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    I HAVE MADE IT A PRACTICE TO ANSWER ALL HELENS 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 existe was no doubt because of this ignorahat I rushed in where more experienced angels fear to tread. There isnt a living soul in this part of the world to whom I  go for advi 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 dont think I made a mistake. I took Helen and my Botany, "How Plants Grow," up iree, where we often go to read and study, and I told her in simple words the story of plantlife. I reminded her of the , beans and watermelon-seed she had planted in the spring, and told her that the tall  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  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 e out. I made her uand that all life es from an egg. The mother bird lays her eggs in a  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 e 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 didnt produce offspring after their kind, they would cease to exist, and everything in the world would soon die. But the fun of sex I passed over as lightly as possible. I did, however, try to give her the idea that love is the great tinuer of life. The subject was difficult, and my knowledge ie; but I am glad I didnt shirk my responsibility; for, stumbling, hesitating, and inplete as my explanation was, it touched deep responsive chords in the soul of my little pupil, and the readiness with which she prehehe great facts of physical life firmed me in the opinion that the child has dormant within him, when he es into the world, all the experiences of the race. These experiences are like photographiegatives, until language develops them and brings out the memory-images.

    September 4, 1887.

    Helen had a letter this m from her uncle, Doctor Keller. He invited her to e to see him at Hot Springs. The  Springs ied her, and she asked many questions about it. She knows about cold springs. There are several uscumbia; 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 e out of the ground. She wao know who made fire uhe ground, and if it was like the fire in stoves, and if it burhe 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 edy from the door. Belle was sleepy, and Mildred iive. 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 ned forced her to lie down again. In the meantime Mildred had got the letter and crept away with it. Hele 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." The up and stood very still, as if listening with her feet for Mildreds "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, aated a moment before answering.

    Then she said: &qu girl did eat letter. Helen did slap very wrong girl." I told her that Mildred was very small, and didnt know that it was wrong to put the letter in her mouth.

    "I did tell baby, no, no, much (many) times," was Helens reply.

    I said, "Mildred doesnt uand your fingers, and we must be very geh her.”

    She shook her head.

    "Baby--not think. Helen will give baby pretty letter," and with that she ran upstairs and brought down a ly folded sheet of braille, on which she had written some words, and gave it to Mildred, saying, "Baby  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 be of my experience. Besides, they said Helens 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. Its 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 ese puzzles; but they are the kind of puzzles children make whery to express their half-formed ideas by means of arbitrary language. She has the true language-impulse, and shows great fertility of resour making the words at her and vey her meaning.

    Lately she has been muterested in colour. She found the word "brown" in her primer and wao 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 to 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  for the weary there. Helen was eager to know "more colour." I wonder if she has any vague idea of colour--any remi impression of light and sound. It seems as if a child who could see and hear until her eenth month must retain some of her first impressions, though ever so faintly.

    Helen talks a great deal about things that she ot know of through the sense of touch. She asks many questions about the sky, day and night, the o 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, Vihink is black.”

    You see, she had ahat the colour of our thoughts matched that of our skin. I couldnt 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 at for the report is finished a off. I have two copies, and will send you one; but you mustnt show it to anybody. Its Mr. Anagnoss property until it is published.

    I suppose the little girls enjoyed Heleer. 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 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 the pronouns of her own accord. This m I happeo say, "Helen will go upstairs." She laughed and said, "Teacher is wrong. You will go upstairs." This is anreat forward step. Thus it always is. Yesterdays perplexities are strangely simple to-day, and to-days difficulties bee to-morrows pastime.

    The rapid development of Helens mind is beautiful to watch. I doubt if any teacher ever had a work of such abs i. There must have been one lucky star in the heavens at my birth, and I am just beginning to feel its benefit influence.

    I had two letters from Mr. Anagnos last week. He is mrateful 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 forthing annual report.”

    October, 1887.

    You have probably read, ere this, Helens sed letter to the little girls. I am aware that the progress which she has made between the writing of the two letters must seem incredible. Only those who are with her daily  realize the rapid adva 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 versation. Her passion for writiers and puttihoughts 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 ged it into "My eyes are sick!”

    Miss Sullivans first report, which ublished in the official report of the Perkins Institution for the year 1887, is a short summary of what is fully recorded iters. 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 tinuous 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 Helens hand on the baby and formed the letters "b-a-b-y,”

    which she repeated without help and with the light of a new intelligen her face.

    On our way back to the house everything she touched had to be named for her, aition was seldom necessary. her the length of the word nor the bination of letters seems to make any differeo 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 ut IN a trunk, and then ON it, and these prepositions were spelled for her. Very soon she learhe differeween ON and IN, though it was some time before she could use these words iences of her own. Whe ossible she was made the actor in the lesson, and was delighted to stand ON the chair, and to be put INTO the wardrobe. In e with this lesson she learhe 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 spes of sentences structed by her during the latter part of April.

    came a lesson on words expressive of positive quality. For the first lesson I had two balls, one made of worsted, large and soft, the other a bullet. She perceived the differen size at oaking the bullet she made her habitual sign for SMALL--that is, by ping a little bit of the skin of one hand. Theook 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. Thetention 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 sisters head and said to her mother, "Mildreds head is small and hard."  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  day, while exerg, she spelled to me, "Helen wind fast," and began to walk rapidly. Then she said, "Helen wind slow," again suiting the a to the words.

    I now thought it time to teach her to read printed words. A slip on which rinted, in raised letters, the word BOX laced on the object, and the same experiment was tried with a great many articles, but she did not immediately prehend that the label-name represehe thing. Then I took an alphabet sheet and put her finger oter 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.  I turo 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 ences in raised letters which she could uand; but she would sit for hours feeling each word in her book. Wheouched oh which she was familiar, a peculiarly sweet expression lighted her face, and we saw her tenance growing sweeter and more ear every day. About this time I sent a list of the words she ko 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 arrahem into sentehis 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 uand 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 fine herself to phrases already learned, but could unicate any thought that assing through her mind. I put one of the writing boards used by the bliween the folds of the paper oable, 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 fi 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 learo express her ideas on paper, I aught her the braille system. She lear gladly when she discovered that she could herself read what she had written; and this still affords her stant pleasure. For a whole evening she will sit at the table writing whatever es 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  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 w retly with the number forty, when I said to her, "Make twos." She replied immediately, "Twenty twos make forty.”

    Later I said, "Make fifteen threes and t." I wished her to make the groups of threes and supposed she would then have to t 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 cluded 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, a oering the cemetery for the first time in her life, with her mother ao look at some flowers, she laid her hand on our eyes aedly 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 scious of the presence of her brother, although we were distant from him. She spelled his name repeatedly and started in the dire in which he was ing.

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

    The letters take up the at again.

    November 13, 1887.

    We took Helen to the circus, and had "the time of our lives"! The circus people were muterested in Helen, and did everything they could to make her first circus a memorable event. They let her feel the animals whe 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 a her hand oar performer while he went through his tricks, and laughed heartily wheook off his hat to the audience. Oe little fellow stole her hair-ribbon, and aried to snatch the flowers out of her hat. I dont 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 s and rope-walkers were all glad to let the little blind girl feel their es and follow their motions whe ossible, and she kissed them all, to show her gratitude. Some of them cried, and the wild man of Borneo shrank from her sweet little fa 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 learo 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, its so o feel sad when youve nothing particular to be sad about. I am teag her little rhymes and verses, too. They fix beautiful thoughts in her memory. I think, too, that they qui all the childs faculties, because they stimulate the imagination. Of course I dont try to explaihing. If I did, there would be no opportunity for the play of fancy. TOO MUCH EXPLANATION DIRECTS THE CHILDS ATTENTION TO WORDS AENCES, SO THAT HE FAILS TO GET THE THOUGHT AS A WHOLE. I do not think anyone  read, or talk for that matter, until he fets words aences ieical 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. Helens dependene for almost everything makes me strong and glad.

    Christmas week was a very busy one here, too. Helen is io all the childreertais, and I take her to as many as I . I wao know children and to be with them as much as possible. Several little girls have learo spell on their fingers and are very proud of the aplishment. Otle chap, about seven, ersuaded to learters, 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 uzzled, and asked many questions. &quot;Who made tree grow in house? Why? Who put many things on tree?&quot; 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 uand that there resent for each child, and treat delight she ermitted 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 chil<df</dfn>d had received his gifts. Otle girl had fewer presents than the rest, and Helen insisted on sharing her gifts with her. It was very sweet to see the childrens eager i in Helen, and their readio give her pleasure. The exercises began at nine, and it was one oclock before we could leave. My fingers and head ached; but Helen was as fresh and full of spirit as when we left home.

    After di began to snow, and we had a good frolid an iing lesson about the snow. Sunday m the ground was covered, and Helen and the cooks children and I played snowball. By noon the snow was all go 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 Helens 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 uand the little stories I tell her; but staition fixes the words and phrases in the mind, and little by little the meaning will e to her. I SEE NO SENSE IN &quot;FAKING&quot; VERSATION FOR THE SAKE OF TEAG LANGUAGE. ITS STUPID AND DEADENING TO PUPIL AND TEACHER. TALK SHOULD BE NATURAL AND HAVE FOR ITS OBJE EXGE OF IDEAS. If there is nothing in the childs mind to unicate, it hardly seems worth while to require him to write on the blackboard, or spell on his fingers, cut and dried sentences about &quot;the cat,&quot; &quot;the bird,&quot; &quot;a dog.&quot; I HAVE TRIED FROM THE BEGINNING TO TALK NATURALLY TO HELEN AND TO TEACH HER TO TELL ME ONLY THINGS THAT I 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, a along finely. The childs eagerness and i carry her over many obstacles that would be our undoing if we stopped to define and explaihing. What would happen, do you think, if some one should try to measure our intelligence by our ability to defihe o words we use? I fear me, if I were put to such a test, I should be sigo the primary class in a school for the  feeble-minded.

    It was toug aiful to see Helen enjoy her first Christmas. Of course, she huog--two of them lest Santa Claus should fet 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 e until she was asleep, she shut her eyes and said, &quot;He will think girl is asleep.&quot; She was awake the first thing in the m, and ran to the fireplace for her stog; and when she found that Santa Claus had filled both stogs, she danced about for a mihen 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 e back for the gifts when he discovered his mistake. The ring you sent her was ioe of the stog, and when I told her you gave it to Santa Claus for her, she said, &quot;I do love Mrs. Hopkins.&quot; She had a trunk and clothes for Nancy, and her ent was, &quot;Now Nancy will go to party.&quot; When she saw the braille slate and paper, she said, &quot;I will write maers, and I will thank Santa Claus very much.&quot; It was evident that every one, especially Captain and Mrs. Keller, was deeply moved at the thought of the differeween this bright Christmas and the last, when their little girl had no scious part in the Chris.mas festivities. As we came downstairs, Mrs. Keller said to me with tears in her eyes, &quot;Miss Annie, I thank God every day of my life for sending you to us; but I never realized until this m what a blessing you have been to us.&quot; 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 wrandfather in a little story and asked her mother, &quot;Where is grandfather?&quot; meaning her grandfather. Mrs. Keller replied, &quot;He is dead.&quot; &quot;Did father shoot him?&quot; Helen asked, and added, &quot;I will eat grandfather for dinner.&quot; So far, her only knowledge of death is in e with things to eat. She knows that her father shoots partridges and deer and ame.

    This m she asked me the meaning of &quot;carpenter,&quot; and the question furhe text for the days lesson. After talking about the various things that carpenters make, she asked me, &quot;Did carpenter make me?”

    and before I could answer, she spelled quickly, &quot;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 &quot;run.&quot; Helehe heat and asked, &quot;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 ving! 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 ing 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 suspeor did he, that I had any special fitness for the work.

    January 26, 1888.

    I suppose you got Heleer. 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 m, but she objected. She said: &quot;Pencil is very tired in head. I will write Uncle Frank braille letter.&quot; I said, &quot;But Uncle Frank ot read braille.&quot; &quot;I will teach him,&quot; she said. I explaihat Uncle Frank was old, and couldnt learn braille easily. In a flash she answered, &quot;I think Uncle Frank is much (too) old to read very small letters.&quot; Finally I persuaded her to write a few lines; but she broke her pencil six times before she fi. I said to her, &quot;You are a naughty girl.&quot; &quot;No,&quot; she replied, &quot;pencil is very weak.&quot; I think her obje to pencil-writing is readily ated for by the fact that she has been asked to write so many spes for friends and strangers. You know how the children at the Institutio it. It  is irksome because the process is so slow, and they ot read what they have written or correct their mistakes.

    Helen is more and more ied in colour. When I told her that Mildreds eyes were blue, she asked, &quot;Are they like wee skies?&quot; A little while after I had told her that a ation that had been given her was red, she puckered up her mouth and said, &quot;Lips are like one pink.&quot; I told her they were tulips; but of course she didnt uand the word-play. I 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 fused to be reizable, 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 did much. It was nothing but excitement from first to last--drives, luns, receptions, and all that they involve when you have an eager, tireless child like Helen on your hands. She talked incessantly. I dont know what I should have done, had some of the young people not learo talk with her. They relieved me as much as possible. But even then I ever have a quiet half hour to myself. It is always: &quot;Oh, Miss Sullivan, please e and tell us what Helen means,&quot; or &quot;Miss Sullivan, wont you please explain this to Helen? We t make her uand.&quot; I believe half the white population of Memphis called on us. Helen etted and caressed enough to spoil an angel; but I do not think it is possible to spoil her, she is too unscious of herself, and too loving.

    The stores in Memphis are very good, and I mao spend all the mohat I had with me. One day Helen said, &quot;I must buy Nancy a very pretty hat.&quot; I said, &quot;Very well, we will go shopping this afternoon.&quot; She had a silver dollar and a dime. When we reached the shop, I asked her how much she would pay for Nancys hat. She answered promptly, &quot;I will pay tes.&quot; &quot;What will you do with the dollar?&quot; I asked. &quot;I will buy some good dy to take to Tuscumbia,&quot; was her reply.

    We visited the Stock Exge and a steamboat. Helen was greatly ied in the boat, and insisted on being shown every inch of it from the eo 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 iiers sihe publication of the &quot;Report,&quot; 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 Helens progress is without a parallel in the education of the deaf, or something like that and he says many hings about her teacher.

    March 5, 1888.

    I did not have a ce 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 March 1st.[Most of this journal was lost. Fortunately, however, Helen Keller wrote so maers and exercises that there is no lack of records of that sort.] I dont know how long she will keep it up. Its 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: &quot;I got up, washed my fad hands, bed 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, fierimals. Fierce is much cross and strong and very hungry. I do not love fierimals. I wrote letter to Uncle James. He lives in Hs. He is doctor. Doakes sick girl well. I do not like sick. Then I ate my dinner. I like much icecream very much. After dinner father went tham 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 e to see you when the sun shines. Mrs. Newsum is Roberts wife. Robert is her husband. Robert and I will run and jump and hop and dand 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. Thorntoo school as his face dirty. Boy must be very careful. After supper I played romp with Teacher in bed. She buried me uhe 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 m that he wished I would take Helen to church. The Presbytery would be there in a body, and he wahe mio see Helen. The Sunday-school was in session when we arrived, and I wish you could have seen the sensation Helerance 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 beloo the visiting ministers; but soon she reized some little friends among them, and I told her the ministers didnt bring their children with them. She looked disappointed and said, &quot;Ill send them many kisses.&quot; One of the ministers wished me to ask Helen, &quot;What do ministers do?&quot; She said, &quot;They read and talk loud to people to be good.&quot; 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, &quot;No, she will be all right.&quot; 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 oher side of her. He gave her his watch to play with; but that didnt keep her still. She wao show it to the little boy in the seat behind us. When the union service began, she smelt the wine, and sniffed so loud that every one in the church could hear. When the wine assed to our neighbour, he was obliged to stand up to preveaking 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 urn round and give an at of the children he left at home, and receive kisses acc to their number. Everybody laughed at her antics, and you would have thought they were leaving a plausement rather than a church. Captain Keller invited some of the mio dinner. Helen was irrepressible. She described in the most animated pantomime, supplemented by spelling, what she was going to do ier. Finally she got up from the table ahrough the motion of pig seaweed and shells, and splashing ier, holding up her skirts higher than roper uhe circumstahehrew herself on the floor and began to swim so eically 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 intermio 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  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 ati.

    We spent a delightful week with the &quot;doctors.&quot; Dr. Keller met us in Memphis. Almost every one orain hysi, and Dr. Keller seemed to know them all. When we reached ati, we found the place full of doctors. There were several promi Boston physis among them. We stayed at the Bur House.

    Everybody was delighted with Helen. All the learned men marveled at her intelligend gaiety. There is  something about her that attracts people. I think it is her joyous i ihing and everybody.

    Wherever she went she was the tre of i. She was delighted with the orchestra at the hotel, and whehe music began she danced round the room, hugging and kissing every one she happeo touch.

    Her happiness impressed all; nobody seemed to pity her. Oleman said to Dr. Keller, &quot;I have lived long and seen many happy faces; but I have never seen such a radiant face as this childs before to-night.&quot; Another said, &quot;Damn me! but Id give everything I own in the world to have that little girl always near me.&quot; But I havent 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.

    Gar, who was Governor of Maine several years ago? He took us to drive oernoon, and wao give Helen a doll; but she said: &quot;I do not like too many children. Nancy is sick, and Adeline is cross, and Ida is very bad.&quot; We laughed until we cried, she was so serious about it. &quot;What would you like, then?&quot; asked the Doctor. &quot;Some beautiful gloves to talk with,&quot; she answered. The Doctor uzzled. He had never heard of &quot;talking-gloves&quot;; but I explaihat she had seen a glove on which the alphabet rinted, 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 huimes by the learned doctors. It seems strahat 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 childs 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 childs mind. If his experiences and observations hadnt led him to the cepts, 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 indig that he remembers the unpleasaion. You label it SOUR, and he adopts your symbol. If you had called these sensations respectively BLAd WHITE, he would have adopted them as readily; but he would mean by BLAd WHITE the same things that he means by SWEET and SOUR. In the same way the child learns from many experieo differentiate his feelings, and we hem for him--GOOD, BAD, GENTLE, ROUGH, HAPPY, SAD. It is not the word, but the capacity to experiehe sensation that ts in his education.

    This extract from one of Miss Sullivaers is added because it tains iing casual opinions stimulated by  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 khe manual alphabet, and talked to her without an interpreter. They were asto her and of language. Not a child in the school, they said, had anything like Helens facility of expression, and some of them had been under instru 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 khat what I had been told was true, and I wasnt surprised. In one room some little tots were standing before the blackboard, painfully strug &quot;simple sentences.&quot; A little girl had written: &quot;I have a new dress. It is a pretty dress. My mamma made my pretty new dress. I love mamma.&quot; A curly-headed little boy was writing: &quot;I have a large ball. I like to kick my large ball.&quot; Wheered the room, the childrens attention was riveted on Helen. One of them pulled me by the sleeve and said, &quot;Girl is blind.&quot; The teacher was writing on the blackboard: &quot;The girls name is Helen.

    She is deaf. She ot see. We are very sorry.&quot; I said: &quot;Why do you write those sentences on the board?

    Wouldnt the children uand if you talked to them about Helen?&quot; The teacher said something about getting the correct stru, and tio stru exercise out of Helen. I asked her if the little girl who had written about the new dress articularly pleased with her dress. &quot;No,&quot; she replied, &quot;I think not; but children learer if they write about things that  them personally.&quot; It seemed all so meical and difficult, my heart ached for the poor little children. Nobody thinks of making a hearing child say, &quot;I have a pretty new dress,&quot; at the beginning. These children were older in years, it is true, than the baby who lisps, &quot;Papa kiss baby--pretty,&quot; and fills out her meaning by pointing to her new dress; but their ability to uand 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 e. This sort of thing may be necessary in some stages of education; but it isnt the way to acquire language. NOTHING, I THINK, CRUSHES THE CHILDS IMPULSE TO TALK NATURALLY MORE EFFECTUALLY THAN THESE BLACKBOARD EXERCISES. The schoolroom is not the place to teay young child language, least of all the deaf child.

    He must be kept as unscious 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 ao joy. But I must not get into the habit of critig other peoples methods too severely. I may be as far from the straight road as they.

    Miss Sullivans sed report brings the at down to October 1st, 1888.

    During the past year Helen has enjoyed excelleh. Her eyes and ears have been examined by specialists, and it is their opinion that she ot 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 respeg physical qualities; but, acc to emi authority, these senses do exert a great influen the mental and moral development. Dugald Stewart says, &quot;Some of the most signifit words relating to the human mind are borrowed from the sense of smell; and the spicuous 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 fand the moral emotions of the heart.&quot; Heleainly derives great pleasure from the exercise of these senses. Oering a greenhouse her tenance bees radiant, and she will tell the names of the flowers with which she is familiar, by the sense of smell alone. Her recolles of the sensations of smell are very vivid. She enjoys in anticipation the st of a rose or a violet; and if she is promised a bouquet of these flowers, a peculiarly happy expression lights her face, indig 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 aess and delicacy. Indeed, her whole body is so finely ahat she seems to use it as a medium fing 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 tnize her friends and acquaintahe instant she touches their hands or clothing, but she also perceives the state of mind of those around her. It is impossible for any oh whom Helen is versing 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 versation, and she discovers meaning in every ge of position, and in the varied play of the muscles of the hand. She responds quickly to the gentle  pressure of affe, the pat of approval, the jerk of impatiehe firm motion of and, and to the many other variations of the almost infinite language of the feelings; and she has bee so expert in interpreting this unscious language of the emotions that she is often able to divine our very thoughts.

    In my at of Helen last year, I mentioned several instances where she seemed to have called into use an inexplicable mental faculty; but it now seems to me, after carefully sidering the matter, that this power may be explained by her perfect familiarity with the muscular variations of those with whom she es into tact, caused by their emotions. She has been forced to depend largely upon this muscular sense as a means of ascertaining the mental dition of those about her. She has learo ect 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. Helehe ge in her mothers movements instantly, and asked, &quot;What are we afraid of?&quot; On one occasion, while walking on the on with her, I saolice officer taking a man to the station-house. The agitation which I felt evidently produced a perceptible physical ge; for Helen asked, excitedly, &quot;What do you see?”

    A striking illustration of this strange power was retly shown while her ears were being examined by the aurists in ati. 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 upoable, and withdrew to the opposite side of the room. The aurists then tried their experiments with quite differes. Helen remained motiohrough 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 tenance ged whenever she oken to, but there was not such a decided lighting up of the features as when I had held her hand. In the at of Helen last year it was stated that she knew nothing about death, or the burial of the body; yet oering 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 chi, or bird, or some other small animal. Some time after the visit to the cemetery before referred to, Helen became ied in a horse that had met with an act by whie 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 Hele 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 explaihat he had been shot to relieve him from suffering, and that he was now BURIED--put into the ground. I am ined to believe that the idea of his having been iionally shot did not make much impression upon her; but I think she did realize the fact that life was extin the horse as in the dead birds she had touched, and also that he had been put into the ground. Sihis 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 apanied my friend ahrough the graveyard. She examined ooer 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. Whetention was drawn to a marble slab inscribed with the name FLOREN relief, she dropped upon the ground as though looking for something, then turo me with a face full of trouble, and asked, &quot;Were is poor little Florence?&quot; I evaded the question, but she persisted.

    Turning to my friend, she asked, &quot;Did you cry loud for poor little Florence?&quot; Then she added: &quot;I think she is very dead. Who put her in big hole?&quot; As she tio 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 ift. 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, &quot;They are poor little Florences.&quot; This was true, although we were at a loss to uand how she guessed it. A letter written to her mother in the course of the following week gave an at of her impression in her own words: &quot;I put my little babies to sleep in Florences little bed, and I take them to ride in her carriage. Poor little Florence is dead. She was very sid 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. Dave her medie 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 Helens mind, she is a very natural child. She is fond of fun and frolid 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 uand her. She will play for hours together with children who ot uand a single word she spells, and it is pathetic to watch the eager gestures aed pantomime through which her ideas aions find expression. Occasionally some little birl will try to learn the manual alphabet. Then it is beautiful to observe with atience, sweetness, and perseverance Helen endeavours t 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: &quot;There is a poor little girl who has no cloak to keep her warm. Will you give her yours?&quot; Helen began to pull off the jacket, saying, &quot;I must give it to a poor little strange girl.”

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

    She has a very sociable disposition, and delights in the panionship of those who  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 inteerest, 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 aced 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 siy. Her heart is too full of unselfishness and affe to allow a dream of fear or unkindness. She does not realize that one  be anything but kied and tender. She is not scious of any reason why she should be awkward; sequently, 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, &quot;poor horses will cry.”

    One m she was greatly distressed by finding that one of the dogs had a block fasteo her collar. We explaihat it was doo 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 &quot;very wrong&quot;; but she seemed pleased when I explaio 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: &quot;I am very sorry that bumblebees and hors and birds and large flies and worms are eating all of my fathers 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 tio 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 prow stronger, more active and subtle, and the language by which she expresses this intellectual activity gains in fluend 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; cotton-fields and gardens in which strawberries, peaches, pears, melons, aables 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 unig these things, Helen mas inteerest; 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 tless new expressions without any apparent effort.

    From the day when Helen first grasped the idea that all objects have names, and that these  be unicated 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 tenden her part to use only the important words in a sentence.

    She would say: &quot;Helen milk.&quot; 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 plete sentence, as &quot;Give Helen some milk to drink.”

    In these early lessons I enced her in the use of different forms of expression for veying the same idea. If she was eating some dy, I said: &quot;Will Helen please give teacher some dy?&quot; or, &quot;Teacher would like to eat some of Helens dy,&quot; 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: &quot;Helen wants to go to bed,&quot; or, &quot;Helen is sleepy, and Helen will go to bed.”

    I am stantly asked the question, &quot;How did you teach her the meaning of words expressive of intellectual and moral qualities?&quot; I believe it was more through association aition than through any explanation of mihis is especially true of her earlier lessons, when her knowledge of language was so slight as to make explanation impossible.

    I always made it a practice to use the words descriptive of emotions, of intellectual or moral qualities and as, in e 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, &quot;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; ALSHT, 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 bination 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 &quot;t-h-i-n-k.&quot; The word, thus ected with the act, seemed to impress itself on her mind much as if I had placed her hand upon an objed then spelled its name. Sihat time she has always used the word THINK.

    At a later period I began to use such words as PERHAPS, SUPPOSE, EXPECT, FET, REMEMBER. If Helen asked, &quot;Where is mother now?&quot; I replied: &quot;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. versations of this kind are frequent: HELEN. What is little boys 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 on 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 expeg Jack, and are waiting for him.

    After the words have bee familiar to her, she uses them in position.

    September 26, [1888].

    &quot;This m 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.

    &quot;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 teag her the use of language, I have not fined myself to any particular theory or system. I have observed the spontaneous movements of my pupils mind, and have tried to follow the suggestions thus given to me.

    Owing to the nervousness of Helens temperament, every precaution has been taken to avoid unduly exg her already very active brain. The greater part of the year has bee in travel and in visits to different places, and her lessons have been those suggested by the various ses and experiehrough which she has passed. She tio mahe same eagero learn as at first. It is never necessary te her to study. Indeed, I am often obliged to coax her to leave an example or a position.

    While not fining myself to any special system of instru, I have tried to add teneral information and intelligeo enlarge her acquaintah things around her, and t her into easy and natural relations with people. I have enced her to keep a diary, from which the followiion has been made: &quot;March 22nd, 1888.

    &quot;Mr. Anagnos came to see me Thursday. I was glad to hug and kiss him. He takes care of sixty little blind  girls ay 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 Nand Adeline and Allie. I will go to ati in May and buy another child.

    Then I will have four children. New babys 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  on the ground. The blue-bird makes her  in a hollow tree and her eggs are blue. The robins 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 e to shoring is here.

    &quot;James killed snipes for breakfast. Little chis 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 a it flowing.

    &quot;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, a his arms around calfs ned kissed her. The calf licked good boys face with lh tongue. Calf must not open mouth much to kiss. I am tired, and teacher does not wao write more.”

    Iumn she went to a circus. While we were standing before his cage the lion roared, and Helehe 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 otion 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 oher 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 camels gait. When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, &quot;I am a very funny camel.”

    During the wo years her Mr. Anagnos, who was in Europe for a year, nor Miss Sullivan wrote anything about Helen Keller for publication. In 1892 appeared the Perkins Institutio for 1891, taining a full at of Helen Keller, including many of her letters, exercises, and positions. As some of the letters and the story of the &quot;Frost King&quot; are published here, there is no need of printing any more samples of Helen Kellers writing during the third, fourth and fifth years of her education. It was the first two years that ted. From Miss Sullivans part of this report I give her most important ents and such biographical matter as does not appear elsewhere in the present volume.

    These extracts Mr. Anagnos took from Miss Sullivans notes and memoranda.

    One day, while her pony and her donkey were standing side by side, Hele from oo the other, examining them closely. At last she paused with her hand upon Neddys head, and addressed him thus: &quot;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 ot help it, and I love you just as well as if you were the most beautiful creature in the world.”

    Helen has beely ied iory of &quot;Black Beauty.&quot; 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: &quot;The horse was an old, worn-out chestnut, with an ill-kept coat, and bohat showed plainly through it; the knees knuckled over, and the fs were very unsteady. I had beeing some hay, and the wind rolled a little lock of it that way, and the poor creature put out her long, thin ned picked it up, and then turned round and looked about for more. There eless look in the dull eye that I could not help notig, 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 vulsively. &quot;It inger,&quot; was all she could say at first. Later, when she was able to talk about it, she said: &quot;Pihe 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 go of her flashing eyes, all the playfulness go of her manner. Oh, how terrible it was! I never knew before that there could be such a ge in anything. There were very few spots of sunshine in pingers life, and the sadnesses were so many!&quot; After a moment she added, mournfully, &quot;I fear some peoples lives are just like Gingers.”

    This m Helen was reading for the first time Bryants poem, &quot;Oh, mother of a mighty race!&quot; I said to her, &quot;Tell me, when you have read the poem through, who you think the mother is.&quot; When she came to the line, &quot;Theres freedom at thy gates, a,&quot; she exclaimed: &quot;It means America! The gate, I suppose, is New York City, and Freedom is the great statue of Liberty.&quot; After she had read &quot;The Battlefield,&quot; by the same author, I asked her which verse she thought was the most beautiful. She replied, &quot;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 worshipers.“

    She is at oransported 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 eveers into the spirit of battle; she says, &quot;I think it is right for men to fight against wrongs and tyrants.”

    Here begins Miss Sullivans ected at in the report of 1891: During the past three years Helen has tio 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 disadvahe danger of unduly severe mental application.

    Her mind is so stituted that she is in a state of feverish u while scious that there is something that she does not prehend. I have never knowo be willing to leave a lesson when she felt that there was anything in it which she did not uand. If I suggest her leaving a problem in arithmetitil the  day, she answers, &quot;I think it will make my mind stroo do it now.”

    A few evenings ago we were discussing the tariff. Helen wanted me to tell her about it. I said: &quot;No. You ot uand it yet.&quot; She was quiet for a moment, and then asked, with spirit: &quot;How do you know that I ot uand? 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 uood some of them.&quot; I have found it best not to tell her that she ot uand, because she is almost certain to bee excited.

    Not long ago I tried to show her how to build a tower with her blocks. As the design was somewhat plicated, the slightest jar made the structure fall. After a time I became disced, 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 determio build the tower herself; and for nearly three hours she worked aatiently gathering up the blocks whehey fell, and beginning ain, until at last her perseverance was ed with success. The tower stood plete in every part.

    Until October, 1889, I had not deemed it best to fine 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 try, where everything was neerplexing; and, until she gained a knowledge of language, it was not possible to give her a definite course of instru.

    Moreover, Helens inquisitiveness was so great during these years that it would have interfered with her progress in the acquisition of language, if a sideration of the questions which were stantly  to her had been deferred until the pletion of a lesson. In all probability she would have fotten the question, and a good opportunity to explain something of real io her would have been lost. Therefore it has always seemed best to me to teaything whenever my pupil o know it, whether it had any bearing on the projected lesson or not, her inquiries have often led us far away from the subjeder immediate sideration.

    Siober, 1889, her work has been mular and has included arithmetic, geography, zoology, botany and reading.

    She has made siderable progress iudy of arithmetic. She readily explains the processes of multiplication, addition, subtra, and division, and seems to uand the operations. She has nearly finished Colbural arithmetic, her last work being in improper fras. 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 correswer 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 uand it. She shook her head decidedly, and said: &quot;My enemies would think I was running away. I must stay and quer them now,&quot; and she did.

    The intellectual improvement which Helen has made in the past two years is shown more clearly in her greater and of language and in her ability tnize 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, PRISE, ENERGY, REPRODU, 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 prehend the more abstruse meanings of the word MYSTERY, but she uood readily that it signified something hidden or cealed, and when she makes greater progress she will grasp its more abstruse meaning as easily as she now does the simpler signification. In iigating any subject there must occur at the beginning words and phrases which ot be adequately uood until the pupil has made siderable adva; 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 e to one anothers 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 Helely 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 uand this or that word I always reply: &quot;Never mind whether she uands each separate word of a sentence or not. She will guess the meanings of the new words from their e with others which are already intelligible to her.”

    Iing books for Helen to read, I have never chosen them with refereo 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 iing, and the English pure and simple. I remember distinctly when she first attempted to read a little story. She had learhe 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 m we caught a mouse, and it occurred to me, with a live mouse and a live cat to stimulate her i, that I might arrange some sentences in such a way as to form a little story, and thus give her a new ception of the use of language. So I put the followiences in the frame, and gave it to Helen: &quot;The cat is on the box. A mouse is in the box. The cat  see the mouse. The cat would like to eat the mouse. Do not let the cat get the mouse. The cat  have some milk, and the mouse  have some cake.&quot; The word THE she did not know, and of course she wished it explained. At that stage of her adva it would have been impossible to explain its use, and so I did not try, but moved her finger on to the  word, which she reized 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 sed sentence, I showed her that there really was a mouse in the box. She then moved her fio the  lih an expression of eager i. &quot;The cat  see the mouse.&quot; Here I made the cat look at the mouse, a Helehe cat. The expression of the little girls tenance showed that she erplexed. 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 aut her on the floor, at the same time c the box with the frame. When she read, &quot;Do not let the cat get the mouse!&quot; she reized the ion in the sentence, and seemed to know that the cat must not get the mouse. GET a 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 uand that she wished aory, and I gave her a book taining 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 vihe most servative of educators that a little deaf child, if given the opportunity, will learn to read as easily and naturally as ordinary children.

    I am vihat Helens 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 relutly. One day as we left the library I noticed that she appeared more serious than usual, and I asked the cause. &quot;I am thinking how much wiser we always are when we leave here than we are when we e,&quot; was her reply.

    When asked why she loved books so much, she once replied: &quot;Because they tell me so much that is iing about things I ot see, and they are ired or troubled like people. They tell me over and over what I want to know.”

    While reading from Diss &quot;Childs History of England,&quot; we came to the sentence, &quot;Still the spirit of the Britons was not broken.&quot; I asked what she thought that meant. She replied, &quot;I think it means that the brave Britons were not disced because the Romans had won so many battles, and they wished all the more to drive them away.&quot; It would not have been possible for her to defihe words in this sentence; a she had caught the authors meaning, and was able to give it in her own words. The  lines are still more idiomatic, &quot;Wheonius left the try, they fell upon his troops aook the island of Anglesea.”

    Here is her interpretation of the sentence: &quot;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 overe 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 learo use the Caligraph typewriter, and writes very correctly, but not rapidly as yet, having had less than a months 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 versation. I have found it a ve medium of unig 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 uands what is said to her.

    It was hoped that one so peculiarly endowed by nature as Helen, would, if left eo her own resources, throw some light upon such psychological questions as were not exhaustively iigated by Dr. Howe; but their hopes were not to be realized. In the case of Helen, as in that of Laura Bridgman, disappoi was iable. 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 Helens case su 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 Helens faculties that it would not be possible to keep her inquisitive spirit for ah of time from reag out toward the unfathomable mysteries of life. But great care has been taken not to lead her thoughts prematurely to the sideration of subjects which perplex and fuse all minds. Children ask profound questions, but they often receive shallow answers, or, to speak more correctly, they are quieted by suswers.

    &quot;Were did I e from?&quot; and &quot;Where shall I go when I die?&quot; were questions Helen asked when she was eight years old. But the explanations which she was able to uand 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, enablio express her own ceptions and ideas clearly, and also to prehend the thoughts and experiences of others, she became acquainted with the limit of humaive power, and perceived that some power, not human, must have created the earth, the sun, and the thousand natural objects with which she erfectly familiar.

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

    Through Charles Kingsleys &quot;Greek Heroes&quot; she had bee familiar with the beautiful stories of the Greek gods and goddesses, and she must have met with the wOD, HEAVEN, SOUL, and a great many similar expressions in books.

    She never asked the meaning of such words, nor made any ent 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 ear Christian, tried to tell her about God but, as this lady did not use words suited to the prehension of the child, they made little impression upon Helens mind. When I subsequently talked with her she said: &quot;I have something very funny to tell you. A. says God made me and every o of sand; but it must be a joke. I am made of flesh and blood and bone, am I not?&quot; Here she examined her arm with evident satisfa, laughiily to herself. After a moment she went on: &quot;A. says God is everywhere, and that He is all love; but I do not think a person  be made out of love. Love is only something in our hearts. Then A. said another very ical 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 explaio her that she was not yet able to uand 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 power of man to aplish. She would say, when speaking of the growth of a plant, &quot;Mother Nature sends the sunshine and the rain to make the trees and the grass and the flrow.&quot; The followiract 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. &quot;I am thinking how very busy dear Mother Nature is in the springtime,&quot; she replied. When asked why, she answered: &quot;Because she has so many children to take care of. She is the mother of everything; the flowers and trees and winds.”

    &quot;How does Mother Nature take care of the flowers?&quot; I asked.

    &quot;She sends the sunshine and rain to make them grow,&quot; Helen replied; and after a moment she added, &quot;I think the sunshine is Natures warm smile, and the raindrops are her tears.”

    Later she said: &quot;I do not know if Mother Nature made me. I think my mot me from heaven, but I do not know where that place is. I know that daisies and pansies e 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 agine who made Mother Nature,  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 fotten 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 tact. She almost overwhelmed me with inquiries which were the natural outgrowth of her quied intelligence.

    Early in May she wrote oablet the following list of questions: &quot;I wish to write about things I do not uand. Who made the earth and the seas, and everything? What makes the sun hot? Where was I before I came to mother? I knolants 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 chis e 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.”

    any one doubt after reading these questions that the child who was capable of asking them was also capable of uanding at least their elementary answers? She could not, of course, have grasped such abstras as a plete ao her questions would involve; but ones whole life is nothing more than a tinual advan the prehension of the meaning and scope of such ideas.

    Throughout Helens education I have invariably assumed that she  uand whatever it is desirable for her to know. Uhere had been in Helens mind some sutellectual 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 y of superhumaive 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, &quot;Who made the REAL world?&quot; I replied, &quot;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 at for their in, and to interpret the great and mysterious forces of nature.”

    She khat the Greeks had many gods to whom they ascribed various powers, because they believed that the sun, the lightning, and a huher natural forces, were indepe and superhuman powers. But after a great deal of thought and study, I told her, men came to believe that all forces were maions of one power, and to that power they gave the name GOD.

    She was very still for a few minutes, evidently thinking early. She then asked, &quot;Who made God?&quot; I was pelled 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: &quot;What did God make the new worlds out of?&quot; &quot;Where did He get the soil, and the water, and the seeds, and the first animals?&quot; &quot;Where is God?&quot; &quot;Did you ever see God?&quot; 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: &quot;Everything does not have life. The rocks have not life, and they ot think.&quot; It is often necessary to remihat there are infinitely many things that the wisest people in the world ot explain.

    No creed ma has been taught to Helen, nor has any effort been made to force religious beliefs upotention. Being fully aware of my own inpeteo give her any adequate explanations of the mysteries whiderlie 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. Phillips Brooks has explaio 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  do so at present without getting a very erroneous ception 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 listeo it.

    When she referred to our versation again, it was to ask, &quot;Why did not Jesus go away, so that His enemies could not find Him?&quot; She thought the miracles of Jesus very strange. When told that Jesus walked on the sea to meet His disciples, she said, decidedly, &quot;It does not mean WALKED, it means SWAM.&quot; When told of the instan which Jesus raised the dead, she was much perplexed, saying, &quot;I did not know life could e bato the dead body!”

    One day she said, sadly: &quot;I am blind and deaf. That is why I ot see God.&quot; I taught her the word INVISIBLE, and told her we could not see God with our eyes, because He irit; but that when our hearts were full of goodness aleness, then we saw Him because then we were more like Him.

    At aime she asked, &quot;What is a soul?&quot; &quot;No one knows what the soul is like,&quot; I replied; &quot;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.&quot; I then asked her, &quot; you think of your soul as separate from your body?&quot; &quot;Oh, yes!&quot; she replied; &quot;because last hour I was thinking very hard of Mr. Anagnos, and then my mind,&quot;--then ging the word--&quot;my soul was in Athens, but my body was here iudy.&quot; At this moment ahought seemed to flash through her mind, and she added, &quot;But Mr. Anagnos did not speak to my soul.&quot; I explaio her that the soul, too, is invisible, or in other words, that it is without apparent form.

    &quot;But if I write what my soul thinks,&quot; she said, &quot;then it will be visible, and the words will be its body.”

    A long time ago Helen said to me, &quot;I would like to live sixteen hundred years.&quot; When asked if she would not like to live ALWAYS in a beautiful try called heaven, her first question was, &quot;Where is heaven?&quot; I was obliged to fess that I did not know, but suggested that it might be on one of the stars. A moment after she said, &quot;Will you please go first and tell me all about it?&quot; and then she added, &quot;Tuscumbia is a very beautiful little town.&quot; 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: &quot;Where is heaven, and what is it like? Why ot we  know as much about heaven as we do about fn tries?&quot; I told her in very simple language that there may be many places called heaven, but that essentially it was a dition--the fulfilment of the hearts desire, the satisfa of its wants; and that heaveed wherever RIGHT was aowledged, believed in, and loved.

    She shrinks from the thought of death with evident dismay. Retly, on being shown a deer which had been killed by her brother, she was greatly distressed, and asked sorrowfully, &quot;Why must everything die, even the fleet-footed deer?&quot; At aime she asked, &quot;Do you not think we would be very much happier always, if we did not have to die?&quot; I said, &quot;No; because, if there were h, our world would soon be so crowded with living creatures that it would be impossible for any of them to live fortably.&quot; &quot;But,&quot; said Helen, quickly, &quot;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: &quot;How do you know, if you have not been dead?”

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

    Haviold that the soul was without form, she was much perplexed at Davids words, &quot;He leadeth my soul.&quot; &quot;Has it feet?  it walk? Is it blind?&quot; 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 ossible to keep this knowledge from her; and it will always be paratively easy to prevent her from ing in personal tact with vid wiess. The fact that sis, and that great misery results from it, dawned gradually upon her mind as she uood more and more clearly the lives and experiences of those arouhe y of laenalties had to be explaio her. She found it very hard to recile the presence of evil in the world with the idea of God which had beeed to her mind.

