サリバン女史の手紙 

2023.04.16

　サリバン先生は、ヘレン･ケラーの家庭教師として赴任直後から、親友のホプキンズ夫人に、ヘレンの教育について詳しく語った手紙を書き送りました。

その手紙は、1903年版のヘレン･ケラーの自伝

THE
STORY OF MY LIFE
By HELEN KELLER

WITH
HER LETTERS (1887-1901)
AND
A SUPPLEMENTARY ACCOUNT
OF HER EDUCATION, INCLUDING
PASSAGES FROM THE REPORTS
AND LETTERS OF HER TEACHER,
ANNE MANSFIELD SULLIVAN

に、含まれて、世に知られることになりました。

　この本は、下記のサイトで、読むことができます。

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/keller/life/life.html#III

　この本の
PART III A SUPPLEMENTARY ACCOUNT OF HELEN KELLER'S LIFE AND EDUCATION
の
CHAPTER III EDUCATION

の中ほどから、サリバン先生の手紙の紹介が始まります。

　以下に、重要な部分を、少しずつ、翻訳してみます。

●Here follow in order Miss Sullivan's letters and the most important passages from the reports.
以下に、続きます｜順序だてて｜サリバン嬢の手紙と報告書の中の最も重要な文章が｜。
I have omitted from each succeeding report what has already been explained and does not need to be repeated.
私は、省きました｜以下に続く各報告書の中から、すでに説明され、繰り返しが必要ないものを｜。
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,
読者の便宜のために、私は、サリバン嬢の許可を得て、抜粋部分が連続的につながるようにし、追加しました｜つなぎの言葉と、結果として必要な文法的な変更を｜。
and Miss Sullivan has made slight changes in the phrasing of her reports and also of her letters, which were carelessly written.
サリバン嬢は、少し変更を加えました｜言い回しに｜彼女の報告書や手紙の中の｜、それらは、不注意に書かれたものです。
I have also italicized a few important passages. 私は、イタリック体にしました｜重要な文章を｜。
Some of her opinions Miss Sullivan would like to enlarge and revise.
彼女の意見のいくつかを、サリバン嬢は、思っています｜拡張したり改訂したいと｜。
That remains for her to do at another time.  それは、残っています｜彼女が別の時間に行うように｜。
At present we have here the fullest record that has been published.
現在、ここにあります｜公開された最も完全な報告が｜。
The first letter is dated March 6, 1887, three days after her arrival in Tuscumbia.
最初の手紙は、日付が1887年3月6日です、彼女がタスカンビアに着いて３日後です。

●... It was 6:30 when I reached Tuscumbia.  6時30分でした、私がタスカンビアに着いた時。
I found Mrs. Keller and Mr. James Keller waiting for me.
ケラー夫人と、ジェームズが待っていました。
They said somebody had met every train for two days.
彼らは、言いました｜誰かがすべての列車を出迎えたと｜２日間の間｜。
The drive from the station to the house, a distance of one mile, was very lovely and restful.
駅からお宅までのドライブは、１マイルの距離でしたが、とても楽しく気分が休まるものでした。
I was surprised to find Mrs. Keller a very young-looking woman, not much older than myself, I should think.
私は、驚きました｜ケラー夫人が、非常にお若く見える女性だと知って｜、私よりそんなに年上ではないでしょうね。
Captain Keller met us in the yard and gave me a cheery welcome and a hearty handshake.
ケラー大尉は、私たちをお庭で出迎えて、陽気な挨拶をし、心からの握手をしました。
My first question was, "Where is Helen?" 私の最初の質問は、「ヘレンはどこ？」でした。
I tried with all my might to control the eagerness that made me tremble so that I could hardly walk.
私は、試みました｜全力で｜私の熱意を制御しようと｜私を震えさせている｜歩くことができないほど｜。
As we approached the house I saw a child standing in the doorway,
家に近づくと、私は、見つけました｜子供が一人、出入り口に立っているのを｜、
and Captain Keller said, 　ケラー大尉は、言いました、
"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."
「彼女です。彼女は、知っていました｜１日中｜だれかが来ることを｜、そして、荒れ狂っていました｜母親があなたを迎えに駅に行って以来ずっと｜。
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.
私が、階段に足を置くや否や、彼女は、私の方に、突進してきました、余りに力強かったので、私は、後ろに投げ出されそうでした、もしケラー大尉が私の後ろにいなかったなら。
She felt my face and dress and my bag, which she took out of my hand and tried to open.
彼女は、さわりました｜私の顔や、服や、カバンをー、彼女は、カバンを私の手から取り、開けようとしました。
It did not open easily, and she felt carefully to see if there was a keyhole.
それは、簡単には開きませんでした、彼女は、注意深く手探りして、鍵穴がないか確かめました。
Finding that there was, she turned to me, making the sign of turning a key and pointing to the bag.
鍵穴があるこ知ると、彼女は、私の方を向き、鍵を開けるしぐさをして、カバンを指さしました。
Her mother interfered at this point and showed Helen by signs that she must not touch the bag.
母親は、遮って｜この時点で｜、ヘレンに、カバンを触ってはいけないと合図しました。
Her face flushed, and when her mother attempted to take the bag from her, she grew very angry.
彼女の顔は、真っ赤になり、母親が、カバンを取ろうとしたとき、彼女は、非常に怒りました。
I attracted her attention by showing her my watch and letting her hold it in her hand.
私は、彼女の注意を引きました｜彼女に時計を見せて、手に取らせることで｜。
Instantly the tempest subsided, and we went upstairs together.
瞬間に、大騒動は収まり、私たちは、一緒に二階に上がりました。
Here I opened the bag, and she went through it eagerly, probably expecting to find something to eat.
私は、カバンを開けました、彼女は、熱心に中を調べました｜多分何か食べるものが見つかることを期待して｜。
Friends had probably brought her candy in their bags, and she expected to find some in mine.
多分、友達が、かつてカバンにキャンディーを持ってきたのでしょう、彼女は、期待したのでした｜私のカバンにも何かを｜。
I made her understand, by pointing to a trunk in the hall and to myself and nodding my head, that I had a trunk,
私は、彼女に知らせました｜ホールにあるトランクと私自身を指さし、頭をうなずいて、私がトランクを持っていることを｜、
and then made the sign that she had used for eating, and nodded again.
そして、彼女が食べる時に使うサインをして、うなずきました。
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.
彼女は、瞬間に理解し、一階に降りて、母親に告げました｜強烈なサインで、トランクの中に彼女のためのケーキがあると｜。
She returned in a few minutes and helped me put away my things.
彼女は、すぐもどってきて、手伝いました｜私が物を片付けるのを｜。
It was too comical to see her put on my bonnet and cock her head first to one side, then the other, and look in the mirror, just as if she could see.
とても滑稽でした｜彼女が、私のボンネットを被って、最初、頭をこっちに向け、次に、あっちに向け、鏡を覗き込むのを見ると｜まるで彼女は見えるかのように｜｜。
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.
何故か私は予想していました｜青白く繊細な子どもを｜、多分、私は、得たのです｜その考えを｜ハウ博士のローラ・ブリッジマンについての記載から｜彼女が施設に来た時の｜。
But there's nothing pale or delicate about Helen.
しかし、ありませんでした｜青白いものも繊細なものも｜ヘレンに関しては｜。
She is large, strong, and ruddy, and as unrestrained in her movements as a young colt.
彼女は、大きく、力強く、血色がよく、彼女の動きは仔馬のように抑制のないものでした。
She has none of those nervous habits that are so noticeable and so distressing in blind children.
彼女には、ありませんでした｜神経質な性質は｜顕著で痛ましい｜盲目の子どもたちに｜。
Her body is well formed and vigorous,  彼女の肉体は、体格が良く、頑健でした。
and Mrs. Keller says she has not been ill a day since the illness that deprived her of her sight and hearing.
ケラー夫人は、言います｜ヘレンは、一日も病気したことがないと｜彼女の視力と張力を奪った病気以来｜。
She has a fine head, and it is set on her shoulders just right.
彼女は、立派な頭を持ち、肩の上に正しく座っています。
Her face is hard to describe.  彼女の顔は、記述困難です。
It is intelligent, but lacks mobility, or soul, or something.
顔は、知的ですが、欠けています｜動きや、魂や、何かが｜。
Her mouth is large and finely shaped.  口は大きく、素晴らしい形です。
You see at a glance that she is blind.  一目でわかります｜彼女が盲目だと｜。
One eye is larger than the other, and protrudes noticeably.
片目は、もう一方より大きく、はっきりと飛び出しています。
She rarely smiles, indeed, I have seen her smile only once or twice since I came.
めったに笑いません、実際、彼女が笑うのを一二度しか見ていません｜ここに来て以来｜。
She is unresponsive and even impatient of caresses from any one except her mother.
彼女は、反応が鈍く、我慢ができません｜触られることに｜母親以外の誰からも｜。
She is very quick-tempered and wilful,  彼女は、短気で、強情です。
and nobody, except her brother James, has attempted to control her.
弟のジェームズ以外の誰も、彼女を制御しようとはしませんでした。
The greatest problem I shall have to solve is how to discipline and control her without breaking her spirit.
私が解決しなければならない最大の問題は、いかに彼女を訓練し制御するかです｜彼女の精神を壊すことなく｜。
I shall go rather slowly at first and try to win her love.
私は、最初はむしろゆっくりやりましょう、彼女の愛を勝ち取るようにしましょう。
I shall not attempt to conquer her by force alone;
私は、彼女を征服しようとはしません｜力だけでは｜；
but I shall insist on reasonable obedience from the start.
しかし、筋のとおった従順さは、要求しましょう｜最初から｜。
One thing that impresses everybody is Helen's tireless activity.
皆を感動させるあることとは、彼女の疲れをしらない活発さです。
She is never still a moment. 彼女は、一瞬もじっとはしていません。
She is here, there, and everywhere.  彼女は、ここにいたり、あそこにいたり、あちこちにゆきます。
Her hands are in everything; but nothing holds her attention for long.
彼女の手は、何にでも入りますが、何事も、彼女の注意を長くはひきません。
Dear child, her restless spirit gropes in the dark. 可愛い子、彼女の落ち着きのない精神は、暗闇を模索します。
Her untaught, unsatisfied hands destroy whatever they touch because they do not know what else to do with things.
彼女の教えられたことも、満足したこともない両手は、なんでも触るものを壊してしまいます、物に対して、ほかにどうすべきか分からないのですから。

●She helped me unpack my trunk when it came,  ヘレンは、手伝いました｜トランクを開けるのを｜それが届いた時｜、
and was delighted when she found the doll the little girls sent her.
喜びました｜人形を見つけて｜少女たちがヘレンに送った｜。
I thought it a good opportunity to teach her her first word.
私は、思いました｜よい機会だと｜彼女に最初の言葉を教える｜。
I spelled "d-o-l-l" slowly in her hand and pointed to the doll and nodded my head,
私は、綴りました｜"d-o-l-l"とゆっくり彼女の手に｜、指さしました｜人形を｜、そしてうなづきました、
which seems to be her sign for possession.  これが、彼女にとっての所有の合図のようです。
Whenever anybody gives her anything, she points to it, then to herself, and nods her head.
人が彼女に何かを与えるときは、ヘレンは、まずそれを指し、次に自分を指し、そして頭をうなずきます。
She looked puzzled and felt my hand, and I repeated the letters.
彼女は、途惑ったようで、私の手をさわりました、そこで、私は、繰り返しました｜その文字を｜、
She imitated them very well and pointed to the doll.
彼女は、真似ました｜その文字を上手に｜、そして、指さしました｜その人形を｜。
Then I took the doll, meaning to give it back to her when she had made the letters;
私は、人形を取りました、彼女にもどすつもりでした｜彼女が、その文字を書いたときに｜、
but she thought I meant to take it from her,  しかし、彼女は、思いました｜私が彼女からそれをとると｜、
and in an instant she was in a temper, and tried to seize the doll.
瞬間に、彼女は、怒りだし、人形をとろうとしました。
I shook my head and tried to form the letters with her fingers;
私は、頭をふり、彼女の指でその文字をつづろうとしました；
but she got more and more angry. しかし、彼女は、さらにもっと怒りました。
I forced her into a chair and held her there until I was nearly exhausted.
私は、押し付けました｜彼女を椅子に｜、押さえました｜彼女をそこに｜、ついには、私は、全く消耗してしまいました。
Then it occurred to me that it was useless to continue the struggle
そして、思いつきました｜無駄だと｜こんな闘争を続けるのは｜、
–I must do something to turn the current of her thoughts.
- 私は、何かしなければならないのです｜彼女の考えの流れを変えるために｜。
I let her go, but refused to give up the doll.
私は、彼女を放しましたが、拒否しました｜人形を諦めることは｜。
I went downstairs and got some cake (she is very fond of sweets).
私は、一階に降りて、ケーキを少し手にいれました(彼女は、甘いものが大好きです)
I showed Helen the cake and spelled "c-a-k-e" in her hand, holding the cake toward her.
私は、見せました｜ヘレンにケーキを｜、つづりました｜"c-a-k-e"と｜彼女の手に｜、保持しながら｜ケーキを彼女の方に向けて｜、
Of course she wanted it and tried to take it;  勿論、彼女は、それを欲し、取ろうとしました；
but I spelled the word again and patted her hand.
しかし、私は、つづり｜その単語をもう一度｜、叩きました｜彼女の手を｜。
She made the letters rapidly, and I gave her the cake,
彼女は、しました｜その文字を急いで｜、私は、あげました｜彼女にケーキを｜、
which she ate in a great hurry, thinking, I suppose, that I might take it from her.
そのケーキを、彼女は、急いで食べました、思いながら、私の推測では、私が、とってしまうんじゃないかと｜彼女からそれを｜。
Then I showed her the doll and spelled the word again, holding the doll toward her as I held the cake.
私は、示しました｜彼女に人形を｜、つづりました｜その単語をもう一度｜、保持しながら｜人形を彼女に向けて｜ケーキを保持していたように｜。
She made the letters "d-o-l" and I made the other "l" and gave her the doll.
彼女は、しました｜文字 "d-o-l" を｜、私は、残りの"l"を書いて、与えました｜彼女に人形を｜。
She ran downstairs with it and could not be induced to return to my room all day.
彼女は、走りました｜下の階にそれを持って｜、誘うことはできませんでした｜私の部屋に戻ってくるように｜一日中｜。

●Yesterday I gave her a sewing-card to do. 昨日、私は、あげました｜彼女に｜裁縫カードを｜練習用の｜、
I made the first row of vertical lines and let her feel it and notice that there were several rows of little holes.
私は、しました｜縦の線の第一列を｜、彼女にさわらせました、気づかせました｜小さな穴の開いた複数の列があることを｜。
She began to work delightedly and finished the card in a few minutes, and did it very neatly indeed.
彼女は、喜んで働き始めました、終えました｜カードを数分で｜、非常にこぎれいにやりました。
I thought I would try another word; so I spelled "c-a-r-d."
私は、思いました｜別の言葉をやってみようと｜；綴りました｜"c-a-r-d."と｜。
She made the "c-a," then stopped and thought,  彼女は、 "c-a" として、止まり、考え込みました、
and making the sign for eating and pointing downward she pushed me toward the door,
食べるサインをして、下の方を指して、彼女は、押しました｜私をドアの方に｜、
meaning that I must go downstairs for some cake.  意味して｜私に、下に行けと｜ケーキを取りに｜。
The two letters "c-a," you see, had reminded her of Friday's "lesson"
二つの文字 "c-a" は、彼女に、金曜のレッスン"c-a-k-e"を思い出させました
–not that she had any idea that cake was the name of the thing,
彼女が、ケーキが物の名前だという観念を持ったからではありません
but it was simply a matter of association, I suppose.
それは、単に、連想の問題だと、私は、思います。
I finished the word "c-a-k-e" and obeyed her command.
私は、綴り終えました｜"c-a-k-e"という単語を｜、そして、彼女の指令に従いました。
She was delighted.  彼女は、喜びました。
Then I spelled "d-o-l-l" and began to hunt for it.
私は、"d-o-l-l" と綴り、それを捜し始めました。
She follows with her hands every motion you make, and she knew that I was looking for the doll.
彼女は、フォローします｜手であなたのすべての動きを｜、彼女は、私が人形を捜していることを知りました。
She pointed down, meaning that the doll was downstairs.
彼女は、下を指しました、人形は階下にあることを意味します。
I made the signs that she had used when she wished me to go for the cake, and pushed her toward the door.
私は、サインをしました｜彼女が使った｜彼女が私にケーキをとってきて欲しかったときに｜、押しました｜彼女をドアの方に｜。
She started forward, then hesitated a moment, evidently debating within herself whether she would go or not.
彼女は、前に進みました、一瞬とまどいました、明らかに、彼女の中で、行くべきか否か、熟考しています。
She decided to send me instead. 彼女は、決めました｜私を行かせようと｜。
I shook my head and spelled "d-o-l-l" more emphatically, and opened the door for her;
私は、頭を振って、綴り｜"d-o-l-l"とより力強く｜、ドアを開けました｜彼女のために｜；
but she obstinately refused to obey. 彼女は、頑固に、拒否しました｜従うことを｜。
She had not finished the cake she was eating,  彼女は、ケーキをまだ食べ終えていませんでした、
and I took it away, indicating that if she brought the doll I would give her back the cake.
私は、ケーキを取り上げて、示しました｜もし人形をとってきたら、ケーキを返してあげると｜。
She stood perfectly still for one long moment, her face crimson;
彼女は、完全にじっと立ち続けました｜長い間｜、彼女の顔は、真っ赤です。
then her desire for the cake triumphed,  ケーキへの欲望が、勝ちました
and she ran downstairs and brought the doll, and of course I gave her the cake,
彼女は、下に降りて人形を取ってきました、勿論、私は、ケーキをあげました
but could not persuade her to enter the room again.
しかし、説得することはできませんでした｜彼女が再び部屋に入ることを｜。

●She was very troublesome when I began to write this morning.
彼女は、とても、やっかいでした、今朝、私が、手紙を書き始めたとき
She kept coming up behind me and putting her hand on the paper and into the ink-bottle.
彼女は、いつも私の後ろにやってきて、手を紙の上やインク壺の中に入れました
These blots are her handiwork. 　これらのシミは、彼女のしわざです。
Finally I remembered the kindergarten beads, and set her to work stringing them.
やっと、私は、思い出しました｜幼稚園のピーズを｜、彼女に、ビーズを糸に通す仕事をやらせました。
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. 私の眼は、とても炎症をおこしています。
I know this letter is very carelessly written. 知っています｜この手紙がとても不注意に書かれていることを｜。
I had a lot to say, and couldn't stop to think how to express things neatly.
言いたいことがたくさんあり、立ち止まって考えることができません｜どうして簡潔に表現するか｜
Please do not show my letter to any one.  私の手紙を人に見せないでください。
If you want to, you may read it to my friends. 見せたいときは、読み上げてください｜私の友達には｜。

MONDAY, P. M.

