love Helen."
"What is love?" I asked.
She drew me closer to her and said, "It is here," pointing to my heart,
whose beats I was conscious of for the first time. Her words puzzled
me very much because I did not then understand anything unless I
touched it.
I smelt the violets in her hand and asked, half in words, half in
signs, a question which meant, "Is love the sweetness of flowers?"
"No," said my teacher.
Again I thought. The warm sun was shining on us.
"Is this not love?" I asked, pointing in the direction from which the
heat came, "Is this not love?"
It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the
sun, whose warmth makes all things grow. But Miss Sullivan shook her
head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed. I thought it strange
that my teacher could not show me love.
A day or two afterward I was stringing beads of different sizes in
symmetrical groups--two large beads, three small ones, and so on. I
had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them out again
and again with gentle patience. Finally I noticed a very obvious error
in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the
lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged the beads. Miss
Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, "Think."
In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was
going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception of an
abstract idea.
For a long time I was still--I was not thinking of the beads in my lap,
but trying to find a meaning for "love" in the light of this new idea.
The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief
showers; but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendour.