Helen Keller

HELEN KELLER. BY MISS SARAH WHALEN, TEACHER IN THE UTAH STATE SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND, OGDEN. "Mute, sightless visitant; From what uncharted world Has voyaged into life's wide sea With guidance scant? As if some bark mysteriously Should hither glide with spars aslant And sails all furled!" — Edmund Clarence Stedman's "Ode to Helen Keller." While seated in my school-room one day in the Perkins Institution for the Blind, in Boston, Mr. Anagnos, the director, entered to inform me that he had just received a letter from a Mr. Keller, of Alabama, desiring a teacher for his little daughter, who was deaf, dumb and blind. That was our first introduction to Helen, who has since made herself so famous. Many thousands of people know the story of her wonderful achievements. Mr. Anagnos, at the time, stated to me that he would send for Miss Annie Sullivan, who was partially blind, and who had formerly been a student at the Perkins school, to come there to study the methods pursued by Dr. Samuel G. Howe in his training of Laura Bridgman, and then send her south to educate Helen. In a few days. Miss Sullivan came, and the work of preparation commenced. With a Godspeed she was sent on her southern journey to begin the task of opening the darkened mind to the light. Letters which recorded each day's doings of the little girl, came fast to Mr. Anagnos. Very scholarly himself, he would frequently, in his replies, introduce a Greek, French or German word which

HELEN KELLER. 897 would be used by Helen in her subsequent letters. The latter could not be called properly anything but notes, and very short ones at that, since they often consisted of one short sentence, which Helen was able to compose. No doubt the desire to acquire foreign languages was instilled into her mind by the introduction occasionally of a foreign word into the letters sent to her. When Helen had been under instruction about one year, she sent the following letter to Mr. Dwight, of Boston. It was written in printed letters, very well shaped and clearly legible : TuscuMBiA, Alabama, May 26, 1889. My Dear Mr. Dwight: Your little friend Helen was delighted to receive your letter. Yesterday I went to another picnic with my little friends. We sat in the shade which the great trees made for us and ate our dinner. The little birds sang sweetly all day. I think they were glad to see the little boys and girls so happy. There was a gentle breeze and it was very fragrant, for the woods was full of the delicate wild flowers. We gathered some of them to take home to our friends. I am sorry Mr. Anagnos is going so far away. But he says he will write to me from Rome, Paris, Athens, and many other beautiful cities, and when I am old enough I shall travel myself. My little friend Eva has come to stay with me while my dear teacher goes home to rest, I shall miss her greatly, but I must not cry, for that would make teacher unhappy. I should like very much to go to Boston with her, but I cannot. So I will write to her every day. I wish you were here to eat some of the delicious strawberries and raspberries. Mildred and I would pick the nicest berries for you. The magnolias are in bloom now, and the air is sweet with their perfume. Teacher and mother send you their love. Sister sends a sweet kiss, and I send many. Helen A. Keller. Only one error occurred in the original letter, which is printed without the slightest alteration. The desire to acquire knowledge, as evinced by Miss Sullivan's account of her, was very great in spite of almost insuperable obstacles. She would put to blush many a person possessed of all his senses, by her prodigious effort. Think of a person, deprived of the three great gateways of knowledge, crowding information

898 IMPROVEMENl ERA. and skill past the two inferior ones, the gates of smell and feeling:. Is it not enough to make any one of us stop to consider how much more we have? How many more talents and how much more the Lord will expect of us? Helen through the masterful efforts of her teacher, acquired a knowledge of the English branches, which are usually taught in the common schools. Her teacher was her constant companion, bringing to her by the one great approach, the sense of touch, knowledge of things material and immaterial, and Helen, ever alert, was ready to receive this knowledge as it was telegraphed to her mind through the finger tips, and ready to telegraph back by the same route her comprehension of it. Did this not mean effort and arduous mental labor? Truly it did. And as if it were not enough that Helen should acquire the common-school branches,*the acquisition of which usually satisfies the craving of thousands of girls and boys, she, soaring upon the wings of the morning, traveled through the depths of the higher branches, entered a preparatory school with Miss Sullivan as guide and mentor, and her efforts have finally reached the point of taking the entrance examination to Harvard University. This she passed with credit, and nothing ^daunted is now eager to pursue a university course. This great feat of hers ought to be an incentive to many young men and women in possession of all their faculties, to put forth greater effort on their part to outstrip her in the race, and not have it said that one so hopelessly hampered as she, was able to outrank them. Shame on young men and young women, 'who would hesitate for one moment to dare to do as much at least as Helen Keller. In all her short life, she is now about nineteen years old, there has been no word of complaint or murmuring against her lot, no sitting down with hands idly folded, waiting to eat the bread of idleness, which might be fed to her. On the contrary her hands have been in ceaseless activity, else she would not have been able to accomplish her task. Her motto seems to have been — "Don't fret, dear heart, but work." Helen, with all her other accomplishments, has been able to