●I had a battle royal with Helen this morning. 大乱闘しました｜今朝｜
Although I try very hard not to force issues, I find it very difficult to avoid them.
私は、とても努力しましたが｜問題点を無理強いしないように｜、わかりました｜問題点を避けることは困難だと｜。

●Helen's table manners are appalling.  ヘレンのテーブルマナーは、ゾッとします。
She puts her hands in our plates and helps herself,  彼女は、私たちのお皿に手をつっこみ、勝手に食べます。
and when the dishes are passed, she grabs them and takes out whatever she wants.
お皿が回ってくると、手でつかんで、欲しいものをみんな取ります。
This morning I would not let her put her hand in my plate.
今朝、私は、彼女の手を私のお皿にいれさせませんでした。
She persisted, and a contest of wills followed. 彼女は、粘り、意志の闘いが続きました。
Naturally the family was much disturbed, and left the room.
当然、家族の人達は、かなり困惑し、部屋を出ました。
I locked the dining-room door, and proceeded to eat my breakfast, though the food almost choked me.
私は、食堂のドアにカギをかけ、朝食を食べ続けました、食べ物は、殆ど、喉を通りませんでしたが。
Helen was lying on the floor, kicking and screaming and trying to pull my chair from under me.
ヘレンは、床に寝そべって、蹴ったり、叫んだり、私の下から椅子をひっぱったりしました。
She kept this up for half an hour, then she got up to see what I was doing.
彼女は、これを30分も続け、立ち上がって、私が何をしているか確かめました。
I let her see that I was eating, but did not let her put her hand in the plate.
私は、食べているところを見せました、しかし、彼女の手を私のお皿には入れさせませんでした。
She pinched me, and I slapped her every time she did it.
彼女は、私をつねりました、私は、彼女をたたきました｜彼女がつねるたびに｜。
Then she went all round the table to see who was there, and finding no one but me, she seemed bewildered.
彼女は、一周しました｜テーブルを｜誰がいるか調べるため｜、誰もいないことを知り｜私以外｜、彼女は、当惑したようでした。
After a few minutes she came back to her place and began to eat her breakfast with her fingers.
二三分後、彼女は、戻ってきました｜自分の場所に｜、食べ始めました｜朝食を｜指で｜。
I gave her a spoon, which she threw on the floor.
私は、あげました｜彼女にスプーンを｜、それを、彼女は、投げました｜床に｜。
I forced her out of the chair and made her pick it up.
私は、強いました｜彼女を椅子から｜、それを拾わせました。
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.  ついに、私は、成功しました｜彼女を椅子に戻らせ、手にスプーンを持たせ、それで食べ物を取り、口に入れるよう強いることに｜。
In a few minutes she yielded and finished her breakfast peaceably.
二三分で、彼女は、降参して、終えました｜朝食を平安に｜。
Then we had another tussle over folding her napkin.
私たちは、もう一つ取っ組み合いをしました｜ナプキンをたたむことで｜。
When she had finished, she threw it on the floor and ran toward the door.
彼女は、終えた時、投げました｜それを床の上に｜、走りました｜ドアの方に｜。
Finding it locked, she began to kick and scream all over again.
ドアが閉まっていることを知り、彼女は、彼女は、始めました｜蹴ったりわめき散らしたりを｜再び｜。
It was another hour before I succeeded in getting her napkin folded.
もう一時間して、私は、成功しました｜彼女にナプキンを畳ませることに｜。
Then I let her out in the warm sunshine and went up to my room and threw myself on the bed exhausted.
私は、出しました｜彼女を外の暖かい日の中に｜、自分の部屋に行き、身を投げました｜ベッドの上に｜消耗して｜。
I had a good cry and felt better. 私は、十分に泣き、気分がよくなりました。
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.　私は、思います｜沢山このようなバトルをするだろうと｜この小さな女性と｜彼女が学ぶまでに｜私が彼女に教えることができる二つの重要なこと、従順と愛を｜。

●Good-by, dear. Don't worry; では、さようなら。ご心配なく。
I'll do my best and leave the rest to whatever power manages that which we cannot.
私は、全力を尽くし、後は、お任せします｜どんなお力にも｜私たちにできないことをやってくれる｜。
I like Mrs. Keller very much. 私は、大好きです｜ケラー夫人が｜。

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.
前の手紙を書いて以来、ヘレンと私は、移りました｜自分達だけで住むために｜小さなガーデン･ハウスに｜彼女の家から400mくらい離れ、ケラー屋敷のIvy Greenからも近い｜。
I very soon made up my mind that I could do nothing with Helen in the midst of the family,
私は、すぐ決心しました｜ヘレンとは何もできないと｜この家族の中にいては｜、
who have always allowed her to do exactly as she pleased.
家族は、いつも許したのです｜彼女がやりたいことをそのまますることを｜。
She has tyrannized over everybody, her mother, her father, the servants, the little darkies who play with her,
彼女は、君臨しています｜みんな、母親、父親、召使、遊び相手の黒人の子のうえに｜、
and nobody had ever seriously disputed her will, except occasionally her brother James, until I came;
誰も、激しく異議を唱えることをしませんでした｜彼女の意志に｜たまに兄のジェームズがする以外｜、私が来るまでは；
and like all tyrants she holds tenaciously to her divine right to do as she pleases.
すべての暴君と同じく、彼女は、頑強に、持ち続けます｜欲しいままにするという天与の権利を｜。
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.  もし、万一、彼女が、失敗したとすれば｜欲しいものを得ることに｜、それは、彼女が、できなかったからです｜彼女の家庭の臣下どもにそれが何であるかを理解させることが｜。
Every thwarted desire was the signal for a passionate outburst,
挫折した欲望のすべてが、熱烈な爆発の合図でした。(欲望が挫折すると、いつも)
and as she grew older and stronger, these tempests became more violent.
彼女が、大きくなり、力強くなるにつれ、この大騒ぎは、より激しくなりました。
As I began to teach her, I was beset by many difficulties.
私が、彼女の教育を始めると、私は、困りました｜多くの困難に｜。
She wouldn't yield a point without contesting it to the bitter end.
彼女は、一点も譲歩しようとしません｜それを競って悲惨な結論に至るまで｜。
I couldn't coax her or compromise with her. 私は、できませんでした｜彼女を説得することも、妥協することも｜。
To get her to do the simplest thing, such as combing her hair or washing her hands or buttoning her boots,
彼女に最も簡単なことをさせるためには｜髪をすいたり、手を洗ったり、ブーツのボタンをとめたりなど｜、
it was necessary to use force, and, of course, a distressing scene followed.
力を使うことが必要でした、勿論、悲惨なシーンが続くのですが。
The family naturally felt inclined to interfere, especially her father, who cannot bear to see her cry.
家族は、当然、感傷しようとしました、特に、父親は、彼女が泣くのに耐えられませんでした。
So they were all willing to give in for the sake of peace.
彼らは、喜んで、降参しました、平和のために。
Besides, her past experiences and associations were all against me.
そのうえ、彼女の過去の経験や連想は、すべて、私に反対でした。
I saw clearly that it was useless to try to teach her language or anything else until she learned to obey me.
私は、はっきりわかりました｜彼女に語学や他のことを教えようとしても無駄だと｜彼女が私に従うことを学ぶまでは｜。
I have thought about it a great deal,  私は、考えました｜そのことを非常に沢山｜、
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.
考えるにつれ、確信しました｜従順は、門であると｜、その門を通って、知識、や愛が、ある子の心に入るのです。
As I wrote you, I meant to go slowly at first.  手紙に書いたように、ゆっくりやるつもりでした｜最初は｜。
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.
私は、考えていました｜私のかわいい生徒の愛と信頼を得ることができると｜私が使うべきと同じ方法で｜もし彼女が見えて聞くことができるときに｜。
But I soon found that I was cut off from all the usual approaches to the child's heart.
しかし、すぐにわかりました｜私は、切り離されていることが｜あらゆる通常のアプローチから｜その子の心への｜｜。
She accepted everything I did for her as a matter of course, and refused to be caressed,
彼女は、受け入れました｜すべてを｜私が彼女になした｜当然のように｜、抱擁されることは、拒みました。
and there was no way of appealing to her affection or sympathy or childish love of approbation.
できませんでした｜訴えることは｜彼女の愛情や、同情や称賛への子どもじみた愛に｜。
She would or she wouldn't, and there was an end of it.
彼女は、やりたいか、やりたくないかで、それで終わりでした。
Thus it is, we study, plan and prepare ourselves for a task,
そうです、私たちは、学び、計画し、仕事のために準備します、
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;
行動の時が来た時、私たちは、見いだします｜私たちがそのような努力やプライドをもって従ったシステムが、そのケースには合っていないことを｜。
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.
その時、私たちには、することがありません｜私たちの中の何かに頼る以外に｜、それは、なにか、生まれつきの知ったりしたりする能力で、持っていたとは知らなかったものです｜非常に必要になったと時がそれに光をあてるまで｜。

●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.
私は、ケラー夫人と十分フランクに話し合い、説明しました｜いかに難しいか｜ヘレンと何かをなすことは｜現存の環境では｜。
I told her that in my opinion the child ought to be separated from the family for a few weeks at least
私は、言いました｜私の意見では、その子は、家族から切り離されなければならないと｜すくなくとも二三週間は｜｜
–that she must learn to depend on and obey me before I could make any headway.
- すなわち、ヘレンは、私に依存し従うことを学ばなければならないと｜なんらかの前進ができる前に｜。
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.
長い時間の後、ケラー夫人は、言いました｜よく考えてみる、ケラー大尉がヘレンを私と一緒に送り出すことをどう思うか聞いてみると｜。
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.
ケラー大尉は、このスキームにすぐ調しました、提案しました｜「昔の場所」のガーデン-ハウスがすぐ使えると｜。
He said that Helen might recognize the place, as she had often been there;
彼は、言いました｜ヘレンは、その場所が分かるかもしれない｜しばしば行ったことがあるので｜；
but she would have no idea of her surroundings,
しかし、ヘレンは、その周囲については、何も知らない、
and they could come every day to see that all was going well,
彼らが、毎日くることができる｜すべてが順調だと知るために｜、
with the understanding, of course, that she was to know nothing of their visits.
勿論、ヘレンは、彼らの訪問を一切知らないという了解のもとに。
I hurried the preparations for our departure as much as possible, and here we are.
私は、急ぎました｜出発の準備をできるだけ｜、そして、今、ここに居ます。

●The little house is a genuine bit of paradise. 小さな家は、ちょっとした本物の楽園です。
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;
ヘレンは、とても興奮しました｜最初は｜、蹴ったり叫んだりして意識もうろうになりました；
but when supper was brought she ate heartily and seemed brighter,
でも、夕食が来ると、むさぼるように食べ、明るくなりました、
although she refused to let me touch her.  彼女を触らせはしませんでしたが。
She devoted herself to her dolls the first evening, and when it was bedtime she undressed very quietly;
ヘレンは、人形にご執心でした｜最初の晩は｜、寝る時間になると、急いで、服を脱ぎました；
but when she felt me get into bed with her, she jumped out on the other side,
私がベッドに入るのを感じると、彼女は、反対側に飛び出しました。
and nothing that I could do would induce her to get in again.
私が何をしても、彼女を中に戻すことはできませんでした。
But I was afraid she would take cold, and I insisted that she must go to bed.
しかし、彼女が風邪をひくのを怖れました、ベッドに入りなさいと言い聞かせました。
We had a terrific tussle, I can tell you. 　激しく格闘しました、断言します。
The struggle lasted for nearly two hours.  戦いは、ほぼ２時間続きました。
I never saw such strength and endurance in a child. こんな力と忍耐を子どもに見たことがありませんでした。
But fortunately for us both, I am a little stronger, and quite as obstinate when I set out.
二人にとって幸いなことに、私の方が少しだけ強く、同じくらい頑固でした｜始めたとき｜。
I finally succeeded in getting her on the bed and covered her up,
最後に、成功しました｜彼女をベッドに入れ、布団で覆うことに｜。
and she lay curled up as near the edge of the bed as possible.
彼女は、丸くなって横たわりました｜できるだけベッドの端で｜。

●The next morning she was very docile, but evidently homesick.
翌朝、彼女は、とても素直でしたが、明らかにホームシックでした。
She kept going to the door, as if she expected some one,
彼女は、何度もドアのところに行きました、まるで誰かを待っているかのように
and every now and then she would touch her cheek, which is her sign for her mother, and shake her head sadly.
しばしば頬をさわりました、これは、彼女にとって母親のサインです、悲しそうに頭をふりました
She played with her dolls more than usual, and would have nothing to do with me.
人形と遊びました｜いつもよりもっと｜、私とは、かかわりをもちませんでした。
It is amusing and pathetic to see Helen with her dolls.
面白くかつ哀れでした｜ヘレンが人形と遊ぶようすを見ると｜。
I don't think she has any special tenderness for them
ヘレンが人形に対し特別な優しさを持っているようにはみえません
–I have never seen her caress them;  彼女が人形を抱くのをみたことがありません
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.
しかし、ヘレンは、人形に服を着せたり脱がせたりしました｜日中何度も｜、人形の取り扱いかたは、母親や乳母が彼女の妹の赤ちゃんを取り扱うのを見たとおりでした。

●This morning Nancy, her favourite doll, seemed to have some difficulty about swallowing the milk that was being administered to her in large spoonfuls;
今朝、ヘレンの大好きな人形であるナンシーに、ミルクの飲み込みになんらかの困難があったようです、ナンシーへのミルクやりは、大きなスプーンで処理されています。
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.
というのは、彼女は、突然、カップを置き、始めました｜人形の背中を叩き、回転させてひざまつかせ｜、そして、人形を静かに走らせ、やさしくずっと撫でていました。
This lasted for several minutes; then this mood passed,
これは、数分続いて、この気分は、過ぎ去りました、
and Nancy was thrown ruthlessly on the floor and pushed to one side,
ナンシーは、投げ出されました｜情け容赦なく床に｜、片隅に押しやられました。
while a large, pink-cheeked, fuzzy-haired member of the family received the little mother's undivided attention.
その間、人形一家のなかで、大きく、ピンクの頬の、髪がけばだった一員が、このちっちゃなお母さんの、完璧な注意を受け続けました。

●Helen knows several words now, but has no idea how to use them, or that everything has a name.
ヘレンは、いくつかの単語を知っています、しかし、どう使うかはわかりませんし、すべての物に名前があることもわかりません。
I think, however, she will learn quickly enough by and by. しかし、やがてすぐ学ぶと思います
As I have said before, she is wonderfully bright and active and as quick as lightning in her movements.
前に行った通り、彼女は、賢く活動的で、動作は雷のように速いからです。

March 13, 1887.

●You will be glad to hear that my experiment is working out finely.
あなたは、うれしくなるでしょう｜私の実験がうまく働きだしたと聞いて｜。
I have not had any trouble at all with Helen, either yesterday or to-day.
ヘレンとの間に、何らトラブルはありませんでした、昨日も今日も。
She has learned three new words,  彼女は、新しい単語を３つ学びました、
and when I give her the objects, the names of which she has learned, she spells them unhesitatingly;
私が、その物を彼女に与えると、彼女が学んだその名前を、彼女は、躊躇することなく綴ります。
but she seems glad when the lesson is over. しかし、うれしそうでした｜授業が終わると｜。

●We had a good frolic this morning out in the garden. 今朝お庭でお祭り騒ぎしました。
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.
私は、丁度、あることを聞いて、大変驚かされました。
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 Keller's, 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!
私の心は、歓喜に歌っています｜今朝｜。奇跡が起こりました。
The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!
理解の光明が、光りました｜私のかわいい生徒の心に｜、見てください、すべてが変わりました。

●The wild little creature of two weeks ago has been transformed into a gentle child.
２週間前の野生の小動物は、変容しました｜穏やかな子どもに｜。
She is sitting by me as I write, her face serene and happy, crocheting a long red chain of Scotch wool.
彼女は、座っています｜私が書いている傍に｜、彼女の顔は、静かで幸福そうです、かぎ針で編んでいます｜長く赤い鎖紐を｜スコットランド産の毛糸で｜。
She learned the stitch this week, and is very proud of the achievement.
彼女は、縫い方を学びました｜今週｜、誇りに思っています｜その達成を｜。
When she succeeded in making a chain that would reach across the room,
彼女は、成功したとき｜鎖紐が部屋を横切るほどの長さになるのに｜、
she patted herself on the arm and put the first work of her hands lovingly against her cheek.
彼女は、自分の腕を軽くたたき、自分の両手の最初の作品を、愛情をこめて、頬に押し当てました。
She lets me kiss her now,  彼女は、私にキスさせますし｜今では｜、
and when she is in a particularly gentle mood, she will sit in my lap for a minute or two;
特別にやさしい気分の時には、私の膝の上にすわります｜一二分の間｜；
but she does not return my caresses.  でも、お返しに抱いてくれることはありません。
The great step –the step that counts –has been taken.
大きな一歩 - 価値ある一歩 - は、踏み出しました。
The little savage has learned her first lesson in obedience, and finds the yoke easy.
小さな野蛮人は、学びました｜最初のレッスンを｜従順についての｜、そして、見いだしました｜その束縛が楽なものであることを｜。
It now remains my pleasant task to direct and mould the beautiful intelligence that is beginning to stir in the child-soul.
私の楽しい仕事です｜この美しい知性を方向付け形作ることは｜この子の中で動き始めた｜。
Already people remark the change in Helen.  すでに皆さんは、気づいています｜ヘレンの中のこの変化に｜。
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. ヘレンは、学びました｜いくつかの名詞を｜今週｜。
"M-u-g" and "m-i-l-k," have given her more trouble than other words.
マグとミルクは、他の言葉よりも、ヘレンに困難を与えました。
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.
彼女がミルクと綴る時、彼女はマグを指さし、マグと綴る時、注いだり飲んだりするサインをします、これは、これらの言葉を混同していることを意味します。
She has no idea yet that everything has a name.
彼女は、まだ、すべてのものが名前をもっていることが分かっていないのです。

●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. ヘレンと私は、家に戻りました｜昨日｜。
I am sorry they wouldn't let us stay another week; 残念です｜もう１週間滞在させてくれなかったことは｜；
but I think I have made the most I could of the opportunities that were mine the past two weeks,
でも、思います｜私は、私に与えられた機会を最もよく利用できたと｜過去２週間で｜、
and I don't expect that I shall have any serious trouble with Helen in the future.
予想しません｜ヘレンと大きな問題があるとは｜今後｜。
The back of the greatest obstacle in the path of progress is broken.
進歩の過程の最大の障害の背面は、破壊されました。
I think "no" and "yes," conveyed by a shake or nod of my head, have become facts as apparent to her as hot and cold or as the difference between pain and pleasure.
私の頭を振ったりうなずいたりして伝えるノーとイエスは、彼女に、熱いと冷たいと同じくらい、苦痛と喜びの差と同じくらい明白な事実となったと思います。
And I don't intend that the lesson she has learned at the cost of so much pain and trouble shall be unlearned.
あんな痛みや苦しみを払って学んだレッスンが、忘れ去られてしまうなどと言うつもりはありません。
I shall stand between her and the over-indulgence of her parents.
私は、彼女と彼女の両親の甘やかしすぎの間に立ちましょう。
I have told Captain and Mrs. Keller that they must not interfere with me in any way.
私は、言いました｜大尉とケラー夫人に、お二人は私の邪魔をしてはいけないと｜。
I have done my best to make them see the terrible injustice to Helen of allowing her to have her way in everything,
私は、最善をつくして彼らに理解させました｜ヘレンにとってひどい不当であることを｜すべてにおいて彼女が自由にやることを許すことが｜。
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.
私は、指摘しました｜すべてのことが彼の望むようにはならないことを子どもに教える過程は、彼にとっても、教師にとっても苦痛を伴うものになりがちだということを｜。
They have promised to let me have a free hand and help me as much as possible.
彼らは、約束しました｜私は、自由にふるまうことができ、できるだけ助けてくれることを｜。
The improvement they cannot help seeing in their child has given them more confidence in me.
彼らが子どもの中に認めざるを得ない改善は、私により多くの信頼を与えました。
Of course, it is hard for them. 勿論、それは、彼らにとって、つらいことです。
I realize that it hurts to see their afflicted little child punished and made to do things against her will.
理解します｜彼らの病の子どもが、罰せられ意志に反して物事をさせられるのを見ることは苦痛だと｜。
Only a few hours after my talk with Captain and Mrs. Keller (and they had agreed to everything),
たった二三時間後｜大尉やケラー夫人とお話して｜、(彼らは、すべてに同意してくれました)
Helen took a notion that she wouldn't use her napkin at table.
ヘレンは、自分は、食卓でナプキンは使わないと思っていました。
I think she wanted to see what would happen. 　彼女は、何が起こるのか知りたいと思っていたと思います。
I attempted several times to put the napkin round her neck;
私は、何回か試みました｜ナプキンを彼女の首のまわりにつけようと｜。
but each time she tore it off and threw it on the floor and finally began to kick the table.
毎回彼女は、それを引きはがし、床になげつけ、テーブルを蹴り始めました。
I took her plate away and started to take her out of the room.
私は、お皿をとり、彼女を部屋から追い出し始めました。
Her father objected and said that no child of his should be deprived of his food on any account.
父親は、反対し、言いました｜どんな子も食べ物を奪われるべきでないと｜どんな理由でも｜。

●Helen didn't come up to my room after supper, and I didn't see her again until breakfast-time.
ヘレンは、来ませんでした｜私の部屋に夕食後｜、朝食時まで、彼女とは会いませんでした。
She was at her place when I came down. 　彼女は、自分の席にいました｜私が降りて来たとき｜。
She had put the napkin under her chin, instead of pinning it at the back, as was her custom.
彼女は、ナプキンを顎の下につけていました、習慣通り、ナプキンを後ろでとめるのではなく。
She called my attention to the new arrangement,
彼女は、私の注意を引きました｜この新しいアレンジに｜、
and when I did not object she seemed pleased and patted herself.
私が、反対しなかったので、彼女は、喜んだように見え、体中をたたきました。
When she left the dining-room, she took my hand and patted it.
食堂を去る時、彼女は、私の手をとって、叩きました。
I wondered if she was trying to "make up."  私は、彼女が「仲直り」しようとしているのかと思いました。
I thought I would try the effect of a little belated discipline.
私は、少し遅ればせの訓練の効果を試してみようと思いました。
I went back to the dining-room and got a napkin.  私は、食堂にもどり、ナプキンを取りました。
When Helen came upstairs for her lesson, I arranged the objects on the table as usual,
ヘレンが、レッスンのため二階にやって来た時、私は、ナプキンをテーブルの上にいつものように置きました、
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.
ケーキが無いこと以外は (ケーキは、いつもは、細かくして彼女に与えていました、彼女が単語をすばやくかつ正しく綴ったりした時に)。
She noticed this at once and made the sign for it. 彼女は、すぐに気づき、それを求めて合図しました。
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. 私は、ナプキンを見せ、首の周りにとめ、そして、もぎとって、床に投げつけ、首をよこに振りました。
I repeated this performance several times.  これを数回繰り返しました。
I think she understood perfectly well; 彼女は、完全に理解したと思います。
for she slapped her hand two or three times and shook her head.
なぜなら、彼女は、手を二三回打ち、首を横に振ったからです。
We began the lesson as usual. 私たちは、レッスンを始めました｜いつものように｜。
I gave her an object, and she spelled the name (she knows twelve now).
私は、物を渡し、彼女は、名前を綴りました (彼女は、今や、12個知っています)
After spelling half the words, she stopped suddenly, as if a thought had flashed into her mind, and felt for the napkin. 単語を半分綴った後、彼女は、突然止めました、まるで、ある考えが、彼女の心に閃いたかのように、そして、ナプキンを手探りしました。
She pinned it round her neck and made the sign for cake
彼女は、ナプキンを首の周りにつけ、ケーキを求めてサインを出しました。
(it didn't occur to her to spell the word, you see).
(その単語を綴ろうとは、思わなかったようです)
I took this for a promise that if I gave her some cake she would be a good girl.
私は、これを約束ととりました、もし私がケーキを与えたら、いい子になるという約束だと。
I gave her a larger piece than usual, and she chuckled and patted herself.
私は、いつもより大きなケーキをあげました、彼女は、クスクス笑い、自分を叩きました。

April 3, 1887.

●We almost live in the garden, where everything is growing and blooming and glowing.
私たちは、殆ど庭で生活します、そこは、すべてのものが、成長し、開花し、輝きます。
After breakfast we go out and watch the men at work.
朝食後、私たちは、外に出て、男たちが働くのを見守ります。
Helen loves to dig and play in the dirt like any other child.
ヘレンは、掘ったり、泥で遊ぶのが大好きです｜ほかの子どもたちと同様に｜。
This morning she planted her doll and showed me that she expected her to grow as tall as I.
今朝、彼女は人形を植えて、私に示しました｜彼女は、人形が私と同じくらい高く成長すると期待していることを｜。
You must see that she is very bright, but you have no idea how cunning she is.
貴方は、彼女が賢いことがお分かりでしょう、しかし、彼女がいかにずる賢いかは、お分かりでないでしょう。

●At ten we come in and string beads for a few minutes.
10時に、私たちは(家に)入って、ビースに糸を通します｜数分間｜。
She can make a great many combinations now, and often invents new ones herself.
ヘレンは、作ることができます｜多様な組み合わせを｜、しばしば発明します｜新しい組み合わせを｜。
Then I let her decide whether she will sew or knit or crochet.
彼女に選ばせます｜縫物か、編み物か、かぎ針編みかを｜。
She learned to knit very quickly, and is making a wash-cloth for her mother.
彼女は、学びました｜編み物をすばやく｜、作っています｜手ぬぐいを母親のために｜。
Last week she made her doll an apron, and it was done as well as any child of her age could do it.
先週人形にエプロンを作りました、それは、なされました｜同い年の子どもがするのと同じくらい上手に｜。
But I am always glad when this work is over for the day.
でも、私は、いつも大喜びです｜その日のこんな仕事が終わったときに｜。
Sewing and crocheting are inventions of the devil, I think.
縫物とかぎ針編みは、悪魔の発明だと思います。
I'd rather break stones on the king's highway than hem a handkerchief.
私は、むしろ、国道で石を砕きたいです｜ハンカチを縫うよりも｜。
At eleven we have gymnastics. 11時に、体操をします。
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.
12時から1時までの時間は、当てられます｜新しい単語の学習に｜。
But you mustn't think this is the only time I spell to Helen;
でも、考えてはだめです｜この時間だけヘレンに綴りを教えていると｜。
for I spell in her hand everything we do all day long, although she has no idea as yet what the spelling means.
私は、綴ります｜彼女の手になすことすべてを｜一日中｜、彼女は、綴りが何を意味するのかまだ分かっていないのですが。
After dinner I rest for an hour, 　ディナー(昼食)後、リセットします｜一時間｜。
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;  ヘレンの本能は、明らかに社交的です。
she likes to have people about her and to visit her friends,
彼女は、好きです｜周りに人がいたり、友達を訪問したりするのが｜、
partly, I think, because they always have things she likes to eat.
ひとつには、思うに、彼らが、いつも、彼女が食べたいものを持っているからです。
After supper we go to my room and do all sorts of things until eight,
夕食後、私の部屋に行って、いろんなことをします｜８時まで｜、
when I undress the little woman and put her to bed. She sleeps with me now.
それから、彼女の服を脱がせて、寝かせます。彼女は、今では私と一緒に寝ます。
Mrs. Keller wanted to get a nurse for her; 　ケラー夫人は、乳母をつけようとしていました；
but I concluded I'd rather be her nurse than look after a stupid, lazy negress.
でも、私は、自分が乳母になろうと思いました｜黒人の乳母の面倒をみるよりも｜。
Besides, I like to have Helen depend on me for everything,
そのうえ、私は、ヘレンが、すべてのことで、私に依存するようにしたいのです、
and I find it much easier to teach her things at odd moments than at set times.
それに、わかりました｜ずっと簡単だと｜彼女に物事を教えるほうが｜折にふれて｜きめられた時間よりも｜。

●On March 31st I found Helen knew eighteen nouns and three verbs.
3月31日に、ヘレンは、18の名詞と、3つの動詞を知りました。
Here is a list of the words.  これがリストです。
Those with a cross after them are words she asked for herself:
単語の後に (x),がついているものは、彼女が自ら尋ねたものです。
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.
4月1日、習いました｜名詞 the nouns knife, fork, spoon, saucer, tea, papa; bed と動詞 run を｜

April 5, 1887.

●I must write you a line this morning because something very important has happened.
私は、書かねばなりません｜一筆｜今朝｜、あるとても重要なことが起きたのです。
Helen has taken the second great step in her education.
ヘレンは、踏みました｜二度目の大きなステップを｜彼女の教育において｜。
She has learned that everything has a name, and that the manual alphabet is the key to everything she wants to know. 彼女は、わかったのです、すべてのものには、名前があり、指文字が、彼女が知りたい事すべての鍵になることを。

●In a previous letter I think I wrote you that "mug" and "milk" had given Helen more trouble than all the rest.
前の手紙で、書いたと思いますが、"mug" と "milk" が、彼女にもっとトラブルを引き起こしました。
She confused the nouns with the verb "drink."
彼女は、混乱しました｜名詞と、"drink"という動詞に｜。
She didn't know the word for "drink,"  彼女は、"drink" のための言葉を知りませんでした
but went through the pantomime of drinking whenever she spelled "mug" or "milk."
しかし、飲むというパントマイムを実施しました｜ "mug" や "milk" を綴るときはいつも｜。
This morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name for "water."
今朝、水で顔を洗っているとき、彼女は、水の名前を知りたいと思いました。
When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats my hand.
彼女は、何かの名前を知りたいときには、彼女は、それを指さして、私の手をたたきます。
I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" and thought no more about it until after breakfast.
私は、"w-a-t-e-r"と綴りましたが、そのことについて余り考えませんでした｜朝食後まで｜。
Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word I might succeed in straightening out the "mug-milk" difficulty.  そして、思いいたりました｜この新しい言葉を使って、"mug-milk"問題を解くことに成功できるのではと｜。
We went out to the pump-house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout while I pumped.
私たちは、井戸小屋に行って、ヘレンにマグを持たせました｜噴出する水の下で｜ポンプを押している間｜。
As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled "w-a-t-e-r" in Helen's free hand.
冷たい水が、湧き出て、マグを満たしているとき、私は、綴りました｜"w-a-t-e-r"と｜彼女の自由な方の手に｜。
The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her.
その単語が、彼女の手に降りかかる冷たい水の感覚にとても近づいてきたことが、彼女を驚かせたようでした。
She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. 　彼女は、マグを落とし、釘告げにされた人のように立ちすくみました。
A new light came into her face.  新しい光が、彼女の顔に光りました。
She spelled "water" several times.  彼女は、綴りました｜"water"を｜何度も｜。
Then she dropped on the ground and asked for its name
彼女は、地面に降りて、その名前を尋ねました
and pointed to the pump and the trellis, and suddenly turning round she asked for my name.
そして、ポンプや、棚を指しました、突然、私の方を向いて、私の名前を尋ねました。
I spelled "Teacher."  私は、綴りました｜"Teacher"と｜。
Just then the nurse brought Helen's little sister into the pump-house,
丁度その時、乳母が、ヘレンの妹を、水車小屋に連れてきました、
and Helen spelled "baby" and pointed to the nurse. ヘレンは、"baby"と綴り、乳母の方を指しました。
All the way back to the house she was highly excited, and learned the name of every object she touched,
家に戻る途中、彼女は、とても興奮して、彼女がさわるものすべての名前を学びました。
so that in a few hours she had added thirty new words to her vocabulary.
彼女は、30個の新しい単語を、ボキャブラリーに加えました。
Here are some of them: Door, open, shut, give, go, come, and a great many more.
例を挙げると、 Door, open, shut, give, go, come その他大勢です。

●P. S.–I didn't finish my letter in time to get it posted last night; so I shall add a line.
追伸 私は、手紙を書き終えることができませんでした｜投函できる時間に間に合わせて｜昨晩｜；そこで、一筆追加します。
Helen got up this morning like a radiant fairy. ヘレンは、今朝、輝く妖精のように起き上がりました。
She has flitted from object to object, asking the name of everything and kissing me for very gladness.
彼女は、飛びまわり｜物から物へと｜、すべての物の名前を尋ね、歓びのキスをしました。
Last night when I got in bed, she stole into my arms of her own accord and kissed me for the first timer,
昨晩、私がベッドに入ると、彼女が忍び込んできて｜私の腕の中に｜みずから｜、私に初心者のようにキスしたのです。
and I thought my heart would burst, so full was it of joy.
私は、心臓が破裂するかと思いました、喜びにあふれたのです。

April 10, 1887.

●I see an improvement in Helen day to day, almost from hour to hour.
私は、見ます｜ヘレンの成長を｜日々の、いや時間毎の｜。
Everything must have a name now. すべての物は、名前を持たねばなりません。
Wherever we go, she asks eagerly for the names of things she has not learned at home.
どこに行こうとも、彼女は、尋ねます｜熱心に｜物の名前を｜家では学んだいなかった｜。
She is anxious for her friends to spell, and eager to teach the letters to every one she meets.
彼女は、ウズウズしています｜友達に綴ってやりたくて｜、教えたがります｜文字を｜出会うすべての人に｜。
She drops the signs and pantomime she used before, as soon as she has words to supply their place,
彼女は、捨てます｜サインやパントマイムを｜以前使っていた｜、言葉を得るや否や｜それらの代わりをしてくれる｜。
and the acquirement of a new word affords her the liveliest pleasure.
新しい言葉の取得は、彼女に、最も愛すべき喜びを与えます。
And we notice that her face grows more expressive each day.
私たちは、気づきます｜彼女の顔が表現豊かになるのに｜日々｜。

●I have decided not to try to have regular lessons for the present.
私は、決心しました｜通常のレッスンは止めると｜当面｜。
I am going to treat Helen exactly like a two-year-old child.
私は、扱うつもりです｜ヘレンを２歳の子どものように｜。
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.
先日、思い至りました｜馬鹿げていると｜子供に要求することは｜ある場所にある時間に来て、なんらかのレッスンを暗唱することを｜、彼女が、まだ取得していないときに｜使えるボキャブラリーを｜。
I sent Helen away and sat down to think.  私は、ヘレンを遠ざけて、座って考えました。
I asked myself, "How does a normal child learn language? "
私は、自問しました｜「普通の子どもは、どうやって言葉を学ぶのか？」と｜。
The answer was simple, "By imitation."  答えは、簡単です、「模倣によって。」
The child comes into the world with the ability to learn,
子どもは、この世界にやってきます｜学習する能力を持って｜、
and he learns of himself, provided he is supplied with sufficient outward stimulus.
彼は、ひとりでに学びます、もし、彼が、与えられれば｜十分や外向きの刺激を｜。
He sees people do things, and he tries to do them.
彼は、人が、物事をするのを見て、それをしようと試みます。
He hears others speak, and he tries to speak.  彼は、人が話すのを聞き、話そうと試みます。
But long before he utters his first word, he understands what is said to him.
しかし、彼が最初の言葉を発するよりずっと以前に、彼は、理解しています｜彼に何が話されたかを｜。
I have been observing Helen's little cousin lately.
私は、観察してきました｜ヘレンの小さないとこを｜最近｜。
She is about fifteen months old, and already understands a great deal.
彼女は、約、15ヵ月で、すでに、多くの事を理解します。
In response to questions she points out prettily her nose, mouth, eye, chin, cheek, ear.
質問に答えて、彼女は、指さします｜上手に｜彼女の鼻や、口や、目や、顎や、頬や、耳を｜。
If I say, "Where is baby's other ear?" she points it out correctly.
もし、私が、言うと｜「赤ちゃんのもう一つのお耳は？と｜、彼女は、指さします｜正しく｜。
If I hand her a flower, and say, "Give it to mamma," she takes it to her mother.
もし、私が、手渡して｜彼女に花を｜、「ママにあげて」と言うと、ママの所にもってゆきます。
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.
私が、「いたずらっ子はどこ？」と訊くと、彼女は、ママの椅子の後ろに隠れるか、顔を手で覆って、私を覗き見します｜本当にいたずらっ子のような表情で｜。
She obeys many commands like these: "Come," "Kiss," "Go to papa," "Shut the door," "Give me the biscuit."
彼女は、従います｜多くの命令に｜「お出で」「キスして」「パパのところに行って」「ドアを閉めて」「ビスケット頂戴」のような｜。
But I have not heard her try to say any of these words,
しかし、聞いたことはありません｜彼女がこれらの言葉のどれひとつとして言おうとしたのを｜、
although they have been repeated hundreds of times in her hearing, and it is perfectly evident that she understands them.
にもかかわらず｜これらの言葉が何百回も繰り返して彼女に聞かれ、彼女は、それを理解していることは完全に明白である｜。
These observations have given me a clue to the method to be followed in teaching Helen language.
この観察は、手掛かりを与えてくれました｜ヘレンに言葉を教える時に使うべき方法の｜。
I shall talk into her hand as we talk into the baby's ears.
私は、彼女の手に話しかけます｜丁度赤ん坊の耳に話しかけるように｜。
I shall assume that she has the normal child's capacity of assimilation and imitation.
私は、仮定します｜彼女が、通常の子どもの能力を持っていると｜同化と模倣の｜｜。
I shall use complete sentences in talking to her, and fill out the meaning with gestures and her descriptive signs when necessity requires it;
私は、使います｜完全な文章を｜彼女に話かける時に｜、そして、意味を書き込みます｜ジェスチャーや、彼女の説明的な合図を使って｜それが必要な時には｜。
but I shall not try to keep her mind fixed on any one thing.
でも、固定するようにはしません｜彼女の心を一つの事に｜。
I shall do all I can to interest and stimulate it, and wait for results.
私は、できることをすべてやります｜彼女の心に興味を持たせ、刺激するために｜、そして結果を待ちます。

April 24, 1887.

●The new scheme works splendidly.  新しいスキームは、素晴らしく働いています。
Helen knows the meaning of more than a hundred words now,
ヘレンは、知っています｜意味を｜単語100個以上の｜今では｜、
and learns new ones daily without the slightest suspicion that she is performing a most difficult feat.
学習しています｜新しい単語を毎日｜難して仕事を遂行しているなどとは、つゆも思わないで｜。
She learns because she can't help it, just as the bird learns to fly.
彼女は、学びます｜せざるを得ないから｜、丁度、鳥がとぶことを学ぶように。
But don't imagine that she "talks fluently."  でも、想像しないでください｜彼女が流ちょうに話すことは｜。
Like her baby cousin, she expresses whole sentences by single words.
いとこの赤ちゃんのように、表現します｜文章全体を｜一つの単語で｜。
"Milk," with a gesture means, "Give me more milk."
ジェスチャーで「ミルク」ということは、「ミルクを下さい」を意味します。
"Mother," accompanied by an inquiring look, means, "Where is mother?"
「ママ」の後に、尋ねる表情をすると、「ママはどこ？」を意味します。
"Go" means, "I want to go out." 「行く」は、「外に出たい」ことを意味します。
But when I spell into her hand, "Give me some bread," she hands me the bread,
でも、綴ると｜彼女の手に「パンを頂戴」と｜、私に、パンを手渡してくれます、
or if I say, "Get your hat and we will go to walk," she obeys instantly.
もし、「帽子をとって、散歩に行きましょう」と言うと、彼女は、瞬時に従います。
The two words, "hat" and "walk" would have the same effect;
２つの単語、「帽子」と「散歩」は、同じ効果をもたらすようです；
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.
しかし、文章全体は、その日のうちに何度も繰り返せば、やがては、彼女の頭に刻印されるに違いありません、次第に、彼女は、みずからそれを使うようになるでしょう。

●We play a little game which I find most useful in developing the intellect, and which incidentally answers the purpose of a language lesson.
私たちは、ちょっとしたゲームをします｜知性を育てるのにとても有用で、言語の学習という目的にたまたま合致するような｜。
It is an adaptation of hide-the-thimble.  それは、「指抜き隠し」の修正版です。
I hide something, a ball or a spool, and we hunt for it.
私は、隠します｜何か、ボールか、糸巻を｜、そして、私たちは、それを探します。
When we first played this game two or three days ago, she showed no ingenuity at all in finding the object.
私たちが、始めたとき｜このゲームを二三日前に｜、彼女は、創意工夫を示しませんでした｜目的物を探しだすことに｜。
She looked in places where it would have been impossible to put the ball or the spool.
彼女は、覗き込みました｜場所を｜ボールや糸巻を置くことなど不可能な｜。
For instance, when I hid the ball, she looked under her writing-board.
例えば、私が、ボールを隠したとき、彼女は、書き板(石板)の下を覗きました。
Again, when I hid the spool, she looked for it in a little box not more than an inch long;
また、糸巻を隠した時は、彼女は、探しました｜それを｜小さな箱の中で｜１インチ足らずの｜。
and she very soon gave up the search.  彼女は、すぐに、探すのを止めてしまいました。
Now I can keep her interest in the game for an hour or longer,
今では、私は、もたせることができます｜彼女の興味を｜ゲームへの｜一時間以上｜。
and she shows much more intelligence, and often great ingenuity in the search.
彼女は、示します｜ずっと多くの知性を、そして、しばしば、探すことへの偉大な創意工夫を｜。
This morning I hid a cracker.  今朝、私は、クラッカーを隠しました。
She looked everywhere she could think of without success, and was evidently in despair
彼女は、探しました｜思いつくすべての場所を｜、成功しませんでした、明らかに失望していました
when suddenly a thought struck her,  その時、突然、ある考えが、彼女に思いつきました
and she came running to me and made me open my mouth very wide, while she gave it a thorough investigation.
彼女は、私の所に走って来て、私の口を大きく開かせ、徹底的に捜索しました。
Finding no trace of the cracker there, she pointed to my stomach and spelled "eat," meaning, "Did you eat it?"
クラッカーの痕跡を見つけることができずに、彼女は、私のお腹を指さして、綴りました｜「食べる」と｜、それは、「食べたの？」を意味します。

●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.
金曜日に、私たちは、下町に行って、ある紳士に会いました、彼は、ヘレンにキャンデイーをくれました、彼女は、それを食べました、小さな１個を残して、彼女は、それをエプロンのポケットに入れました。
When we reached home, she found her mother, and of her own accord said, "Give baby candy."
家に帰ったとき、ヘレンは、母親を見つけて、自発的に言いました｜「あげる、赤ちゃんにキャンデイを」と｜。
Mrs. Keller spelled, "No–baby eat–no."  ケラー夫人は、綴りました、「イイエ、赤ちゃん、食べるのイイエ」
Helen went to the cradle and felt of Mildred's mouth and pointed to her own teeth.
ヘレンは、揺りかごの所に行って、ミルドレッドの口を触り、自分の歯を指し示しました。
Mrs. Keller spelled "teeth."  ケラー夫人は、綴りました｜「歯」と｜。
Helen shook her head and spelled "Baby teeth–no, baby eat–no," meaning of course, "Baby cannot eat because she has no teeth."
ヘレンは、首を横に振って、綴りました「赤ちゃん、歯、イイエ、赤ちゃん、食べる、イイエ」と、勿論、意味します｜「赤ちゃん食べることできない、彼女は、歯がないから」を｜。

May 8, 1887.

●No, I don't want any more kindergarten materials.  そう、私には、必要ありません｜もはや幼稚園の用具は｜。
I used my little stock of beads, cards and straws at first because I didn't know what else to do;
私は、使いました｜蓄えを｜ビーズや、カードや、ストローの｜最初は｜ほかに何をすべきか分からなかったので｜；
but the need for them is past, for the present at any rate.
しかし、それらが必要なのは、過去のことです、とにかく当面の間は。

●I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education.
私は、疑い始めています｜精巧で特別な教育システムを｜。
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.
そのシステムは、私には、思えます｜築かれていると｜仮定のうえに｜すべての子どもは、一種の馬鹿で、物事を考えるように教えられなければならないという｜。
Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily.
しかるに、もし子供が一人残されても、彼は、より多くより良く考えるようになります、そんなに人目を引くものではないにしても。
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 colored 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.
ヘレンは、学習しています｜形容詞や副詞を｜、名詞を学ぶときと同様にすらすらと。
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.
彼女は、来ました｜泣きながら２階に｜数分前に｜非常に興奮した状態で｜。
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.
私が、諦めてから｜通常の学習の考え方を｜、ヘレンは、ずっと速く学習しているように思います。
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.
私たちは、始めました｜長い散歩をすることを｜毎朝、朝食のすぐ後に｜。
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 the 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 mold 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, 188720

●My little pupil continues to manifest the same eagerness to learn as at first. Her every waking moment is spent in the endeavor 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.

●She is always ready to share whatever she has with those about her, often keeping but very little for herself. She is very fond of dress and of all kinds of finery, and is very unhappy when she finds a hole in anything she is wearing. She will insist on having her hair put in curl papers when she is so sleepy she can scarcely stand. She discovered a hole in her boot the other morning, and after breakfast, she went to her father and spelled, "Helen new boot Simpson (her brother) buggy store man." One can easily see her meaning.

July 3, 1887.

●There was a great rumpus downstairs this morning. I heard Helen screaming, and ran down to see what was the matter. I found her in a terrible passion. I had hoped this would never happen again. She has been so gentle and obedient the past two months, I thought love had subdued the lion; but it seems he was only sleeping. At all events, there she was, tearing and scratching and biting Viney like some wild thing. It seems Viney had attempted to take a glass, which Helen was filling with stones, fearing that she would break it. Helen resisted, and Viney tried to force it out of her hand, and I suspect that she slapped the child, or did something which caused this unusual outburst of temper. When I took her hand she was trembling violently, and began to cry. I asked what was the matter, and she spelled: "Viney–bad," and began to slap and kick her with renewed violence. I held her hands firmly until she became more calm.

●Later Helen came to my room, looking very sad, and wanted to kiss me. I said, "I cannot kiss naughty girl." She spelled, "Helen is good, Viney is bad." I said: "You struck Viney and kicked her and hurt her. You were very naughty, and I cannot kiss naughty girl." She stood very still for a moment, and it was evident from her face, which was flushed and troubled, that a struggle was going on in her mind. Then she said: "Helen did (does) not love teacher. Helen do love mother. Mother will whip Viney." I told her that she had better not talk about it any more, but think. She knew that I was much troubled, and would have liked to stay near me; but I thought it best for her to sit by herself. At the dinner-table she was greatly disturbed because I didn't eat, and suggested that "Cook make tea for teacher." But I told her that my heart was sad, and I didn't feel like eating. She began to cry and sob and clung to me.

●She was very much excited when we went upstairs; so I tried to interest her in a curious insect called a stick-bug. It's the queerest thing I ever saw–a little bundle of fagots fastened together in the middle. I wouldn't believe it was alive until I saw it move. Even then it looked more like a mechanical toy than a living creature. But the poor little girl couldn't fix her attention. Her heart was full of trouble, and she wanted to talk about it. She said: "Can bug know about naughty girl? Is bug very happy?" Then, putting her arms round my neck, she said: "I am (will be) good to-morrow. Helen is (will be) good all days." I said, "Will you tell Viney you are very sorry you scratched and kicked her?" She smiled and answered, "Viney (can) not spell words." "I will tell Viney you are very sorry," I said. "Will you go with me and find Viney?" She was very willing to go, and let Viney kiss her, though she didn't return the caress. She has been unusually affectionate since, and it seems to me there is a sweetness–a soul-beauty in her face which I have not seen before.

July 31, 1887.

●Helen's pencil-writing is excellent, as you will see from the enclosed letter, which she wrote for her own amusement. I am teaching her the braille alphabet, and she is delighted to be able to make words herself that she can feel.

●She has now reached the question stage of her development. It is "what?" "why?" "when?" especially "why?" all day long, and as her intelligence grows her inquiries become more insistent. I remember how unbearable I used to find the inquisitiveness of my friends' children; but I know now that these questions indicate the child's growing interest in the cause of things. The "why?" is the door through which he enters the world of reason and reflection. "How does carpenter know to build house?" "Who put chickens in eggs?" "Why is Viney black?" "Flies bite–why?" "Can flies know not to bite?" "Why did father kill sheep?" Of course she asks many questions that are not as intelligent as these. Her mind isn't more logical than the minds of ordinary children. On the whole, her questions are analogous to those that a bright three-year-old child asks; but her desire for knowledge is so earnest, the questions are never tedious, though they draw heavily upon my meager store of information, and tax my ingenuity to the utmost.

●I had a letter from Laura Bridgmen last Sunday. Please give her my love, and tell her Helen sends her a kiss. I read the letter at the supper-table, and Mrs. Keller exclaimed: "Why, Miss Annie, Helen writes almost as well as that now!" It is true.

August 21, 1887.

●We had a beautiful time in Huntsville. Everybody there was delighted with Helen, and showered her with gifts and kisses. The first evening she learned the names of all the people in the hotel, about twenty, I think. The next morning we were astonished to find that she remembered all of them, and recognized every one she had met the night before. She taught the young people the alphabet, and several of them learned to talk with her. One of the girls taught her to dance the polka, and a little boy showed her his rabbits and spelled their names for her. She was delighted, and showed her pleasure by hugging and kissing the little fellow, which embarrassed him very much.

●We had Helen's picture taken with a fuzzy, red-eyed little poodle, who got himself into my lady's good graces by tricks and cunning devices known only to dogs with an instinct for getting what they want.

●She has talked incessantly since her return about what she did in Huntsville, and we notice a very decided improvement in her ability to use language. Curiously enough, a drive we took to the top of Monte Sano, a beautiful mountain not far from Huntsville, seems to have impressed her more than anything else, except the wonderful poodle. She remembers all that I told her about it, and in telling her mother repeated the very words and phrases I had used in describing it to her. In conclusion she asked her mother if she should like to see "very high mountain and beautiful cloudcaps." I hadn't used this expression. I said, "The clouds touch the mountain softly, like beautiful flowers." You see, I had to use words and images with which she was familiar through the sense of touch. But it hardly seems possible that any mere words should convey to one who has never seen a mountain the faintest idea of its grandeur; and I don't see how any one is ever to know what impression she did receive, or the cause of her pleasure in what was told her about it. All that we do know certainly is that she has a good memory and imagination and the faculty of association.

August 28, 1887.

●I do wish things would stop being born! "New puppies," "new calves" and "new babies" keep Helen's interest in the why and wherefore of things at white heat. The arrival of a new baby at Ivy Green the other day was the occasion of a fresh outburst of questions about the origin of babies and live things in general. "Where did Leila get new baby? How did doctor know where to find baby? Did Leila tell doctor to get very small new baby? Where did doctor find Guy and Prince?" (puppies) "Why is Elizabeth Evelyn's sister?" etc., etc. These questions were sometimes asked under circumstances which rendered them embarrassing, and I made up my mind that something must be done. If it was natural for Helen to ask such questions, it was my duty to answer them. It's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things. From the beginning, I have made it a practice to answer all Helen's questions to the best of my ability in a way intelligible to her, and at the same time truthfully. "Why should I treat these questions differently?" I asked myself. I decided that there was no reason, except my deplorable ignorance of the great facts that underlie our physical existence. It was no doubt because of this ignorance that I rushed in where more experienced angels fear to tread. There isn't a living soul in this part of the world to whom I can go for advice in this, or indeed, in any other educational difficulty. The only thing for me to do in a perplexity is to go ahead, and learn by making mistakes. But in this case I don't think I made a mistake. I took Helen and my Botany, "How Plants Grow," up in the tree, where we often go to read and study, and I told her in simple words the story of plant-life. I reminded her of the corn, beans and watermelon-seed she had planted in the spring, and told her that the tall corn in the garden, and the beans and watermelon vines had grown from those seeds. I explained how the earth keeps the seeds warm and moist, until the little leaves are strong enough to push themselves out into the light and air where they can breathe and grow and bloom and make more seeds, from which other baby-plants shall grow. I drew an analogy between plant and animal-life, and told her that seeds are eggs as truly as hens' eggs and birds' eggs–that the mother hen keeps her eggs warm and dry until the little chicks come out. I made her understand that all life comes from an egg. The mother bird lays her eggs in a nest and keeps them warm until the birdlings are hatched. The mother fish lays her eggs where she knows they will be moist and safe, until it is time for the little fish to come out. I told her that she could call the egg the cradle of life. Then I told her that other animals like the dog and cow, and human beings, do not lay their eggs, but nourish their young in their own bodies. I had no difficulty in making it clear to her that if plants and animals didn't produce offspring after their kind, they would cease to exist, and everything in the world would soon die. But the function of sex I passed over as lightly as possible. I did, however, try to give her the idea that love is the great continuer of life. The subject was difficult, and my knowledge inadequate; but I am glad I didn't shirk my responsibility; for, stumbling, hesitating, and incomplete as my explanation was, it touched deep responsive chords in the soul of my little pupil, and the readiness with which she comprehended the great facts of physical life confirmed me in the opinion that the child has dormant within him, when he comes into the world, all the experiences of the race. These experiences are like photographic negatives, until language develops them and brings out the memory-images.

September 4, 1887.

●Helen had a letter this morning from her uncle, Doctor Keller. He invited her to come to see him at Hot Springs. The name Hot Springs interested her, and she asked many questions about it. She knows about cold springs. There are several near Tuscumbia; one very large one from which the town got its name. "Tuscumbia" is the Indian for "Great Spring." But she was surprised that hot water should come out of the ground. She wanted to know who made the fire under the ground, and if it was like the fire in stoves, and if it burned the roots of plants and trees.

●She was much pleased with the letter, and after she had asked all the questions she could think of, she took it to her mother, who was sewing in the hall, and read it to her. It was amusing to see her hold it before her eyes and spell the sentences out on her fingers, just as I had done. Afterward she tried to read it to Belle (the dog) and Mildred. Mrs. Keller and I watched the nursery comedy from the door. Belle was sleepy, and Mildred inattentive. Helen looked very serious, and, once or twice, when Mildred tried to take the letter, she put her hand away impatiently. Finally Belle got up, shook herself, and was about to walk away, when Helen caught her by the neck and forced her to lie down again. In the meantime Mildred had got the letter and crept away with it. Helen felt on the floor for it, but not finding it there, she evidently suspected Mildred; for she made the little sound which is her "baby call." Then she got up and stood very still, as if listening with her feet for Mildred's "thump, thump." When she had located the sound, she went quickly toward the little culprit and found her chewing the precious letter! This was too much for Helen. She snatched the letter and slapped the little hands soundly. Mrs. Keller took the baby in her arms, and when we had succeeded in pacifying her, I asked Helen, "What did you do to baby?" She looked troubled, and hesitated a moment before answering. Then she said: "Wrong girl did eat letter. Helen did slap very wrong girl." I told her that Mildred was very small, and didn't know that it was wrong to put the letter in her mouth.

●"I did tell baby, no, no, much (many) times," was Helen's reply.

●I said, "Mildred doesn't understand your fingers, and we must be very gentle with her."

●She shook her head.
"Baby–not think. Helen will give baby pretty letter," and with that she ran upstairs and brought down a neatly folded sheet of braille, on which she had written some words, and gave it to Mildred, saying, "Baby can eat all words."

September 18, 1887.

●I do not wonder you were surprised to hear that I was going to write something for the report. I do not know myself how it happened, except that I got tired of saying "no" and Captain Keller urged me to do it. He agreed with Mr. Anagnos that it was my duty to give others the benefit of my experience. Besides, they said Helen's wonderful deliverance might be a boon to other afflicted children.

●When I sit down to write, my thoughts freeze, and when I get them on paper they look like wooden soldiers all in a row, and if a live one happens along, I put him in a strait-jacket. It's easy enough, however, to say Helen is wonderful, because she really is. I kept a record of everything she said last week, and I found that she knows six hundred words. This does not mean, however, that she always uses them correctly. Sometimes her sentences are like Chinese puzzles; but they are the kind of puzzles children make when they try to express their half-formed ideas by means of arbitrary language. She has the true language-impulse, and shows great fertility of resource in making the words at her command convey her meaning.

●Lately she been much interested in colour. She found the word "brown" in her primer and wanted to know its meaning. I told her that her hair was brown, and she asked, "Is brown very pretty?" After we had been all over the house, and I had told her the colour of everything she touched, she suggested that we go the hen-houses and barns; but I told her she must wait until another day because I was very tired. We sat in the hammock; but there was no rest for the weary there. Helen was eager to know "more colour." I wonder if she has any vague idea of colour–any reminiscent impression of light and sound. It seems as if a child who could and hear until her nineteenth month must retain some of her first impressions, though ever so faintly. Helen talks a great deal about things that she cannot know of through the sense of touch. She asks many questions about the sky, day and night, the ocean and mountains. She likes to have me tell her what I see in pictures.

●But I seem to have lost the thread of my discourse. "What colour is think?" was one of the restful questions she asked, as we swung to and fro in the hammock. I told her that when we are happy our thoughts are bright, and when we are naughty they are sad. Quick as a flash she said, "My think is white, Viney's think is black." You see, she had an idea that the colour of our thoughts matched that of our skin. I couldn't help laughing, for at that very moment Viney was shouting at the top of her voice:

"I long to sit on dem jasper walls
And see dem sinners stumble and fall!"

October 3, 1887.

●My account for the report is finished and sent off. I have two copies, and will send you one; but you mustn't show it to anybody. It's Mr. Anagnos's property until it is published.

"I suppose the little girls enjoyed Helen's letter.21 She wrote it out of her own head, as the children say.

●She talks a great deal about what she will do when she goes to Boston. She asked the other day, "Who made all things and Boston?" She says Mildred will not go there because "Baby does cry all days."

October 25, 1887.

●Helen wrote another letter 22 to the little girls yesterday, and her father sent it to Mr. Anagnos. Ask him to let you see it. She has begun to use pronouns of her own accord. This morning I happened to say, "Helen will go upstairs." She laughed and said, "Teacher is wrong. You will go upstairs." This is another great forward step. Thus it always is. Yesterday's perplexities are strangely simple to-day, and to-day's difficulties become to-morrow's pastime.

●The rapid development of Helen's mind is beautiful to watch. I doubt if any teacher ever had a work of such absorbing interest. There must have been one lucky star in the heavens at my birth, and I am just beginning to feel its beneficent influence.

●I had two letters from Mr. Anagnos last week. He is more grateful for my report than the English idiom will express. Now he wants a picture "of darling Helen and her illustrious teacher, to grace the pages of the forthcoming annual report."

October, 1887. 23

●You have probably read, ere this, Helen's second letter to the little girls. I am aware that the progress she has made between the writing of the two letters must seem incredible. Only those who are with her daily can realize the rapid advancement which she is making in the acquisition of language. You will see from her letter that she uses many pronouns correctly. She rarely misuses or omits one in conversation. Her passion for writing letters and putting her thoughts upon paper grows more intense. She now tells stories in which the imagination plays an important part. She is also beginning to realize that she is not like other children. The other day she asked, "What do my eyes do?" I told her that I could see things with my eyes, and that she could see them with her fingers. After thinking a moment she said, "My eyes are bad!" then she changed it into "My eyes are sick!"

●Miss Sullivan's first report, which was published in the official report of the Perkins Institution for the 1887, is a short summary of what is fully recorded in the letters. Here follows the last part, beginning with the great day, April 5th, when Helen learned water.

●In her reports Miss Sullivan speaks of "lessons" as if they came in regular order. This is the effect of putting it all in a summary. "Lesson" is too formal for the continuous daily work.

●One day I took her to the cistern. As the water gushed from the pump I spelled "w-a-t-e-r." Instantly she tapped my hand for a repetition, and then made the word herself with a radiant face. Just then the nurse came into the cistern-house bringing her little sister. I put Helen's hand on the baby and formed the letters "b-a-b-y" which she repeated without help and the light of a new intelligence in her face.

●On our way back to the house everything she touched had to be named for her, and repetition was seldom necessary. Neither the length of the word nor the combination of letters seems to make any difference to the child. Indeed, she remembers heliotrope and chrysanthemum more readily than she does shorter names. At the end of August she knew 625 words.

●This lesson was followed by one on words indicative of place-relations. Her dress was put in a trunk, and then on it, and these prepositions were spelled for her. Very soon she learned the difference on and in, though it was some time before she could use these words in sentences of her own. Whenever it was possible she was made the actor in the lesson, and was delighted to stand on the chair, and to be put into the wardrobe. In connection with this lesson she learned the names of the members of the family and the word is. "Helen is in wardrobe," "Mildred is in crib," "Box is on table," "Papa is on bed," are specimens of sentences constructed by her during the latter part of April.

●Next came a lesson on words expressive of positive quality. For the first lesson I had two balls, one made in worsted, large and soft, the other a bullet. She perceived the difference in size at once. Taking the bullet she made her habitual sign for small –that is, by pinching a little bit of the skin of her hand. Then she took the other ball and made her sign for large by spreading both hands over it. I substituted the adjectives large and small for those signs. Then her attention was called to the hardness of the one ball and the softness of the other, and she learned soft and hard. A few minutes afterward she felt of her little sister's head and said to her mother, "Mildred's head is small and hard." Next I tried to teach her the meaning of fast and slow. She helped me wind some worsted one day, first rapidly and afterward slowly. I then said to her with the finger alphabet, "wind fast," or "wind slow," holding her hands and showing her how to do as I wished. The next day, while exercising, she spelled to me, "Helen wind fast," and began to walk rapidly. Then she said, "Helen wind slow," again suiting the action to the words.

●I now thought it time to teach her to read printed words. A slip on which was printed, in raised letters, the word box was placed on the object; and the same experiment was tried with a great many articles, but she did not immediately comprehend that the label-name represented the thing. Then I took an alphabet sheet and put her finger on the letter A, at the same time making A with my fingers. She moved her finger from one printed character to another as I formed each letter on my fingers. She learned all the letters, both capital and small, in one day. Next I turned to the first page of the primer and made her touch the word cat, spelling it on my fingers at the same time. Instantly she caught the idea, and asked me to find dog and many other words. Indeed, she was much displeased because I could not find her name in the book. Just then I had no sentences in raised letters which she could understand; but she would sit for hours feeling each word in her book. When she touched one with which she was familiar, a peculiarly sweet expression lighted her face, and we saw her countenance growing sweeter and more earnest every day. About this time I sent a list of the words she knew to Mr. Anagnos, and he very kindly had them printed for her. Her mother and I cut up several sheets of printed words so that she could arrange them into sentences. This delighted her more than anything she had yet done; and the practice thus obtained prepared the way for the writing lessons. There was no difficulty in making her understand how to write the same sentences with pencil and paper which she made every day with the slips, and she very soon perceived that she need not confine herself to phrases already learned, but could communicate any thought that was passing through her mind. I put one of the writing boards used by the blind between the folds of the paper on the table and allowed her to examine an alphabet of the square letters, such as she was to make. I then guided her hand to form the sentence, "Cat does drink milk." When she finished it she was overjoyed. She carried it to her mother, who spelled it to her.

●Day after day she moved her pencil in the same tracks along the grooved paper, never for a moment expressing the least impatience or sense of fatigue.

●As she had now learned to express her ideas on paper, I next taught her the braille system. She learned it gladly when she discovered that she could herself read what she had written; and this still affords her constant pleasure. For a whole evening she will sit at the table writing whatever comes into her busy brain; and I seldom find any difficulty in reading what she has written.

●Her progress in arithmetic has been equally remarkable. She can add and subtract with great rapidity up to the sum of one hundred; and she knows the multiplication tables as far as the fives. She was working recently with the number forty, when I said to her, "Make twos." She replied immediately, "Twenty two's make forty." Later I said, "make fifteen threes and count." I wished her to make the groups of threes and supposed she would then have to count them in order to know what number fifteen threes would make. But instantly she spelled the answer: "Fifteen threes make forty-five."

●On being told that she was white and that one of the servants was black, she concluded that all who occupied a similar menial position were of the same hue; and whenever I asked her the colour of a servant she would say "black." When asked the colour of some one whose occupation she did not know she seemed bewildered, and finally said "blue."

●She has never been told anything about death or the burial of the body, and yet on entering the cemetery for the first time in her life, with her mother and me, to look at some flowers, she laid her hand on our eyes and repeatedly spelled "cry-cry." Her eyes actually filled with tears. The flowers did not seem to give her pleasure, and she was very quiet while we stayed there.

●On another occasion while walking with me she seemed conscious of the presence of her brother, although we were distant from him. She spelled his name repeatedly and started in the direction in which he was coming.

●When walking or riding she often gives the names of the people we meet almost as soon as we recognize them.

●The letters take up the account again.

November 13, 1887.

●We took Helen to the circus, and had "the time of our lives"! The circus people were much interested in Helen, and did everything they could to make her first circus a memorable event. They let her feel the animals whenever it was safe. She fed the elephants, and was allowed to climb up on the back of the largest, and sit in the lap of the "Oriental Princess," while the elephant marched majestically around the ring. She felt some young lions. They were as gentle as kittens; but I told her they would get wild and fierce as they grew older. She said to the keeper, "I will take the baby lions home and teach them to be mild." The keeper of the bears made one big black fellow stand on his hind legs and hold out his great paw to us, which Helen shook politely. She was greatly delighted with the monkeys and kept her hand on the star performer while he went through his tricks, and laughed heartily when he took off his hat to the audience. One cute little fellow stole her hair-ribbon, and another tried to snatch the flowers out of her hat. I don't know who had the best time, the monkeys, Helen or the spectators. One of the leopards licked her hands, and the man in charge of the giraffes lifted her up in his arms so that she could feel their ears and see how tall they were. She also felt a Greek chariot, and the charioteer would have liked to take her round the ring; but she was afraid of "many swift horses." The riders and clowns and rope-walkers were all glad to let the little blind girl feel their costumes and follow their motions whenever it was possible, and she kissed them all, to show her gratitude. Some of them cried, and the wild man of Borneo shrank from her sweet little face in terror. She has talked about nothing but the circus ever since. In order to answer her questions, I have been obliged to read a great deal about animals. At present I feel like a jungle on wheels!

December 12, 1887.

●I find it hard to realize that Christmas is almost here, in spite of the fact that Helen talks about nothing else. Do you remember what a happy time we had last Christmas?

●Helen has learned to tell the time at last, and her father is going to give her a watch for Christmas.

●Helen is as eager to have stories told her as any hearing child I ever knew. She has made me repeat the story of little Red Riding Hood so often that I believe I could say it backward. She likes stories that make her cry–I think we all do, it's so nice to feel sad when you've nothing particular to be sad about. I am teaching her little rhymes and verses, too. They fix beautiful thoughts in her memory. I think, too, that they quicken all the child's faculties, because they stimulate the imagination. Of course I don't try to explain everything. If I did, there would be no opportunity for the play of fancy. Too much explanation directs the child's attention to words and sentences, so that he fails to get the thought as a whole. I do not think any one can read, or talk for that matter, until he forgets words and sentences in the technical sense.

January 1, 1888.

●It is a great thing to feel that you are of some use in the world, that you are necessary to somebody. Helen's dependence on me for almost everything makes me strong and glad.

●Christmas week was a very busy one here, too. Helen is invited to all the children's entertainments, and I take her to as many as I can. I want her to know children and to be with them as much as possible. Several little girls have learned to spell on their fingers and are very proud of the accomplishment. One little chap, about seven, was persuaded to learn the letters, and he spelled his name for Helen. She was delighted and showed her joy by hugging and kissing him, much to his embarrassment.

●Saturday the school-children had their tree, and I took Helen. It was the first Christmas tree she had ever seen, and she was puzzled, and asked many questions. "Who made tree grow in house? Why? Who put many things on tree?" She objected to its miscellaneous fruits and began to remove them, evidently thinking they were all meant for her. It was not difficult, however, to make her understand that there was a present for each child, and to her great delight she was permitted to hand the gifts to the children. There were several presents for herself. She placed them in a chair, resisting all temptation to look at them until every child had received his gifts. One little girl had fewer presents than the rest, and Helen insisted on sharing gifts with her. It was very sweet to see the children's eager interest in Helen, and their readiness to give her pleasure. The exercises began at nine, and it was one o'clock before we could leave. My fingers and head ached; but Helen was as fresh and full of spirit as when we left home.

●After dinner it began to snow, and we had a good frolic and an interesting lesson about the snow. Sunday morning the ground was covered, and Helen and the cook's children and I played snowball. By noon the snow was all gone. It was the first snow I had seen here, and it made me a little homesick. The Christmas season has furnished many lessons, and added scores of new words to Helen's vocabulary.

●For weeks we did nothing but talk and read and tell each other stories about Christmas. Of course I do not try to explain all the new words, nor does Helen fully understand the little stories I tell her; but constant repetition fixes the words and phrases in the mind, and little by little the meaning will come to her. I see no sense in "faking" conversation for the sake of teaching language. It's stupid and deadening to pupil and teacher. Talk should be natural and have for its object an exchange of ideas. If there is nothing in the child's mind to communicate, it hardly seems worth while to require him to write on the blackboard, or spell on his fingers, cut and dried sentences about "the cat," "the bird," "a dog." I have tried from the beginning to talk naturally to Helen and to teach her to tell me only things that interest her and ask questions only for the sake of finding out what she wants to know. When I see that she is eager to tell me something, but is hampered because she does not know the words, I supply them and the necessary idioms, and we get along finely. The child's eagerness and interest carry her over many obstacles that would be our undoing if we stopped to define and explain everything. What would happen, do you think, if some one should try to measure our intelligence by our ability to define the commonest words we use? I fear me, if I were put to such a test, I should be consigned to the primary class in a school for the feeble-minded.

●It was touching and beautiful to see Helen enjoy her first Christmas. Of course, she hung her stocking–two of them, lest Santa Claus should forget one, and she lay awake for a long time and got up two or three times to see if anything had happened. When I told her that Santa Claus would not come until she was asleep, she shut her eyes and said, "He will think girl is asleep." She was awake the first thing in the morning, and ran to the fireplace for stocking; and when she found that Santa Claus had filled both stockings, she danced about for a minute, then grew very quiet, and came to ask me if I thought Santa Claus had made a mistake, and thought there were two little girls, and would come back for the gifts when he discovered his mistake. The ring you sent her was in the toe of the stocking, and when I told her you gave it to Santa Claus for her, she said, "I do love Mrs. Hopkins." She had a trunk and clothes for Nancy, and her comment was, "Now Nancy will go to party." When she saw the braille slate and paper, she said, "I will write many letters, and I will thank Santa Claus very much." It was evident that every one, especially Captain and Mrs. Keller, was deeply moved at the thought of the difference between this bright Christmas and the last, when their little girl had no conscious part in the Christmas festivities. As we came downstairs, Mrs. Keller said to me with tears in her eyes, "Miss Annie, I thank God every day of my life for sending you to us; but I never realized until this morning what a blessing you have been to us." Captain Keller took my hand, but could not speak. But his silence was more eloquent than words. My heart, too, was full of gratitude and solemn joy.

●The other day Helen came across the word grandfather in a little story and asked her mother, "Where is grandfather?" meaning her grandfather. Mrs. Keller replied, "He is dead." "Did father shoot him?" Helen asked, and added, "I will eat grandfather for dinner." So far, her only knowledge of death is in connection with things to eat. She knows that her father shoots partridges and deer and other game.

●This morning she asked me the meaning of "carpenter," and the question furnished the text for the day's lesson. After talking about the various things that carpenters make, she asked me, "Did carpenter make me?" and before I could answer, she spelled quickly, "No, no, photographer made me in Sheffield."

●One of the greatest iron furnaces has been started in Sheffield, and we went over the other evening to see them make a "run." Helen felt the heat and asked, "Did the sun fall?"

January 9, 1888.

●The report came last night. I appreciate the kind things Mr. Anagnos has said about Helen and me; but his extravagant way of saying them rubs me the wrong way. The simple facts would be so much more convincing! Why, for instance, does he take the trouble to ascribe motives to me that I never dreamed of? You know, and he knows, and I know, that my motive in coming here was not in any sense philanthropic. How ridiculous it is to say I had drunk so copiously of the noble spirit of Dr. Howe that I was fired with the desire to rescue from darkness and obscurity the little Alabamian! I came here simply because circumstances made it necessary for me to earn my living, and I seized upon the first opportunity that offered itself, although I did not suspect, nor did he, that I had any special fitness for the work.

January 26, 1888.

●I suppose you got Helen's letter. The little rascal has taken it into her head not to write with a pencil. I wanted her to write to her Uncle Frank this morning, but she objected. She said: "Pencil is very tired in head. I will write Uncle Frank braille letter." I said, "But Uncle Frank cannot read braille." "I will teach him," she said. I explained that Uncle Frank was old, and couldn't learn braille easily. In a flash she answered, "I think Uncle Frank is much (too) old to read very small letters." Finally I persuaded her to write a few lines; but she broke her pencil six times before she finished it. I said to her, "You are a naughty girl." "No," she replied, "pencil is very weak." I think her objection to pencil-writing is readily accounted for by the fact that she has been asked to write so many specimens for friends and strangers. You know how the children at the Institution detest it. It is irksome because the process is so slow, and they cannot read what they have written or correct their mistakes.

●Helen is more and more interested in colour. When I told her that Mildred's eyes were blue, she asked, "Are they like wee skies?" A little while after I had told her that a carnation that had been given to her was red, she puckered up her mouth and said, "Lips are like one pink." I told her they were tulips; but of course she didn't understand the word-play. I can't believe that the colour-impressions she received during the year and a half she could see and hear are entirely lost. Everything we have seen and heard is in the mind somewhere. It may be too vague and confused to be recognizable, but it is there all the same, like the landscape we lose in the deepening twilight.

February 10, 1888.

●We got home last night. We had a splendid time in Memphis, but I didn't rest much. It was nothing but excitement from first to last–drives, luncheons, receptions, and all that they involve when you have an eager, tireless child like Helen on your hands. She talked incessantly. I don't know what I should have done, had some of the young people not learned to talk with her. They relieved me as much as possible. But even then I can never have a quiet half hour to myself. It is always: "Oh, Miss Sullivan, please come and tell us what Helen means," or "Miss Sullivan, won't you please explain this to Helen? We can't make her understand." I believe half the white population of Memphis called on us. Helen was petted and caressed enough to spoil an angel; but I do not think it is possible to spoil her, she is too unconscious of herself, and too loving.

●The stores in Memphis are very good, and I managed to spend all the money that I had with me. One day Helen said, "I must buy Nancy a very pretty hat." I said, "Very well, we will go shopping this afternoon." She had a silver dollar and a dime. When we reached the shop, I asked her how much she would pay for Nancy's hat. She answered promptly, "I will pay ten cents." "What will you do with the dollar?" I asked. "I will buy some good candy to take to Tuscumbia," was her reply.

●We visited the Stock Exchange and a steamboat. Helen was greatly interested in the boat, and insisted on being shown every inch of it from the engine to the flag on the flagstaff. I was gratified to read what the Nation had to say about Helen last week.

●Captain Keller has had two interesting letters since the publication of the "Report," one from Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, and the other from Dr. Edward Everett Hale. Dr. Hale claims kinship with Helen, and seems very proud of his little cousin. Dr. Bell writes that Helen's progress is without parallel in the education of the deaf, or something like that, and he says many nice things about her teacher.

March 5, 1888.

●I did not have a chance to finish my letter yesterday. Miss Ev. came up to help me make a list of words Helen has learned. We have got as far as P, and there are 900 words to her credit. I had Helen begin a journal 24 March 1st. I don't know how long she will keep it up. It's rather stupid business, I think. Just now she finds it great fun. She seems to like to tell all she knows. This is what Helen wrote Sunday:

●"I got up, washed my face and hands, combed my hair, picked three dew violets for Teacher and ate my breakfast. After breakfast I played with dolls short. Nancy was cross. Cross is cry and kick. I read in my book about large, fierce animals. Fierce is much cross and strong and very hungry. I do not love fierce animals. I wrote letter to Uncle James. He lives in Hotsprings. He is doctor. Doctor makes sick girl well. I do not like sick. Then I ate my dinner. I like much icecream very much. After dinner father went to Birmingham on train far away. I had letter from Robert. He loves me. He said Dear Helen, Robert was glad to get a letter from dear, sweet little Helen. I will come to see you when the sun shines. Mrs. Newsum is Robert's wife. Robert is her husband. Robert and I will run and jump and hop and dance and swing and talk about birds and flowers and trees and grass and Jumbo and Pearl will go with us. Teacher will say, We are silly. She is funny. Funny makes us laugh. Natalie is a good girl and does not cry. Mildred does cry. She will be a nice girl in many days and run and play with me. Mrs. Graves is making short dresses for Natalie. Mr. Mayo went to Duckhill and brought home many sweet flowers. Mr. Mayo and Mr. Farris and Mr. Graves love me and Teacher. I am going to Memphis to see them soon, and they will hug and kiss me. Thornton goes to school and gets his face dirty. Boy must be very careful. After supper I played romp with Teacher in bed. She buried me under the pillows and then I grew very slow like tree out of ground. Now I will go to bed.

HELEN KELLER"

April 16, 1888.

●We are just back from church. Captain Keller said at breakfast this morning that he wished I would take Helen to church. The Presbytery would be there in a body, and he wanted the ministers to see Helen. The Sunday-school was in session when we arrived, and I wish you could have seen the sensation Helen's entrance caused. The children were so pleased to see her at Sunday-school, they paid no attention to their teachers, but rushed out of their seats and surrounded us. She kissed them all, boys and girls, willing or unwilling. She seemed to think at first that the children all belonged to the visiting ministers; but soon she recognized some little friends among them, and I told her the ministers didn't bring their children with them. She looked disappointed and said, "I'll send them many kisses." One of the ministers wished me to ask Helen, "What do ministers do?" She said, "They read and talk loud to people to be good." He put her answer down in his note book. When it was time for the church service to begin, she was in such a state of excitement that I thought it best to take her away; but Captain Keller said, "No, she will be all right." So there was nothing to do but stay. It was impossible to keep Helen quiet. She hugged and kissed me, and the quiet-looking divine who sat on the other side of her. He gave her his watch to play with; but that didn't keep her still. She wanted to show it to the little boy in the seat behind us. When the communion service began, she smelt the wine, and sniffed so loud that every one in the church could hear. When the wine was passed to our neighbour, he was obliged to stand up to prevent her taking it away from him. I never was so glad to get out of a place as I was to leave that church! I tried to hurry Helen out-of-doors, but she kept her arm extended, and every coat-tail she touched must needs turn round and give an account of the children he left at home, and receive kisses according to their number. Everybody laughed at her antics, and you would have thought they were leaving a place of amusement rather than a church. Captain Keller invited some of the ministers to dinner. Helen was irrepressible. She described in the most animated pantomime, supplemented by spelling, what she was going to do in Brewster. Finally she got up from the table and went through the motion of picking seaweed and shells, and splashing in the water, holding up her skirts higher than was proper under the circumstances. Then she threw herself on the floor and began to swim so energetically that some of us thought we should be kicked out of our chairs! Her motions are often more expressive than any words, and she is as graceful as a nymph.

●I wonder if the days seem as interminable to you as they do to me. We talk and plan and dream about nothing but Boston, Boston, Boston. I think Mrs. Keller has definitely decided to go with us, but she will not stay all summer.

May 15, 1888

●Do you realize that this is the last letter I shall write to you for a long, long time? The next word that you receive from me will be in a yellow envelope, and it will tell you when we shall reach Boston. I am too happy to write letters; but I must tell you about our visit to Cincinnati.

●We spent a delightful week with the "doctors." Dr. Keller met us in Memphis. Almost every one on the train was a physician, and Dr. Keller seemed to know them all. When we reached Cincinnati, we found the place full of doctors. There were several prominent Boston physicians among them. We stayed at the Burnet House. Everybody was delighted with Helen. All the learned men marveled at her intelligence and gaiety. There is something about her that attracts people. I think it is her joyous interest in everything and everybody.

●Wherever she went she was the centre of interest. She was delighted with the orchestra at the hotel, and whenever the music began she danced round the room, hugging and kissing every one she happened to touch. Her happiness impressed all; nobody seemed to pity her. One gentleman said to Dr. Keller, "I have lived long and seen many happy faces; but I have never seen such a radiant face as this child's before to-night." Another said, "Damn me! but I'd give everything I own in the world to have that little girl always near me." But I haven't time to write all the pleasant things people said–they would make a very large book, and the kind things they did for us would fill another volume. Dr. Keller distributed the extracts from the report that Mr. Anagnos sent me, and he could have disposed of a thousand if he had had them. Do you remember Dr. Garcelon, who was Governor of Maine several years ago? He took us to drive one afternoon, and wanted to give Helen a doll; but she said: "I do not like too many children. Nancy is sick, and Adeline is cross, and Ida is very bad." We laughed until we cried, she was so serious about it. "What would you like, then?" asked the Doctor. "Some beautiful gloves to talk with," she answered. The Doctor was puzzled. He had never heard of "talking-gloves"; but I explained that she had seen a glove on which the alphabet was printed, and evidently thought they could be bought. I told him he could buy some gloves if he wished, and that I would have the alphabet stamped on them.

●We lunched with Mr. Thayer (your former pastor) and his wife. He asked me how I had taught Helen adjectives and the names of abstract ideas like goodness and happiness. These same questions had been asked me a hundred times by the learned doctors. It seems strange that people should marvel at what is really so simple. Why, it is as easy to teach the name of an idea, if it is clearly formulated in the child's mind, as to teach the name of an object. It would indeed be a herculean task to teach the words if the ideas did not already exist in the child's mind. If his experiences and observations hadn't led him to the concepts, small, large, good, bad, sweet, sour, he would have nothing to attach the word-tags to.

●I, little ignorant I, found myself explaining to the wise men of the East and the West such simple things as these: If you give a child something sweet, and he wags his tongue and smacks his lips and looks pleased, he has a very definite sensation; and if, every time he has this experience, he hears the word sweet, or has it spelled into his hand, he will quickly adopt this arbitrary sign for his sensation. Likewise, if you put a bit of lemon on his tongue, he puckers up his lips and tries to spit it out; and after he has had this experience a few times, if you offer him a lemon, he shuts his mouth and makes faces, clearly indicating that he remembers the unpleasant sensation. You label it sour, and he adopts your symbol. If you had called these sensations respectively black and white, he would have adopted them as readily; but he would mean by black and white the same things that he means by sweet and sour. In the same way the child learns from many experiences to differentiate his feelings, and we name them for him–good, bad, gentle, rough, happy, sad. It is not the word, but the capacity to experience the sensation that counts in his education.

●This extract from one of Miss Sullivan's letters is added because it contains interesting casual opinions stimulated by observing the methods of others.

●We visited a little school for the deaf. We were very kindly received, and Helen enjoyed meeting the children. Two of the teachers knew the manual alphabet, and talked to her without an interpreter. They were astonished at her command of language. Not a child in the school, they said, had anything like Helen's facility of expression, and some of them had been under instruction for two or three years. I was incredulous at first; but after I had watched the children at work for a couple of hours, I knew that what I had been told was true, and I wasn't surprised. In one room some little tots were standing before the blackboard, painfully constructing "simple sentences." A little girl had written; "I have a new dress. It is a pretty dress. My mamma made my pretty new dress. I love mamma." A curly-headed little boy was writing: "I have a large ball. I like to kick my large ball." When we entered the room, the children's attention was riveted on Helen. One of them pulled me by the sleeve and said, "Girl is blind." The teacher was writing on the blackboard: "The girl's name is Helen. She is deaf. She cannot see. We are very sorry." I said: "Why do you write those sentences on the board? Wouldn't the children understand if you talked to them about Helen?" The teacher said something about getting the correct construction, and continued to construct an exercise out of Helen. I asked her if the little girl who had written about the new dress was particularly pleased with her dress. "No," she replied, "I think not; but children learn better if they write about things that concern them personally." It seemed all so mechanical and difficult, my heart ached for the poor little children. Nobody thinks of making a hearing child say, "I have a pretty new dress," at the beginning. These children were older in years, it is true, than the baby who lisps, "Papa kiss baby–pretty," and fills out her meaning by pointing to her new dress; but their ability to understand and use language was no greater.

●There was the same difficulty throughout the school. In every classroom I saw sentences on the blackboard, which evidently had been written to illustrate some grammatical rule, or for the purpose of using words that had previously been taught in the same, or in some other connection. This sort of thing may be necessary in some stages of education; but it isn't the way to acquire language. Nothing, I think, crushes the child's impulse to talk naturally more effectually than these blackboard exercises. The schoolroom is not the place to teach any young child language, least of all the deaf child. He must be kept as unconscious as the hearing child of the fact that he is learning words, and he should be allowed to prattle on his fingers, or with his pencil, in monosyllables if he chooses, until such time as his growing intelligence demands the sentence. Language should not be associated in his mind with endless hours in school, with puzzling questions in grammar, or with anything that is an enemy to joy. But I must not get into the habit of criticizing other people's methods too severely. I may be as far from the straight road as they.

●Miss Sullivan's second report brings the account down to October 1st, 1888.

●During the past year Helen has enjoyed excellent health. Her eyes and ears have been examined by specialists, and it is their opinion that she cannot have the slightest perception of either light or sound.

●It is impossible to tell exactly to what extent the senses of smell and taste aid her in gaining information respecting physical qualities; but, according to eminent authority, these senses do exert a great influence on the mental and moral development. Dugald Stewart says, "Some of the most significant words relating to the human mind are borrowed from the sense of smell; and the conspicuous place which its sensations occupy in the poetical language of all nations shows how easily and naturally they ally themselves with the refined operations of the fancy and the moral emotions of the heart." Helen certainly derives great pleasure from the exercise of these senses. On entering a greenhouse her countenance becomes radiant, and she will tell the names of flowers with which she is familiar, by the sense of smell alone. Her recollections of the sensations of smell are very vivid. She enjoys in anticipation the scent of a rose or a violet; and if she is promised a bouquet of these flowers, a peculiarly happy expression lights her face, indicating that in imagination she perceives their fragrance, and that it is pleasant to her. It frequently happens that the perfume of a flower or the flavour of a fruit recalls to her mind some happy event in home life, or a delightful birthday party.

●Her sense of touch has sensibly increased during the year, and has gained in acuteness and delicacy. Indeed, her whole body is so finely organized that she seems to use it as a medium for bringing herself into closer relations with her fellow creatures. She is able not only to distinguish with great accuracy the different undulations of the air and the vibrations of the floor made by various sounds and motions, and to recognize her friends and acquaintances the instant she touches their hands or clothing, but she also perceives the state of mind of those around her. It is impossible for any one with whom Helen is conversing to be particularly happy or sad, and withhold the knowledge of this fact from her.

●She observes the slightest emphasis placed upon a word in conversation, and she discovers meaning in every change of position, and in the varied play of the muscles of the hand. She responds quickly to the gentle pressure of affection, the pat of approval, the jerk of impatience, the firm motion of command, and to the many other variations of the almost infinite language of the feelings; and she has become so expert in interpreting this unconscious language of the emotions that she is often able to divine our very thoughts.

●In my account of Helen last year,25 I mentioned several instances where she seemed to have called into use an inexplicable mental faculty; but it now seems to me, after carefully considering the matter, that this power may be explained by her perfect familiarity with the muscular variations of those with whom she comes into contact, caused by their emotions. She has been forced to depend largely upon this muscular sense as a means of ascertaining the mental condition of those about her. She has learned to connect certain movements of the body with anger, others with joy, and others still with sorrow. One day, while she was out walking with her mother and Mr. Anagnos, a boy threw a torpedo, which startled Mrs. Keller. Helen felt the change in her mother's movements instantly, and asked, "What are we afraid of?" On one occasion, while walking on the Common with her, I saw a police officer taking a man to the station-house. The agitation which I felt evidently produced a perceptible physical change; for Helen asked excitedly, "What do you see?"

●A striking illustration of this strange power was recently shown while her ears were being examined by the aurists in Cincinnati. Several experiments were tried, to determine positively whether or not she had any perception of sound. All present were astonished when she appeared not only to hear a whistle, but also an ordinary tone of voice. She would turn her head, smile, and act as though she had heard what was said. I was then standing beside her, holding her hand. Thinking that she was receiving impressions from me, I put her hands upon the table, and withdrew to the opposite side of the room. The aurists then tried their experiments with quite different results. Helen remained motionless through them all, not once showing the least sign that she realized what was going on. At my suggestion, one of the gentlemen took her hand, and the tests were repeated. This time her countenance changed whenever she was spoken to, but there was not such a decided lighting up of the features as when I had held her hand.

●In the account of Helen last year it was stated that she knew nothing about death, or the burial of the body; yet on entering a cemetery for the first time in her life, she showed signs of emotion–her eyes actually filling with tears.

●A circumstance equally remarkable occurred last summer; but, before relating it, I will mention what she now knows with regard to death. Even before I knew her, she had handled a dead chicken, or bird, or some other small animal. Some time after the visit to the cemetery before referred to, Helen became interested in a horse that had met with an accident by which one of his legs had been badly injured, and she went daily with me to visit him. The wounded leg soon became so much worse that the horse was suspended from a beam. The animal groaned with pain, and Helen, perceiving his groans, was filled with pity. At last it became necessary to kill him, and, when Helen next asked to go and see him, I told her that he was dead. This was the first time that she had heard the word. I then explained that he had been shot to relieve him from suffering, and that he was now buried –put into the ground. I am inclined to believe that the idea of his having been intentionally shot did not make much impression upon her; but I think she did realize the fact that life was extinct in the horse as in the dead birds she had touched, and also that he had been put into the ground. Since this occurrence, I have used the word dead whenever occasion required, but with no further explanation of its meaning.

●While making a visit at Brewster, Massachusetts, she one day accompanied my friend and me through the graveyard. She examined one stone after another, and seemed pleased when she could decipher a name. She smelt of the flowers, but showed no desire to pluck them; and, when I gathered a few for her, she refused to have them pinned on her dress. When her attention was drawn to a marble slab inscribed with the name FLORENCE in relief, she dropped upon the ground as though looking for something, then turned to me with a face full of trouble, and asked, "Where is poor little Florence?" I evaded the question, but she persisted. Turning to my friend, she asked, "Did you cry loud for poor little Florence?" Then she added: "I think she is very dead. Who put her in big hole?" As she continued to ask these distressing questions, we left the cemetery. Florence was the daughter of my friend, and was a young lady at the time of her death; but Helen had been told nothing about her, nor did she even know that my friend had had a daughter. Helen had been given a bed and carriage for her dolls, which she had received and used like any other gift. On her return to the house after her visit to the cemetery, she ran to the closet where these toys were kept, and carried them to my friend, saying, "They are poor little Florence's." This was true, although we were at a loss to understand how she guessed it. A letter written to her mother in the course of the following week gave an account of her impression in her own words:

●"I put my little babies to sleep in Florence's little bed, and I take them to ride in her carriage. Poor little Florence is dead. She was very sick and died. Mrs. H. did cry loud for her dear little child. She got in the ground, and she is very dirty, and she is cold. Florence was very lovely like Sadie, and Mrs. H. kissed her and hugged her much. Florence is very sad in big hole. Doctor gave her medicine to make her well, but poor Florence did not get well. When she was very sick she tossed and moaned in bed. Mrs. H. will go to see her soon."

●Notwithstanding the activity of Helen's mind, she is a very natural child. She is fond of fun and frolic, and loves dearly to be with other children. She is never fretful or irritable, and I have never seen her impatient with her playmates because they failed to understand her. She will play for hours together with children who cannot understand a single word she spells, and it is pathetic to watch the eager gestures and excited pantomime through which her ideas and emotions find expression. Occasionally some little boy or girl will try to learn the manual alphabet. Then it is beautiful to observe with what patience, sweetness, and perseverance Helen endeavours to bring the unruly fingers of her little friend into proper position.

●One day, while Helen was wearing a little jacket of which she was very proud, her mother said: "There is a poor little girl who has no cloak to keep her warm. Will you give her yours?" Helen began to pull off the jacket, saying, "I must give it to a poor little strange girl."

●She is very fond of children younger than herself, and a baby invariably calls forth all the motherly instincts of her nature. She will handle the baby as tenderly as the most careful nurse could desire. It is pleasant, too, to note her thoughtfulness for little children, and her readiness to yield to their whims.

●She has a very sociable disposition, and delights in the companionship of those who can follow the rapid motions of her fingers; but if left alone she will amuse herself for hours at a time with her knitting or sewing.

●She reads a great deal. She bends over her book with a look of intense interest, and as the forefinger of her left hand runs along the line, she spells out the words with the other hand; but often her motions are so rapid as to be unintelligible even to those accustomed to reading the swift and varied movements of her fingers.

●Every shade of feeling finds expression through her mobile features. Her behaviour is easy and natural, and it is charming because of its frankness and evident sincerity. Her heart is too full of unselfishness and affection to allow a dream of fear or unkindness. She does not realize that one can be anything but kind-hearted and tender. She is not conscious of any reason why she should be awkward; consequently, her movements are free and graceful.

●She is very fond of all the living things at home, and she will not have them unkindly treated. When she is riding in the carriage she will not allow the driver to use the whip, because, she says, "poor horses will cry." One morning she was greatly distressed by finding that one of the dogs had a block fastened to her collar. We explained that it was done to keep Pearl from running away. Helen expressed a great deal of sympathy, and at every opportunity during the day she would find Pearl and carry the burden from place to place.

●Her father wrote to her last summer that the birds and bees were eating all his grapes. At first she was very indignant, and said the little creatures were "very wrong"; but she seemed pleased when I explained to her that the birds and bees were hungry, and did not know that it was selfish to eat all the fruit. In a letter written soon afterward she says:

●"I am very sorry that bumblebees and hornets and birds and large flies and worms are eating all of my father's delicious grapes. They like juicy fruit to eat as well as people, and they are hungry. They are not very wrong to eat too many grapes because they do not know much."

●She continues to make rapid progress in the acquisition of language as her experiences increase. While these were few and elementary, her vocabulary was necessarily limited; but, as she learns more of the world about her, her judgment grows more accurate, her reasoning powers grow stronger, more active and subtle, and the language by which she expresses this intellectual activity gains in fluency and logic.

●When traveling she drinks in thought and language. Sitting beside her in the car, I describe what I see from the window–hills and valleys and the rivers; cottonfields and gardens in which strawberries, peaches, pears, melons, and vegetables are growing; herds of cows and horses feeding in broad meadows, and flocks of sheep on the hillside; the cities with their churches and schools, hotels and warehouses, and the occupations of the busy people. While I am communicating these things, Helen manifests intense interest; and, in default of words, she indicates by gestures and pantomime her desire to learn more of her surroundings and of the great forces which are operating everywhere. In this way, she learns countless new expressions without any apparent effort.

●From the day when Helen first grasped the idea that all objects have names, and that these can be communicated by certain movements of the fingers, I have talked to her exactly as I should have done had she been able to hear, with only this exception, that I have addressed the words to her fingers instead of to her ears. Naturally, there was at first a strong tendency on her part to use only the important words in a sentence. She would say: "Helen milk." I got the milk to show her that she had used the correct word; but I did not let her drink it until she had, with my assistance, made a complete sentence, as "Give Helen some milk to drink." In these early lessons I encouraged her in the use of different forms of expression for conveying the same idea. If she was eating some candy, I said: "Will Helen please give teacher some candy?" or, "Teacher would like to eat some of Helen's candy," emphasizing the 's. She very soon perceived that the same idea could be expressed in a great many ways. In two or three months after I began to teach her she would say: "Helen wants to go to bed" or, "Helen is sleepy, and Helen will go to bed."

●I am constantly asked the question, "How did you teach her the meaning of words expressive of intellectual and moral qualities?" I believe it was more through association and repetition than through any explanation of mine. This is especially true of her earlier lessons, when her knowledge of language was so slight as to make explanation impossible.

●I have always made it a practice to use the words descriptive of emotions, of intellectual or moral qualities and actions, in connection with the circumstance which required these words. Soon after I became her teacher Helen broke her new doll, of which she was very fond. She began to cry. I said to her, "Teacher is sorry." After a few repetitions she came to associate the word with the feeling.

●The word happy she learned in the same way; also, right, wrong, good, bad, and other adjectives. The word love she learned as other children do–by its association with caresses.

●One day I asked her a simple question in a combination of numbers, which I was sure she knew. She answered at random. I checked her, and she stood still, the expression of her face plainly showing that she was trying to think. I touched her forehead, and spelled "t-h-i-n-k." The word, thus connected with the act, seemed to impress itself on her mind much as if I had placed her hand upon an object and then spelled its name. Since that time she has always used the word think.

●At a later period I began to use such words as perhaps, suppose, expect, forget, remember. If Helen asked, "Where is mother now?" I replied: "I do not know. Perhaps she is with Leila."

●She is always anxious to learn the names of people we meet in the horse-cars or elsewhere, and to know where they are going, and what they will do. Conversations of this kind are frequent:

HELEN. What is little boy's name?

TEACHER. I do not know, for he is a little stranger; but perhaps his name is Jack.

HELEN. Where is he going?

TEACHER. He may be going to the Common to have fun with other boys.

HELEN. What will he play?

TEACHER. I suppose he will play ball.

HELEN. What are boys doing now?

TEACHER. Perhaps they are expecting Jack, and are waiting for him.

After the words have become familiar to her, she uses them in composition.

September 26, [1888].

●"This morning teacher and I sat by the window and we saw a little boy walking on the sidewalk. It was raining very hard and he had a very large umbrella to keep off the rain-drops.

●"I do not know how old he was but think he may have been six years old. Perhaps his name was Joe. I do not know where he was going because he was a little strange boy. But perhaps his mother sent him to a store to buy something for dinner. He had a bag in one hand. I suppose he was going to take it to his mother."

●In teaching her the use of language, I have not confined myself to any particular theory or system. I have observed the spontaneous movements of my pupil's mind, and have tried to follow the suggestions thus given to me.

●Owing to the nervousness of Helen's temperament, every precaution has been taken to avoid unduly exciting her already very active brain. The greater part of the year has been spent in travel and in visits to different places, and her lessons have been those suggested by the various scenes and experiences through which she has passed. She continues to manifest the same eagerness to learn as at first. It is never necessary to urge her to study. Indeed, I am often obliged to coax her to leave an example or a composition.

●While not confining myself to any special system of instruction, I have tried to add to her general information and intelligence, to enlarge her acquaintance with things around her, and to bring her into easy and natural relations with people. I have encouraged her to keep a diary, from which the following selection has been made:

"March 22nd, 1888.

"Mr. Anagnos came to see me Thursday. I was glad to hug and kiss him. He takes care of sixty little blind girls and seventy little blind boys. I do love them. Little blind girls sent me a pretty work-basket. I found scissors and thread, and needle-book with many needles in it, and crochet hook and emery, and thimble, and box, and yard measure and buttons, and pin-cushion. I will write little blind girls a letter to thank them. I will make pretty clothes for Nancy and Adeline and Allie. I will go to Cincinnati in May and buy another child. Then I will have four children. New baby's name is Harry. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Mitchell came to see us Sunday. Mr. Anagnos went to Louisville Monday to see little blind children. Mother went to Huntsville. I slept with father, and Mildred slept with teacher. I did learn about calm. It does mean quiet and happy. Uncle Morrie sent me pretty stories. I read about birds. The quail lays fifteen or twenty eggs and they are white. She makes her nest on the ground. The blue-bird makes her nest in a hollow tree and her eggs are blue. The robin's eggs are green. I learned a song about spring. March, April, May are spring.

Now melts the snow.
The warm winds blow
The waters flow
And robin dear,
Is come to show
That Spring is here.
"James killed snipes for breakfast. Little chickens did get very cold and die. I am sorry. Teacher and I went to ride on Tennessee River, in a boat. I saw Mr. Wilson and James row with oars. Boat did glide swiftly and I put hand in water and felt it flowing.

●"I caught fish with hook and line and pole. We climbed high hill and teacher fell and hurt her head. I ate very small fish for supper. I did read about cow and calf. The cow loves to eat grass as well as girl does bread and butter and milk. Little calf does run and leap in field. She likes to skip and play, for she is happy when the sun is bright and warm. Little boy did love his calf. And he did say, I will kiss you, little calf, and he put his arms around calf's neck and kissed her. The calf licked good boy's face with long rough tongue. Calf must not open mouth much to kiss. I am tired, and teacher does not want me to write more."

●In the autumn she went to a circus. While we were standing before his cage the lion roared, and Helen felt the vibration of the air so distinctly that she was able to reproduce the noise quite accurately.

●I tried to describe to her the appearance of a camel; but, as we were not allowed to touch the animal, I feared that she did not get a correct idea of its shape. A few days afterward, however, hearing a commotion in the schoolroom, I went in and found Helen on all fours with a pillow so strapped upon her back as to leave a hollow in the middle, thus making a hump on either side. Between these humps she had placed her doll, which she was giving a ride around the room. I watched her for some time as she moved about, trying to take long strides in order to carry out the idea I had given her of a camel's gait. When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, "I am a very funny camel."

●During the next two years neither Mr. Anagnos, who was in Europe for a year, nor Miss Sullivan wrote anything about Helen Keller for publication. In 1892 appeared the Perkins Institution report for 1891, containing a full account of Helen Keller, including many of her letters, exercises, and compositions. As some of the letters and the story of the "Frost King" are published here, there is no need of printing any more samples of Helen Keller's writing during the third, fourth and fifth years of her education. It was the first two years that counted. From Miss Sullivan's part of this report I give her most important comments and such biographical matter as does not appear elsewhere in the present volume.

These extracts Mr. Anagnos took from Miss Sullivan's notes and memoranda.

●One day, while her pony and her donkey were standing side by side, Helen went from one to the other, examining them closely. At last she paused with her hand upon Neddy's head, and addressed him thus: "Yes, dear Neddy, it is true that you are not as beautiful as Black Beauty. Your body is not so handsomely formed, and there is no proud look in your face, and your neck does not arch. Besides, your long ears make you look a little funny. Of course, you cannot help it, and I love you just as well as if you were the most beautiful creature in the world."

●Helen has been greatly interested in the story of "Black Beauty." To show how quickly she perceives and associates ideas, I will give an instance which all who have read the book will be able to appreciate. I was reading the following paragraph to her:

●"The horse was an old, worn-out chestnut, with an ill-kept coat, and bones that showed plainly through it; the knees knuckled over, and the forelegs were very unsteady. I had been eating some hay, and the wind rolled a little lock of it that way, and the poor creature put out her long, thin neck and picked it up, and then turned round and looked about for more. There was a hopeless look in the dull eye that I could not help noticing, and then, as I was thinking where I had seen that horse before, she looked full at me and said, 'Black Beauty, is that you?'"

●At this point Helen pressed my hand to stop me. She was sobbing convulsively. "It was poor Ginger," was all she could say at first. Later, when she was able to talk about it, she said: "Poor Ginger! The words made a distinct picture in my mind. I could see the way Ginger looked; all her beauty gone, her beautiful arched neck drooping, all the spirit gone out of her flashing eyes, all the playfulness gone out of her manner. Oh, how terrible it was! I never knew before that there could be such a change in anything. There were a very few spots of sunshine in poor Ginger's life, and the sadnesses were so many!" After a moment she added, mournfully, "I fear some people's lives are just like Ginger's."

●This morning Helen was reading for the first time Bryant's poem, "Oh, mother of a mighty race!" I said to her, "Tell me, when you have read the poem through, who you think the mother is." When she came to the line, "There's freedom at thy gates, and rest," she exclaimed: "It means America! The gate, I suppose, is New York City, and Freedom is the great statue of Liberty." After she had read "The Battlefield," by the same author, I asked her which verse she thought was the most beautiful. She replied, "I like this verse best:

●'Truth crushed to earth shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.'"
She is at once transported into the midst of the events of a story. She rejoices when justice wins, she is sad when virtue lies low, and her face glows with admiration and reverence when heroic deeds are described. She even enters into the spirit of battle; she says, "I think it is right for men to fight against wrongs and tyrants."

●Here begins Miss Sullivan's connected account in the report of 1891:

●During the past three years Helen has continued to make rapid progress in the acquisition of language. She has one advantage over ordinary children, that nothing from without distracts her attention from her studies.

●But this advantage involves a corresponding disadvantage; the danger of unduly severe mental application. Her mind is so constituted that she is in a state of feverish unrest while conscious that there is something that she does not comprehend. I have never known her to be willing to leave a lesson when she felt that there was anything in it which she did not understand. If I suggest her leaving a problem in arithmetic until the next day, she answers, "I think it will make my mind stronger to do it now."

●A few evenings ago we were discussing the tariff. Helen wanted me to tell her about it. I said: "No. You cannot understand it yet." She was quiet for a moment, and then asked, with spirit: "How do you know that I cannot understand? I have a good mind! You must remember, dear teacher, that Greek parents were very particular with their children, and they used to let them listen to wise words, and I think they understood some of them." I have found it best not to tell her that she cannot understand, because she is almost certain to become excited.

●Not long ago I tried to show her how to build a tower with her blocks. As the design was somewhat complicated, the slightest jar made the structure fall. After a time I became discouraged, and told her I was afraid she could not make it stand, but that I would build it for her; but she did not approve of this plan. She was determined to build the tower herself; and for nearly three hours she worked away, patiently gathering up the blocks whenever they fell, and beginning over again, until at last her perseverance was crowned with success. The tower stood complete in every part.

●Until October, 1899, I had not deemed it best to confine Helen to any regular and systematic course of study. For the first two years of her intellectual life she was like a child in a strange country, where everything was new and perplexing; and, until she gained a knowledge of language, it was not possible to give her a definite course of instruction.

●Moreover, Helen's inquisitiveness was so great during these years that it would have interfered with her progress in the acquisition of language, if a consideration of the questions which were constantly occurring to her had been deferred until the completion of a lesson. In all probability she would have forgotten the question, and a good opportunity to explain something of real interest to her would have been lost. Therefore it has always seemed best to me to teach anything whenever my pupil needed to know it, whether it had any bearing on the projected lesson or not; her inquiries have often led us far away from the subject under immediate consideration.

●Since October, 1889, her work has been more regular and has included arithmetic, geography, zoölogy, botany and reading.

●She has made considerable progress in the study of arithmetic. She readily explains the processes of multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division, and seems to understand the operations. She has nearly finished Colburn's mental arithmetic, her last work being in improper fractions. She has also done some good work in written arithmetic. Her mind works so rapidly, that it often happens, that when I give her an example she will give me the correct answer before I have time to write out the question. She pays little attention to the language used in stating a problem, and seldom stops to ask the meaning of unknown words or phrases until she is ready to explain her work. Once, when a question puzzled her very much, I suggested that we take a walk and then perhaps she would understand it. She shook her head decidedly, and said: "My enemies would think I was running away. I must stay and conquer them now," and she did.

●The intellectual improvement which Helen has made in the past two years is shown more clearly in her greater command of language and in her ability to recognize nicer shades of meaning in the use of words, than in any other branch of her education.

●Not a day passes that she does not learn many new words, nor are these merely the names of tangible and sensible objects. For instance, she one day wished to know the meaning of the following words: Phenomenon, comprise, energy, reproduction, extraordinary, perpetual and mystery. Some of these words have successive steps of meaning, beginning with what is simple and leading on to what is abstract. It would have been a hopeless task to make Helen comprehend the more abstruse meanings of the word mystery, but she understood readily that it signified something hidden or concealed, and when she makes greater progress she will grasp its more abstruse meaning as easily as she now does the simpler signification. In investigating any subject there must occur at the beginning words and phrases which cannot be adequately understood until the pupil has made considerable advancement; yet I have thought it best to go on giving my pupil simple definitions, thinking that, although these may be somewhat vague and provisional, they will come to one another's assistance, and that what is obscure to-day will be plain to-morrow.

●I regard my pupil as a free and active being, whose own spontaneous impulses must be my surest guide. I have always talked to Helen exactly as I would talk to a seeing and hearing child, and I have insisted that other people should do the same. Whenever any one asks me if she will understand this or that word I always reply: "Never mind whether she understands each separate word of a sentence or not. She will guess the meanings of the new words from their connection with others which are already intelligible to her."

●In selecting books for Helen to read, I have never chosen them with reference to her deafness and blindness. She always reads such books as seeing and hearing children of her age read and enjoy. Of course, in the beginning it was necessary that the things described should be familiar and interesting, and the English pure and simple. I remember distinctly when she first attempted to read a little story. She had learned the printed letters, and for some time had amused herself by making simple sentences, using slips on which the words were printed in raised letters; but these sentences had no special relation to one another. One morning we caught a mouse, and it occurred to me, with a live mouse and a live cat to stimulate her interest, that I might arrange some sentences in such a way as to form a little story, and thus give her a new conception of the use of language. So I put the following sentences in the frame, and gave it to Helen: "The cat is on the box. A mouse is in the box. The cat can see the mouse. The cat would like to eat the mouse. Do not let the cat get the mouse. The cat can have some milk, and the mouse can have some cake." The word the she did not know, and of course she wished it explained. At that stage of her advancement it would have been impossible to explain its use, and so I did not try, but moved her finger on to the next word, which she recognized with a bright smile. Then, as I put her hand upon puss sitting on the box, she made a little exclamation of surprise, and the rest of the sentence became perfectly clear to her. When she had read the words of the second sentence, I showed her that there really was a mouse in the box. She then moved her finger to the next line with an expression of eager interest. "The cat can see the mouse." Here I made the cat look at the mouse, and let Helen feel the cat. The expression of the little girl's countenance showed that she was perplexed. I called her attention to the following line, and, although she knew only the three words, cat, eat, and mouse, she caught the idea. She pulled the cat away and put her on the floor, at the same time covering the box with the frame. When she read, "Do not let the cat get the mouse!" she recognized the negation in the sentence, and seemed to know that the cat must not get the mouse. Get and let were new words. She was familiar with the words of the last sentence, and was delighted when allowed to act them out. By signs she made me understand that she wished another story, and I gave her a book containing very short stories, written in the most elementary style. She ran her fingers along the lines, finding the words she knew and guessing at the meaning of others, in a way that would convince the most conservative of educators that a little deaf child, if given the opportunity, will learn to read as easily and naturally as ordinary children.

●I am convinced that Helen's use of English is due largely to her familiarity with books. She often reads for two or three hours in succession, and then lays aside her book reluctantly. One day as we left the library I noticed that she appeared more serious than usual, and I asked the cause. "I am thinking how much wiser we always are when we leave here than we are when we come," was her reply.

●When asked why she loved books so much, she once replied: "Because they tell me so much that is interesting about things I cannot see, and they are never tired or troubled like people. They tell me over and over what I want to know."

●While reading from Dickens's "Child's History of England," we came to the sentence, "Still the spirit of the Britons was not broken." I asked what she thought that meant. She replied, "I think it means that the brave Britons were not discouraged because the Romans had won so many battles, and they wished all the more to drive them away." It would not have been possible for her to define the words in the sentence; and yet she had caught the author's meaning, and was able to give it in her own words. The next lines are still more idiomatic, "When Suetonius left the country, they fell upon his troops and retook the island of Anglesea." Here is her interpretation of the sentence: "It means that when the Roman general had gone away, the Britons began to fight again; and because the Roman soldiers had no general to tell them what to do, they were overcome by the Britons and lost the island they had captured."

●She prefers intellectual to manual occupations, and is not so fond of fancy work as many of the blind children are; yet she is eager to join them in whatever they are doing. She has learned to use the Caligraph typewriter, and writes very correctly, but not rapidly as yet, having had less than a month's practice.

●More than two years ago a cousin taught her the telegraph alphabet by making the dots and dashes on the back of her hand with his finger. Whenever she meets any one who is familiar with this system, she is delighted to use it in conversation. I have found it a convenient medium of communication with Helen when she is at some distance from me, for it enables me to talk with her by tapping upon the floor with my foot. She feels the vibrations and understands what is said to her.

●It was hoped that one so peculiarly endowed by nature as Helen, would, if left entirely to her own resources, throw some light upon such psychological questions as were not exhaustively investigated by Dr. Howe; but their hopes were not to be realized. In the case of Helen, as in that of Laura Bridgman, disappointment was inevitable. It is impossible to isolate a child in the midst of society, so that he shall not be influenced by the beliefs of those with whom he associates. In Helen's case such an end could not have been attained without depriving her of that intercourse with others, which is essential to her nature.

●It must have been evident to those who watched the rapid unfolding of Helen's faculties that it would not be possible to keep her inquisitive spirit for any length of time from reaching out toward the unfathomable mysteries of life. But great care has been taken not to lead her thoughts prematurely to the consideration of subjects which perplex and confuse all minds. Children ask profound questions, but they often receive shallow answers, or, to speak more correctly, they are quieted by such answers.

●"Where did I come from?" and "Where shall I go when I die?" were questions Helen asked when she was eight years old. But the explanations which she was able to understand at that time did not satisfy, although they forced her to remain silent, until her mind should begin to put forth its higher powers, and generalize from innumerable impressions and ideas which streamed in upon it from books and from her daily experiences. Her mind sought for the cause of things.

●As her observation of phenomena became more extensive and her vocabulary richer and more subtle, enabling her to express her own conceptions and ideas clearly, and also to comprehend the thoughts and experiences of others, she became acquainted with the limit of human creative power, and perceived that some power, not human, must have created the earth, the sun , and the thousand natural objects with which she was perfectly familiar.

●Finally she one day demanded a name for the power, the existence of which she had already conceived in her own mind.

●Through Charles Kingsley's "Greek Heroes" she had become familiar with the beautiful stories of the Greek gods and goddesses, and she must have met with the words God, heaven, soul, and a great many similar expressions in books.

●She never asked the meaning of such words, nor made any comment when they occurred; and until February, 1889, no one had ever spoken to her of God. At that time, a dear relative who was also an earnest Christian, tried to tell her about God but, as this lady did not use words suited to the comprehension of the child, they made little impression upon Helen's mind. When I subsequently talked with her she said: "I have something very funny to tell you. A. says God made me and every one out of sand; but it must be a joke. I am made of flesh and blood and bone, am I not?" Here she examined her arm with evident satisfaction, laughing heartily to herself. After a moment she went on: "A. says God is everywhere, and that He is all love; but I do not think a person can be made out of love. Love is only something in our hearts. A. said another very comical thing. She says He (meaning God) is my dear father. It made me laugh quite hard, for I know my father is Arthur Keller."

●I explained to her that she was not yet able to understand what had been told her, and so easily led her to see that it would be better not to talk about such things until she was wiser.

●She had met with the expression Mother Nature in the course of her reading, and for a long time she was in the habit of ascribing to Mother Nature whatever she felt to be beyond the powers of man to accomplish. She would say, when speaking of the growth of a plant "Mother Nature sends the sunshine and the rain to make the trees and the grass and the flowers grow." The following extract from my notes will show what were her ideas at this time:

●Helen seemed a little serious after supper., and Mrs. H. asked her of what she was thinking. "I am thinking how very busy dear Mother Nature is in the springtime," she replied. When asked why, she answered: "Because she has so many children to take care of. She is the mother of everything; the flowers and trees and winds."

●"How does Mother Nature take care of the flowers?" I asked. "She sends the sunshine and rain to make them grow," Helen replied; and after a moment she added, "I think the sunshine is Nature's warm smile, and the raindrops are her tears."

●Later she said: "I do not know if Mother Nature made me. I think my mother got me from heaven, but I do not know where that place is. I know that the daisies and pansies come from seeds which have been put in the ground; but children do not grow out of the ground, I am sure. I have never seen a plant-child! But I cannot imagine who made Mother Nature, can you? I love the beautiful spring, because the budding trees and the blossoming flowers and the tender green leaves fill my heart with joy. I must go now to see my garden. The daisies and the pansies will think I have forgotten them."

●After May, 1890, it was evident to me that she had reached a point where it was impossible to keep from her the religious beliefs held by those with whom she was in daily contact. She almost overwhelmed me with inquiries which were the natural outgrowth of her quickened intelligence.

●Early in May she wrote on her tablet the following list of questions:

●"I wish to write about things I do not understand. Who made the earth and the seas, and everything? What makes the sun hot? Where was I before I came to mother? I know that plants grow from seeds which are in the ground, but I am sure people do not grow that way. I never saw a child-plant. Little birds and chickens come out of eggs. I have seen them. What was the egg before it was an egg? Why does not the earth fall, it is so very large and heavy? Tell me something that Father Nature does. May I read the book called the Bible? Please tell your little pupil many things when you have much time."

●Can any one doubt after reading these questions that the child who was capable of asking them was also capable of understanding at least their elementary answers? She could not, of course, have grasped such abstractions as a complete answer to her questions would involve; but one's whole life is nothing more than a continual advance in the comprehension of the meaning and scope of such ideas.

●Throughout Helen's education I have invariably assumed that she can understand whatever it is desirable for her to know. Unless there had been in Helen's mind some such intellectual process as the questions indicate, any explanation of them would have been unintelligible to her. Without that degree of mental development and activity which perceives the necessity of superhuman creative power, no explanation of natural phenomena is possible.

●After she had succeeded in formulating the ideas which had been slowly growing in her mind, they seemed suddenly to absorb all her thoughts, and she became impatient to have everything explained. As we were passing a large globe a short time after she had written the questions, she stopped before it and asked, "Who made the real world?" I replied, "No one knows how the earth, the sun, and all the worlds which we call stars came to be; but I will tell you how wise men have tried to account for their origin, and to interpret the great and mysterious forces of nature."

●She knew that the Greeks had many gods to whom they ascribed various powers, because they believed that the sun, the lightning, and a hundred other natural forces, were independent and superhuman powers. But after a great deal of thought and study, I told her, men came to believe that all forces were manifestations of one power, and to that power they gave the name God.

●She was very still for a few minutes, evidently thinking earnestly. She then asked, "Who made God?" I was compelled to evade her question, for I could not explain to her the mystery of a self-existent being. Indeed, many of her eager questions would have puzzled a far wiser person than I am. Here are some of them: "What did God make the new worlds out of?" "Where did He get the soil, and the water, and the seeds, and the first animals?" "Where is God?" "Did you ever see God?" I told her that God was everywhere, and that she must not think of Him as a person, but as the life, the mind, the soul of everything. She interrupted me: "Everything does not have a life. The rocks have not life, and they cannot think." It is often necessary to remind her that there are infinitely many things that the wisest people in the world cannot explain.

●No creed or dogma has been taught to Helen, nor has any effort been made to force religious beliefs upon her attention. Being fully aware of my own incompetence to give her any adequate explanation of the mysteries which underlie the names of God, soul, and immortality, I have always felt obliged, by a sense of duty to my pupil, to say as little as possible about spiritual matters. The Rt. Rev. Phillip Brooks 26 has explained to her in a beautiful way the fatherhood of God.

●She has not as yet been allowed to read the Bible, because I do not see how she can do so at present without getting a very erroneous conception of the attributes of God. I have already told her in simple language of the beautiful and helpful life of Jesus, and of His cruel death. The narrative affected her greatly when first she listened to it.

●When she referred to our conversation again, it was to ask, "Why did not Jesus go away, so that His enemies could not find him?" She thought the miracles of Jesus very strange. When told that Jesus walked on the sea to meet His disciples, she said, decidedly, "It does not mean walked, it means swam." When told of the instance in which Jesus raised the dead, she was much perplexed, saying, "I did not know life could come back into the dead body!"

●One day she said sadly: "I am blind and deaf. That is why I cannot see God." I taught her the word invisible, and told her we could not see God with our eyes, because He was a spirit; but that when our hearts were full of goodness and gentleness, then we saw Him because then we were more like Him.

●At another time she asked, "What is a soul?" "No one know what the soul is like," I replied; "but we know that it is not the body, and it is that part of us which thinks and loves and hopes, and which Christian people believe will live on after the body is dead." I then asked her, "Can you think of your soul as separate from your body?" "Oh, yes!" she replied, "because last hour I was thinking very hard of Mr. Anagnos, and then my mind,"–then changing the word–"my soul was in Athens, but my body was here in the study." At this moment another thought seemed to flash through her mind, and she added, "But Mr. Anagnos did not speak to my soul." I explained to her that the soul, too, is invisible, or in other words, that it is without apparent form. "But if I write what my soul thinks," she said, "then it will be visible, and the words will be its body."

●A long time ago Helen said to me, "I would like to live sixteen hundred years." When asked if she would not like to live always in a beautiful country called heaven, her first question was, "Where is heaven?" I was obliged to confess that I did not know, but suggested that it might be on one of the stars. A moment after she said, "Will you please go first and tell me all about it?" and then she added, "Tuscumbia is a very beautiful little town." It was more than a year before she alluded to the subject again, and when she did return to it, her questions were numerous and persistent. She asked: "Where is heaven, and what is it like? Why cannot we know as much about heaven as we do about foreign countries?" I told her in very simple language that there may be many places called heaven, but that essentially it was a condition–the fulfilment of the heart's desire, the satisfaction of its wants; and that heaven existed wherever right was acknowledged, believed in, and loved.

●She shrinks from the thought of death with evident dismay. Recently, on being shown a deer which had been killed by her brother, she was greatly distressed and asked sorrowfully. "Why must everything die, even the fleet-footed deer?" At another time she asked, "Do you not think we would be very much happier always, if we did not have to die?" I said, "No; because, if there were no death, our world would soon be so crowded with living creatures that it would be impossible to any of them to life comfortably." "But," said Helen, quickly, "I think God could make some more worlds as well as He made this one."

●When friends have told her of the great happiness which awaits her in another life, she instantly asked: "How do you know, if you have not been dead?"

●The literal sense in which she sometimes takes common words and idioms shows how necessary it is that we should make sure that she receives their correct meaning. When told recently that Hungarians were born musicians, she asked in surprise, "Do they sing when they are born?" When her friend added that some of the pupils he had seen in Budapest had more than one hundred tunes in their heads, she said, laughing, "I think their heads must be very noisy." She sees the ridiculous quickly, and, instead of being seriously troubled by metaphorical language, she is often amused at her own too literal conception of its meaning.

●Having been told that the soul was without form, she was much perplexed at David's words, "He leadeth my soul." "Has it feet? Can it walk? Is it blind?" she asked; for in her mind the idea of being led was associated with blindness.

●Of all the subjects which perplex and trouble Helen, none distresses her so much as the knowledge of the existence of evil, and of the suffering which results from it. For a long time it was possible to keep this knowledge from her; and it will always be comparatively easy to prevent her from coming in personal contact with vice and wickedness. The fact that sin exists, and that great misery results from it, dawned gradually upon her mind as she understood more and more clearly the lives and experiences of those around her. The necessity of laws and penalties had to be explained to her. She found it very hard to reconcile the presence of evil in the world with the idea of God which had been presented to her mind.

●One day she asked. "Does God take care of us all the time?" She was answered in the affirmative. "Then why did He let little sister fall this morning, and hurt her head so badly?" Another time she was asking about the power and goodness of God. She had been told of a terrible storm at sea, in which several lives were lost, and she asked, "Why did not God save the people if He can do all things?"

●Surrounded by loving friends and the gentlest influences, as Helen had always been, she has, from the earliest stage of her intellectual enlightenment, willingly done right. She knows with unerring instinct what is right, and does it joyously. She does not think of one wrong act as harmless, of another as of no consequence, and of another as not intended. To her pure soul all evil is equally unlovely.

●These passages from the paper Miss Sullivan prepared for the meeting at Chautauqua, in July, 1894, of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, contain her latest written account of her methods.

●You must not imagine that as soon as Helen grasped the idea that everything had a name she at once became mistress of the treasury of the English language, or that "her mental faculties emerged, full armed, from their then living tomb, as Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus," as one of her enthusiastic admirers would have us believe. At first, the words, phrases and sentences which she used in expressing her thoughts were all reproductions of what we had used in conversation with her, and which her memory had unconsciously retained. And indeed, this is true of the language of all children. Their language is the memory of the language they hear spoken in their homes. Countless repetition of the conversation of daily life has impressed certain words and phrases upon their memories, and when they come to talk themselves, memory supplies the words they lisp. Likewise, the language of educated people is the memory of the language of books.

●Language grows out of life, out of its need and experiences. At first my little pupil's mind was all but vacant. She had been living in a world she could not realize. Language and knowledge are indissolubly connected; they are interdependent. Good work in language presupposes and depends on a real knowledge of things. As soon as Helen grasped the idea that everything had a name, and that by means of the manual alphabet these names could be transmitted from one to another, I proceeded to awaken her further interest in the objects whose names she learned to spell with such evident joy. I never taught language for the PURPOSE of teaching it; but invariably used language as a medium for the communication of thought; thus the learning of language was coincident with the acquisition of knowledge. In order to use language intelligently, one must have something to talk about, and having something to talk about is the result of having had experiences; no amount of language training will enable our little children to use language with ease and fluency unless they have something clearly in their minds which they wish to communicate, or unless we succeed in awakening in them a desire to know what is in the minds of others.

●At first I did not attempt to confine my pupil to any system. I always tried to find out what interested her most, and made that the starting-point for the new lesson, whether it had any bearing on the lesson I had planned to teach or not. During the first two years of her intellectual life, I required Helen to write very little. In order to write one must have something to write about, and having something to write about requires some mental preparation. The memory must be stored with ideas and the mind must be enriched with knowledge before writing becomes a natural and pleasurable effort. Too often, I think, children are required to write before they have anything to say. Teach them to think and read and talk without self-repression, and they will write because they cannot help it.

●Helen acquired language by practice and habit rather than by study of rules and definitions. Grammar with its puzzling army of classifications, nomenclatures, and paradigms, was wholly discarded in her education. She learned language by being brought in contact with the living language itself; she was made to deal with it in everyday conversation, and in her books, and to turn it over in a variety of ways until she was able to use it correctly. No doubt I talked much more with my fingers, and more constantly than I should have done with my mouth; for had she possessed the use of sight and hearing, she would have been less dependent on me for entertainment and instruction.

●I believe every child has hidden away somewhere in his being noble capacities which may be quickened and developed if we go about it in the right way; but we shall never properly develop the higher natures of our little ones while we continue to fill their minds with the so-called rudiments. Mathematics will never make them loving, nor will the accurate knowledge of the size and shape of the world help them to appreciate its beauties. Let us lead them during the first years to find their greatest pleasure in Nature. Let them run in the fields, learn about animals, and observe real things. Children will educate themselves under right conditions. They require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.

●I think much of the fluency with which Helen uses language is due to the fact that nearly every impression which she receives comes through the medium of language. But after due allowance has been made for Helen's natural aptitude for acquiring language, and for the advantage resulting from her peculiar environment, I think that we shall still find that the constant companionship of good books has been of supreme importance in her education. It may be true, as some maintain, that language cannot express to us much beyond what we have lived and experienced; but I have always observed that children manifest the greatest delight in the lofty, poetic language which we are too ready to think beyond their comprehension. "This is all you will understand," said a teacher to a class of little children, closing the book which she had been reading to them. "Oh, please read us the rest, even if we won't understand it," they pleaded, delighted with the rhythm, and the beauty which they felt, even though they could not have explained it. It is not necessary that a child should understand every word in a book before he can read with pleasure and profit. Indeed, only such explanations should be given as are really essential. Helen drank in language which she at first could not understand, and it remained in her mind until needed, when it fitted itself naturally and easily into her conversation and compositions. Indeed, it is maintained by some that she reads too much, that a great deal of originative force is dissipated in the enjoyment of books; that when she might see and say things for herself, she sees them only through the eyes of others, and says them in their language; but I am convinced that original composition without the preparation of much reading is an impossibility. Helen has had the best and purest models in language constantly presented to her, and her conversation and her writing are unconscious reproductions of what she had read. Reading, I think should be kept independent of the regular school exercises. Children should be encouraged to read for the pure delight of it. The attitude of the child toward his books should be that of unconscious receptivity. The great works of the imagination ought to become part of his life, as they were once of the very substance of the men who wrote them. It is true, the more sensitive and imaginative the mind is that receives the thought-pictures and images of literature, the more nicely the finest lines are reproduced. Helen has the vitality of feeling, the freshness and eagerness of interest, and the spiritual insight of the artistic temperament, and naturally she had a more active and intense joy in life, simply as life, and in nature, books, and people than less gifted mortals. Her mind is so filled with the beautiful thoughts and ideals of the great poets that nothing seems commonplace to her; for her imagination colours all life with its own rich hues.

●There has been much discussion of such of Miss Sullivan's statements and explanations as have been published before. Too much has been written by people who do not know the problems of the deaf at first hand, and I do not care to add much to it. Miss Keller's education, however, is so fundamentally a question of language teaching that it rather includes the problems of the deaf than limits itself to the deaf alone. Teachers can draw their own conclusions. For the majority of readers, who will not approach Miss Keller's life from the educator's point of view, I will summarize a few principal things in Miss Sullivan's methods.

●Miss Sullivan has begun where Dr. Howe left off. He invented the instrument, the physical means of working, but the teaching of language is quite another thing from the mechanical means by which language may be taught. By experiment, by studying other children, Miss Sullivan came upon the practical way of teaching language by the natural method. It was for this "natural method" that Dr. Howe was groping, but he never got to this idea, that a deaf child should not be taught each word separately by definition, but should be given language by endless repetition of language which it does not understand. And this is Miss Sullivan's great discovery. All day long in their play-time and work-time Miss Sullivan kept spelling into her pupil's hand, and by that Helen Keller absorbed words, just as the child in the cradle absorbs words by hearing thousands of them before he uses one and by associating the words with the occasion of their utterance. Thus he learns that words name things and actions and feelings. Now, that is the first principle in Miss Sullivan's method, one that had practical results, and one which, so far as I can discover, had never been put in practice in the education of a deaf child, not to say a deaf-blind child, until Miss Sullivan tried it with Helen Keller. And the principle had never been formulated clearly until Miss Sullivan wrote her letters.

●The second principle in her method (the numerical order is, of course, arbitrary) is never to talk to the child about things distasteful or wearisome to him. In the first deaf school Miss Sullivan ever visited, the teacher was busy at the blackboard telling the children by written words something they did not want to know, while they were crowding round their visitor with wide-awake curiosity, showing there were a thousand things they did want to know. Why not, says Miss Sullivan, make a language lesson out of what they were interested in? 27

●Akin to this idea of talking to the child about what interests him, is the principle never to silence a child who asks questions, but to answer the questions as truly as possible; for, says Miss Sullivan, the question is the door to the child's mind. Miss Sullivan never needlessly belittled her ideas or expressions to suit the supposed state of the child's intelligence. She urged every one to speak to Helen naturally, to give her full sentences and intelligent ideas, never minding whether Helen understood or not. Thus Miss Sullivan knew what so many people do not understand, that after the first rudimentary definitions of hat, cup, go, sit, the unit of language, as the child learns it, is the sentence, which is also the unit of language in our adult experience. We do not take in a sentence word by word, but as a whole. It is the proposition, something predicated about something, that conveys an idea. True, single words do suggest and express ideas; the child may say simply "mamma" when he means "Where is mamma?" but he learns the expression of the ideas that relate to mamma–he learns language–by hearing complete sentences. And though Miss Sullivan did not force grammatical completeness upon the first finger-lispings of her pupil, yet when she herself repeated Helen's sentence, "mamma milk," she filled out the construction, completed the child's ellipsis and said, "Mamma will bring Helen some milk."

●Thus Miss Sullivan was working out a natural method, which is so simple, so lacking in artificial system, that her method seems rather to be a destruction of method. It is doubtful if we should have heard of Helen Keller if Miss Sullivan had not been where there were other children. By watching them, she learned to treat her pupil as nearly as possible like an ordinary child.

●The manual alphabet was not the only means of presenting words to Helen Keller's fingers. Books supplemented, perhaps equaled in importance, the manual alphabet, as a means of teaching language. Helen sat poring over them before she could read, not at first for the story, but to find words she knew; and the definition of new words which is implied in their context, in their position with reference to words known, added to Helen's vocabulary. Books are the storehouse of language, and any child, whether deaf or not, if he has his attention attracted in any way to printed pages, must learn. He learns not by reading what he understands, but by reading and remembering words he does not understand. And though perhaps few children will have as much precocious interest in books as Helen Keller, yet the natural curiosity of every healthy child may be turned to printed pages, especially if the teacher is clever and plays a word game as Miss Sullivan did. Helen Keller is supposed to have a special aptitude for languages. It is true rather that she has a special aptitude for thinking, and her leaning toward language is due to the fact that language to her meant life. It was not a special subject, like geography or arithmetic, but her way to outward things.

●When at the age of fourteen she had had but a few lessons in German, she read over the words of "Wilhelm Tell" and managed to get the story. Of grammar she knew nothing and she cared nothing for it. She got the language from the language itself, and this is, next to hearing the language spoken, the way for any one to get a foreign tongue, more vital and, in the end, easier than our schoolroom method of beginning with the grammar. In the same way she played with Latin, learning not only from the lessons her first Latin teacher gave her, but from going over and over the words of a text, a game she played by herself.

●Mr. John D. Wright, one of her teachers at the Wright-Humason School, says in a letter to me:

"Often I found her, when she had a little leisure, sitting in her favourite corner, in a chair whose arms supported the big volume prepared for the blind, and passing her finger slowly over the lines of Moliere's 'Le Medecin Malgré Lui,' chuckling to herself at the comical situations and humorous lines. At that time her actual working vocabulary in French was very small, but by using her judgment, as we laughingly called the mental process, she could guess at the meanings of the words and put the sense together much as a child puzzles out a sliced object. The result was that in a few weeks she and I spent a most hilarious hour one evening while she poured out to me the whole story, dwelling with great gusto on its humour and sparkling wit. It was not a lesson, but only one of her recreations."

●So Helen Keller's aptitude for language is her whole mental aptitude, turned to language because of its extraordinary value to her.

●There have been many discussions of the question whether Helen Keller's achievements are due to her natural ability or to the method by which she was taught.

●It is true that a teacher with ten times Miss Sullivan's genius could not have made a pupil so remarkable as Helen Keller out of a child born dull and mentally deficient. But it is also true that, with ten times her native genius, Helen Keller could not have grown to what she is, if she had not been excellently taught from the very start, and especially at the start. And the fact remains that she was taught by a method of teaching language to the deaf, the essential principles of which are clearly expressed in Miss Sullivan's letters, written while she was discovering the method and putting it successfully into practice. And it can be applied by any teacher to any healthy deaf child, and in the broadest interpretation of the principles, can be applied to the teaching of language of all kinds to all children.

●In the many discussions of this question writers seem to throw us from one horn to another of a dilemma–either a born genius in Helen Keller, or a perfect method in the teacher. Both things may be true at once, and there is another truth which makes the dilemma imperfect. Miss Sullivan is a person of extraordinary power. Her method might not succeed so completely in the hands of any one else. Miss Sullivan's vigorous, original mind has lent much of its vitality to her pupil. If Miss Keller is fond of language and not interested especially in mathematics, it is not surprising to find Miss Sullivan's interests very similar. And this does not mean that Miss Keller is unduly dependent on her teacher. It is told of her that, as a child of eight, when some one tried to interfere with her, she sat sober a few moments, and, when asked what was the trouble, answered, "I am preparing to assert my independence." Such an aggressive personality cannot grow up in mere dependence even under the guidance of a will like Miss Sullivan's. But Miss Sullivan by her "natural aptitude" has done for her pupil much that is not capable of analysis and reduction to principle; she has given the inspiration which is in all close friendship, and which rather develops than limits the powers of either person. Moreover, if Miss Keller is a "marvel of sweetness and goodness," if she has a love "of all things good and beautiful," this implies something about the teacher who has lived with her for sixteen years.

●There is, then, a good deal that Miss Sullivan has done for Miss Keller which no other teacher can do in just the same way for any one else. To have another Helen Keller there must be another Miss Sullivan. To have another well-educated deaf and blind child, there need only be another teacher, living under favourable conditions, among plenty of external interests, unseparated from her pupil, allowed to have a free hand, and using as many as she need of the principles which Miss Sullivan has saved her the trouble of finding out for herself, modifying and adding as she finds it necessary; and there must be a pupil in good health, of good native powers, young enough not to have grown beyond recovery in ignorance. Any deaf child or deaf and blind child in good health can be taught. And the one to do it is the parent or the special teacher, not the school. I know that this idea will be vigorously combated by those who conduct schools for the deaf. To be sure, the deaf school is the only thing possible for children educated by the State. But it is evident that precisely what the deaf child needs to be taught is what other children learn before they go to school at all. When Miss Sullivan went out in the barnyard and picked up a little chicken and talked to Helen about it, she was giving a kind of instruction impossible inside four walls, and impossible with more than one pupil at a time.

●Surely Dr. Howe is wrong when he says, "A teacher cannot be a child." That is just what the teacher of the deaf child must be, a child ready to play and romp, and interested in all childish things.

●The temptation to discuss, solely in the light of Helen Keller, the whole matter of educating the deaf is a dangerous one, and one which I have not taken particular care to avoid, because my opinions are of no authority and I have merely tried to suggest problems and reinforce some of the main ideas expressed by Miss Sullivan, who is an authority. It is a question whether Helen Keller's success has not led teachers to expect too much of other children, and I know of deaf-blind children who are dragged along by their teachers and friends, and become the subjects of glowing reports, which are pathetically untrue, because one sees behind the reports how the children are tugged at to bring them somewhere near the exaggerated things that are said about them.

●Let me sum up a few of the elements that made Helen Keller what she is. In the first place she had nineteen months' experience of sight and sound. This meant some mental development. She had inherited vigour of body and mind. She expressed ideas in signs before she learned language. Mrs. Keller writes me that before her illness Helen made signs for everything, and her mother thought this habit the cause of her slowness in learning to speak. After the illness, when they were dependent on signs, Helen's tendency to gesture developed. How far she could receive communications is hard to determine, but she knew much that was going on around her. She recognized that others used their lips; she "saw" her father reading a paper and when he laid it down she sat in his chair and held the paper before her face. Her early rages were an unhappy expression of the natural force of character which instruction was to turn into trained and organized power.

●It was, then, to a good subject that Miss Sullivan brought her devotion and intelligence, and fearless willingness to experiment. Miss Sullivan's methods were so good that even without the practical result, any one would recognize the truth of the teacher's ideas. Miss Sullivan has in a additional vigorous personality. And finally all the conditions were good for that first nature school, in which the teacher and pupil played together, exploring together and educating themselves, pupil and teacher inseparable.

●Miss Keller's later education is easy to understand and needs no further explanation than she has given. Those interested may get on application to the Volta Bureau, Washington, D.C., the reports of the teachers who prepared her for college, Mr. Arthur Gilman of the Cambridge School for Young Ladies, and Mr. Merton S. Keith.

CHAPTER IV　SPEECH

●THE two persons who have written authoritatively about Miss Keller's speech and the way she learned it are Miss Sarah Fuller,28 of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston, Massachusetts, who gave her the first lessons, and Miss Sullivan, who, by her unremitting discipline, carried on the success of these first lessons.

●Before I quote from Miss Sullivan's account, let me try to give some impression of what Miss Keller's speech and voice qualities are at present.

●Her voice is low and pleasant to listen to. Her speech lacks variety and modulation; it runs in a sing-song when she is reading aloud; and when she speaks with fair degree of loudness, it hovers about two or three middle tones. Her voice has an aspirate quality; there seems always to be too much breath for the amount of tone. Some of her notes are musical and charming. When she is telling a child's story, or one with pathos in it, her voice runs into pretty slurs from one tone to another. This is like the effect of the slow dwelling on long words, not quite well managed, that one notices in a child who is telling a solemn story.

●The principal thing that is lacking is sentence accent and variety in the inflection of phrases. Miss Keller pronounces each word as a foreigner does when he is still labouring with the elements of a sentence, or as children sometimes read in school when they have to pick out each word.

●She speaks French and German. Her friend, Mr. John Hitz, whose native tongue is German, says that her pronunciation is excellent. Another friend, who is as familiar with French as with English, finds her French much more intelligible than her English. When she speaks English she distributes her emphasis as in French and so does not put sufficient stress on accented syllables. She says for example, "pro'-vo'-ca'-tion," "in'-di'-vi'-du'-al," with ever so little difference between the value of the syllables, and a good deal of inconsistency in the pronunciation of the same word one day and the next. It would, I think, be hard to make her feel just how to pronounce dictionary without her erring either toward dictionayry or diction'ry, and, of course the word is neither one nor the other. For no system of marks in a lexicon can tell one how to pronounce a word. The only way is to hear it, especially in a language like English which is so full of unspellable, suppressed vowels and quasi-vowels.

●Miss Keller's vowels are not firm. Her awful is nearly awfil. The wavering is caused by the absence of accent on ful, for she pronounces full correctly.

●She sometimes mispronounces as she reads aloud and comes on a word which she happens never to have uttered, though she may have written it many times. This difficulty and some others may be corrected when she and Miss Sullivan have more time. Since 1894, they have been so much in their books that they have neglected everything that was not necessary to the immediate task of passing the school years successfully. Miss Keller will never be able, I believe, to speak loud without destroying the pleasant quality and the distinctness of her words, but she can do much to make her speech clearer.

●When she was at the Wright-Humason School in New York, Dr. Humason tried to improve her voice, not only her word pronunciation, but the voice itself, and gave her lessons in tone and vocal exercises.

●It is hard to say whether or not Miss Keller's speech is easy to understand. Some understand her readily; others do not. Her friends grow accustomed to her speech and forget that it is different from that of any one else. Children seldom have any difficulty in understanding her; which suggests that her deliberate, measured speech is like theirs, before they come to the adult trick of running all the words of a phrase into one movement of the breath. I am told that Miss Keller speaks better than most other deaf people.

●Miss Keller has told how she learned to speak.29 Miss Sullivan's account in her address at Chautauqua, in July, 1894, at the meeting of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, is substantially like Miss Keller's in points of fact.

MISS SULLIVAN'S ACCOUNT OF MISS KELLER'S SPEECH

●IT was three years from the time when Helen began to communicate by means of the manual alphabet that she received her first lesson in the more natural and universal medium of human intercourse–oral language. She had become very proficient in the use of the manual alphabet, which was her only means of communication with the outside world; through it she had acquired a vocabulary which enabled her to converse freely, read intelligently, and write with comparative ease and correctness. Nevertheless, the impulse to utter audible sounds was strong within her, and the constant efforts which I made to repress this instinctive tendency, which I feared in time would become unpleasant, were of no avail. I made no effort to teach her to speak, because I regarded her inability to watch the lips of others as an insurmountable obstacle. But she gradually became conscious that her way of communicating was different from that used by those around her, and one day her thoughts found expression. "How do the blind girls know what to say with their mouths? Why do you not teach me to talk like them? Do deaf children ever learn to speak?" I explained to her that some deaf children were taught to speak, but that they could see their teacher's mouths, and that that was a very great assistance to them. But she interrupted me to say she was very sure she could feel my mouth very well. Soon after this conversation, a lady came to see her and told her about the deaf and blind Norwegian child, Ragnhild Kaata, who had been taught to speak and understand what her teacher said to her by touching his lips with her fingers. She at once resolved to learn to speak, and from that day to this she has never wavered in that resolution. She began immediately to make sounds which she called speaking, and I saw the necessity of correct instruction, since her heart was set upon learning to talk; and, feeling my own incompetence to teach her, never having given the subject of articulation serious study, I went with my pupil, for advice and assistance, to Miss Sarah Fuller. Miss Fuller was delighted with Helen's earnestness and enthusiasm, and at once began to teach her. In a few lessons she learned nearly all of the English sounds, and in less than a month she was able to articulate a great many words distinctly. From the first she was not content to be drilled in single sounds, but was impatient to pronounce words and sentences. The length of the word or the difficulty of the arrangement of the elements never seemed to discourage her. But, with all her eagerness and intelligence, learning to speak taxed her powers to the utmost. But there was satisfaction in seeing from day to day the evidence of growing mastery and the possibility of final success. And Helen's success has been more complete and inspiring than any of her friends expected, and the child's delight in being able to utter her thoughts in living and distinct speech is shared by all who witness her pleasure when strangers tell her that they understand her.

●I have been asked a great many times whether I think Helen will ever speak naturally; that is, as other people speak. I am hardly prepared to decide that question, or even give an opinion regarding it. I believe that I have hardly begun yet to know what is possible. Teachers of the deaf often express surprise that Helen's speech is so good when she has not received any regular instruction in speech since the first few lessons given her by Miss Fuller. I can only say in reply, "This is due to habitual imitation and practice! practice! practice!" Nature has determined how the child shall learn to speak, and all we can do is to aid him in the simplest, easiest way possible, by encouraging him to observe and imitate the vibrations in the voice.

●Some further details appear in an earlier, more detailed account, which Miss Sullivan wrote for the Perkins Institution Report of 1891.

●I knew that Laura Bridgman had shown the same intuitive desire to produce sounds, and had even learned to pronounce a few simple words, which she took great delight in using, and I did not doubt that Helen could accomplish as much as this. I thought, however, that the advantage she would derive would not repay her for the time and labour that such an experiment would cost.

●Moreover, the absence of hearing renders the voice monotonous and often very disagreeable; and such speech is generally unintelligible except to those familiar with the speaker.

●The acquiring of speech by untaught deaf children is always slow and often painful. Too much stress, it seems to me, is often laid upon the importance of teaching a deaf child to articulate–a process which may be detrimental to the pupil's intellectual development. In the very nature of things, articulation is an unsatisfactory means of education; while the use of the manual alphabet quickens and invigorates mental activity, since through it the deaf child is brought into close contact with the English language, and the highest and most abstract ideas may be conveyed to the mind readily and accurately. Helen's case proved it to be also an invaluable aid in acquiring articulation. She was already perfectly familiar with words and the construction of sentences, and had only mechanical difficulties to overcome. Moreover, she knew what a pleasure speech would be to her, and this definite knowledge of what she was striving for gave her the delight of anticipation which made drudgery easy. The untaught deaf child who is made to articulate does not know what the goal is, and his lessons in speech are for a long time tedious and meaningless.

●Before describing the process of teaching Helen to speak, it may be well to state briefly to what extent she had used the vocal organs before she began to receive regular instruction in articulation. When she was stricken down with the illness which resulted in her loss of sight and hearing, at the age of nineteen months, she was learning to talk. The unmeaning babblings of the infant were becoming day by day conscious and voluntary signs of what she felt and thought. But the disease checked her progress in the acquisition of oral language, and, when her physical strength returned, it was found that she had ceased to speak intelligibly because she could no longer hear a sound. She continued to exercise her vocal organs mechanically, as ordinary children do. Her cries and laughter and the tones of her voice as she pronounced many word elements were perfectly natural, but the child evidently attached no significance to them, and with one exception they were produced not with any intention of communicating with those around her, but from the sheer necessity of exercising her innate, organic, and hereditary faculty of expression. She always attached a meaning to the word water, which was one of the first sounds her baby lips learned to form, and it was the only word which she continued to articulate after she lost her hearing. Her pronunciation of this gradually became indistinct, and when I first knew her it was nothing more than a peculiar noise. Nevertheless, it was the only sign she ever made for water, and not until she had learned to spell the word with her fingers did she forget the spoken symbol. The word water, and the gesture which corresponds to the word good-by, seem to have been all that the child remembered of the natural and acquired signs with which she had been familiar before her illness.

●As she became acquainted with her surroundings through the sense of feeling (I use the word in the broadest sense, as including all tactile impressions), she felt more and more the pressing necessity of communicating with those around her. Her little hands felt every object and observed every movement of the persons about her, and she was quick to imitate these movements. She was thus able to express her more imperative needs and many of her thoughts.

●At the time when I became her teacher, she had made for herself upward of sixty signs, all of which were intuitive and were readily understood by those who knew her. The only signs which I think she may have invented were her signs for small and large.30 Whenever she wished for anything very much she would gesticulate in a very expressive manner. Failing to made herself understood, she would become violent. In the years of her mental imprisonment she depended entirely upon signs, and she did not work out for herself any sort of articulate language capable of expressing ideas. It seems, however, that while she was still suffering from severe pain, she notices the movements of her mother's lips.

●When she was not occupied, she wandered restlessly about the house, making strange though rarely unpleasant sounds. I have seen her rock her doll, making a continuous, monotonous sound, keeping one hand on her throat, while the fingers of the other hand noted the movements of her lips. This was an imitation of her mother's crooning to the baby. Occasionally she broke out in a merry laugh, and then she would reach out and touch the mouth of any one who happened to be near her, to see if he were laughing also. If she detected no smile, she gesticulated excitedly, trying to convey her thought, but if she failed to make her companion laugh, she sat still for a few moments, with a troubled and disappointed expression. She was pleased with anything which made a noise. She liked to feel the cat purr; and if by chance she felt a dog in the act of barking, she showed great pleasure. She always like to stand by the piano when some one was playing and singing. She kept one hand on the piano, and she stood in this position as long as any one would sing to her; and afterward she would make a continuous sound which she called singing. The only words she had learned to pronounce with any degree of distinctness previous to March, 1890, were papa, mamma, baby, sister. These words she had caught without instruction from the lips of friends. It will be seen that they contain three vowel and six consonant elements, and these formed the foundation for her first real lesson in speaking.

●At the end of the first lesson she was able to pronounce distinctly the following sounds: a, ä, â, e [e macron], i [i cup], ô, c soft like s and hard like k, g hard, h, l, n, m, t, p, s, u, k, f and d. Hard consonants were, and indeed still are, very difficult for her to pronounce in connection with one another in the same word; she often suppresses the one and changes the other, and sometimes she replaces both by an analogous sound with soft aspiration. The confusion between l and r was very noticeable in her speech at first. She would repeatedly use one for the other. The great difficulty in the pronunciation of the r made it one of the last elements which she mastered. The ch, sh and soft g also gave her much trouble, and she does not yet enunciate then clearly. 31

●When she had been talking for less than a week, she met her friend, Mr. Rodocanachi, and immediately began to struggle with the pronunciation of his name, nor would she give it up until she was able to articulate the word distinctly. Her interest never diminished for a moment, and, in her eagerness to overcome the difficulties which beset her on all sides, she taxed her powers to the utmost, and learned in eleven lessons all of the separate elements of speech.

●Enough appears in the accounts by Miss Keller's teacher to show the process by which she reads the lips with her fingers, the process by which she was taught to speak, and by which, of course, she can listen to conversation now. In reading the lips she is not so quick or as accurate as some reports declare. It is a clumsy and unsatisfactory way of receiving communication, useless when Miss Sullivan or some one else who knows the manual alphabet is present to give Miss Keller the spoken words of others. Indeed, when some friend is trying to speak to Miss Keller, and the attempt is not proving successful, Miss Sullivan usually helps by spelling the lost words into Miss Keller's hand.

●President Roosevelt had little difficulty last spring in making Miss Keller understand him, and especially requested Miss Sullivan not to spell into her hand. She got every word, for the President's speech is notably distinct. Other people say that they have no success in making Miss Keller "hear" them.

●A few friends to who she is accustomed, like Mrs. A. C. Pratt, and Mr. J. E. Chamberlin, can pass a whole day with her and tell her everything without the manual alphabet. The ability to read lips helps Miss Keller in getting corrections of her pronunciation from Miss Sullivan and others, just as it was the means of her learning to speak at all, but it is rather an accomplishment than a necessity.

●It must be remembered that speech contributed in no way to her fundamental education, though without the ability to speak she could hardly have gone to higher schools and to college. But she knows better than any one else what value speech has had for her. The following is her address at the fifth meeting of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, at Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1896:

ADDRESS OF HELEN KELLER AT MT. AIRY

●IF you knew all the joy I feel at being able to speak to you to-day, I think you would have some idea of the value of speech to the deaf, and you would understand why I want every little deaf child in all this great world to have an opportunity to learn to speak. I know that much has been said and written on this subject, and that there is a wide difference of opinion among teachers of the deaf in regard to oral instruction. It seems very strange to me that there should be this difference of opinion; I cannot understand how any one interested in our education can fail to appreciate the satisfaction we feel in being able to express our thoughts in living words. Why, I use speech constantly, and I cannot begin to tell you how much pleasure it gives me to do so. Of course I know that it is not always easy for strangers to understand me, but it will be by and by; and in the meantime I have the unspeakable happiness of knowing that my family and friends rejoice in my ability to speak. My little sister and baby brother love to have me tell them stories in the long summer evenings when I am at home; and my mother and teacher often ask me to read to them from my favorite books. I also discuss the political situation with my dear father, and we decide the most perplexing questions quite as satisfactorily to ourselves as if I could see and hear. So you see what a blessing speech is to me. It brings me into closer and tenderer relationship with those I love, and makes it possible for me to enjoy the sweet companionship of a great many persons from whom I should be entirely cut off if I could not talk.

●I can remember the time before I learned to speak, and how I used to struggle to express my thoughts by means of the manual alphabet–how my thoughts used to beat against my finger tips like little birds striving to gain their freedom, until one day Miss Fuller opened wide the prison-door and let them escape. I wonder if she remembers how eagerly and gladly they spread their wings and flew away. Of course, it was not easy at first to fly. The speech-wings were weak and broken, and had lost all the grace and beauty that had once been theirs; indeed, nothing was left save the impulse to fly, but that was something. One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. But, nevertheless, it seemed to me sometimes that I could never use my speech-wings as God intended I should use them; there were so many difficulties along the way; so many discouragements; but I kept on trying, knowing that patience and perseverance would win in the end. And while I worked, I built the most beautiful air-castles, and dreamed dreams, the pleasantest of which was of the time when I should talk like other people, and the thought of the pleasure it would give my mother to hear my voice once more, sweetened every effort and made every failure an incentive to try harder next time. So I want to say to those who are trying to learn to speak and those who are teaching them: Be of good cheer. Do not think of to-day's failures; but of the success that may come to-morrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere, and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles–a delight in climbing rugged paths, which you would perhaps never know if you did not sometime slip backward–if the road was always smooth and pleasant. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek. We shall speak, yes, and sing, too, as God intended we should speak and sing.

CHAPTER V　LITERARY STYLE

●NO one can have read Miss Keller's autobiography without feeling that she writes unusually fine English. Any teacher of composition knows that he can bring his pupils to the point of writing without errors in syntax or in the choice of words. It is just this accuracy which Miss Keller's early education fixes as the point to which any healthy child can be brought, and which the analysis of that education accounts for. Those who try to make her an exception, not to be explained by any such analysis of her early education, fortify their position by an appeal to the remarkable excellence of her use of language even when she was a child.

●This appeal is to a certain degree valid; for, indeed, those additional harmonies of language and beauties of thought which make style are the gifts of the gods. No teacher could have made Helen Keller sensitive to the beauties of language and to the finer interplay of thought which demands expression in melodious word groupings.

●At the same time the inborn gift of style can be starved or stimulated. No innate genius can invent fine language. The stuff of which good style is made must be given to the mind from without and given skilfully. A child of the muses cannot write fine English unless fine English has been its nourishment. In this, as in all other things, Miss Sullivan has been the wise teacher. If she had not had taste and an enthusiasm for good English, Helen Keller might have been brought up on the "Juvenile Literature," which belittles the language under pretence of being simply phrased for children; as if a child's book could not, like "Treasure Island" or "Robinson Crusoe" or the "Jungle Book," be in good style.

●If Miss Sullivan wrote fine English, the beauty of Helen Keller's style would, in part, be explicable at once. But the extracts from Miss Sullivan's letters and from her reports, although they are clear and accurate, have not the beauty which distinguishes Miss Keller's English. Her service as a teacher of English is not to be measured by her own skill in composition. The reason why she read to her pupil so many good books is due, in some measure , to the fact that she had so recently recovered her eyesight. When she became Helen Keller's teacher she was just awakening to the good things that are in books, from which she had been shut out during her years of blindness.

●In Captain Keller's library she found excellent books, Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare," and better still, Montaigne. After the first year or so of elementary work, she met her pupil on equal terms, and they read and enjoyed good books together.

●Besides the selection of good books, there is one other cause for Miss Keller's excellence in writing, for which Miss Sullivan deserves unlimited credit. That is her tireless and unrelenting discipline, which is evident in all her work. She never allowed her pupil to send off letters which contained offenses against taste, but made her write them over until they were not only correct, but charming and well phrased.

●Any one who has tried to write knows what Miss Keller owes to the endless practice which Miss Sullivan demanded of her. Let a teacher with a liking for good style insist on a child's writing a paragraph over and over again until it is more than correct, and he will be training, even beyond his own power of expression, the power of expression in the child.

●How far Miss Sullivan carried this process of refinement and selection is evident from the humorous comment of Dr. Bell, that she made her pupil a little old woman, too widely different from ordinary children in her maturity of thought. When Dr. Bell said this he was arguing his own case. For it was Dr. Bell who first saw the principles that underlie Miss Sullivan's method, and explained the process by which Helen Keller absorbed language from books.

●There is, moreover, a reason why Helen Keller writes good English, which lies in the very absence of sight and hearing. The disadvantages of being deaf and blind were overcome and the advantages remained. She excels other deaf people because she was taught as if she were normal. On the other hand, the peculiar value to her of language, which ordinary people take for granted as a necessary part of them, like their right hand, made her think about language and love it. Language was her liberator, and from the first she cherished it.

●The proof of Miss Keller's early skill in the use of English, and the final comment on the excellence of this whole method of teaching, is contained in an incident, which, although at the time it seemed unfortunate, can no longer be regretted. I refer to the "Frost King" episode, which I shall explain in detail. Miss Keller has given her account of it, and the whole matter was discussed in the first Volta Bureau Souvenir from which I quote at length:

MISS SULLIVAN'S ACCOUNT OF THE "FROST KING"

HON. JOHN HITZ,
Superintendent of the Volta Bureau, Washington, D.C.

●Dear SIR: Since my paper was prepared for the second edition of the Souvenir "Helen Keller," some facts have been brought to my notice which are of interest in connection with the subject of the acquisition of language by my pupil, and if it is not already too late for publication in this issue of the Souvenir, I shall be glad if I may have opportunity to explain them in detail.

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