    One day she asked, &quot;Does God take care of us all the time?&quot; She was answered in the affirmative. &quot;Then why did He let little sister fall this m９９lｉb?, and hurt her head so badly?&quot; Aime 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, &quot;Why did not God save the people if He  do all things?”

    Surrounded by loving friends and the ge influences, as Helen had always been, she has, from the earliest stage of her intellectual enlighte, willingly dht. 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 sequence, and of another as not inteo 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 Ameri Association to Promote the Teag of Speech to the Deaf, tain her latest written at of her methods.

    You must not imagihat 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 &quot;her mental faculties emerged, full armed, from their then living tomb, as Pallas Athene from the head of Zeus,&quot; as one of her enthusiastic admirers would have us believe. At first, the words, phrases aences which she used in expressihoughts were all reprodus of what we had used in versation with her, and which her memory had unsciously retained. And ihis is true of the language of all children. Their language is the memory of the language they hear spoken in their homes. tless repetition of the versation of daily life has impressed certain words and phrases upon their memories, and when they e 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 needs and experiences. At first my little pupils mind was all but vat.

    She had been living in a world she could not realize. LANGUAGE and KNOWLEDGE are indissolubly ected; they are interdepe. 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 oo another, I proceeded to awaken her further i in the OBJECTS whose names she learo spell with such evident joy. I AUGHT LANGUAGE FOR THE PURPOSE OF TEAG IT; but invariably used language as a medium for the unication of THOUGHT; thus the learning of language was T 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 fluenless they have something clearly in their minds which they wish to unicate, 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 fine my pupil to any system. I always tried to find out what ied her most, and made that the starting-point for the new lesson, whether it had any bearing on the lesson I had plao 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 bees 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 ot help it.

    Helen acquired language by practid habit rather than by study of rules and definitions. Grammar with its puzzling array of classifications, nomenclatures, and paradigms, was wholly discarded in her education. She learned language by being brought in tact with the LIVING language itself; she was made to deal with it in everyday versation, 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 stantly than I should have doh my mouth; for had she possessed the use of sight and hearing, she would have been less depe on me for eai and instru.

    I believe every child has hidden away somewhere in his being noble capacities which may be quied 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 tio 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 ditions.

    They require guidand sympathy far more than instru.

    I think much of the fluency with which Helen uses language is due to the fact that nearly every impression which she receives es through the medium of language. But after due allowance has been made for Helens natural aptitude for acquiring language, and for the advantage resulting from her peculiar enviro, I think that we shall still find that the stant panionship of good books has been of supreme importan her education. It may be true, as some maintain, that language ot express to us much beyond what we have lived and experienced; but I have always observed that children mahe greatest delight in the lofty, poetiguage which we are too ready to think beyond their prehension.

    &quot;This is all you will uand,&quot; said a teacher to a class of little children, closing the book which she had  been reading to them. &quot;Oh, please read us the rest, even if we wont uand it,&quot; they pleaded, delighted with the rhythm, and the beauty which they felt, even though they could not have explai. It is not necessary that a child should uand every word in a book before he  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 uand, and it remained in her mind until needed, when it fitted itself naturally and easily into her versation and positions. Indeed, it is maintained by some that she reads too much, that a great deal inative 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 vihat inal position without the preparation of much reading is an impossibility. Helen has had the best and purest models in language stantly preseo her, and her versation and her writing are unscious reprodus of what she has read. Reading, I think, should be kept indepe of the regular school exercises. Children should be enced to read for the pure delight of it. The attitude of the child toward his books should be that of unscious receptivity. The great works of the imagination ought to bee a 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 he fi lines are reproduced. Helen has the vitality of feeling, the freshness and eagerness of i, and the spiritual insight of the artistic temperament, and naturally she has 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 onplace to her; for her imagination colours all life with its own rich hues.

    There has been much discussion of suiss Sullivans 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 Kellers education, however, is so fually a question of language teag that it rather includes the problems of the deaf than limits itself to the deaf aloeachers  draw their own clusions. For the majority of readers, who will not approach Miss Kellers life from the educators point of view, I will summarize a few principal things in Miss Sullivahods.

    Miss Sullivan has begun where Dr. Howe left off. He ied the instrument, the physical means of w, but the teag of language is quite ahing from the meical means by which language may be taught. By experiment, by studying other children, Miss Sullivan came upon the practical way of teag language by the natural method. It was for this &quot;natural method&quot; 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 uand. And this is Miss Sullivans great discovery. All day long in their play-time and work-time Miss Sulliva spelling into her pupils 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 utterahus he learns that words hings and as and feelings. Now, that is the first principle in Miss Sullivahod, ohat had practical results, and one which, so far as I  discover, had never been put in practi 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 sed principle in her method (the numerical order is, of course, arbitrary) is o talk to the child about things distasteful or wearisome to him. In the first deaf siss 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 ied in?

    Akin to this idea of talking to the child about what is him, is the principle o silence a child who asks questions, but to ahe questions as truly as possible; for, says Miss Sullivan, the question is the door to the childs mind. Miss Sullivan never needlessly belittled her ideas or expressions to suit the supposed state of the childs intelligence. She urged every oo speak to Helen naturally, to give her full sentences and  intelligent ideas, never minding whether Helen uood or not. Thus Miss Sullivan knew what so many people do not uand, 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 veys arue, single words do suggest and express ideas; the child may say simply &quot;mamma&quot; when he means &quot;Where is mamma?&quot; but he learns the expression of the ideas that relate to mamma--he learns language--by hearing plete sentences. And though Miss Sullivan did not frammatical pleteness upon the first finger-lispings of her pupil, yet when she herself repeated Heleence, &quot;mamma milk,&quot; she filled out the stru, pleted the childs ellipsis and said, &quot;Mamma will bring Helen some milk.”

    Thus Miss Sullivan was w out a natural method, which is so simple, so lag in artificial system, that her method seems rather to be a destru of method. It is doubtful if we should have heard of Helen Keller if Miss Sullivan had not beehere were other children. By watg them, she learo treat her pupil as nearly as possible like an ordinary child.

    The manual alphabet was not the only means of presenting words to Helen Kellers fingers. Books supplemented, perhaps equaled in importahe manual alphabet, as a means of teag language. Helen sat p 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 text, in their position with refereo words known, added to Helens 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 uands, but by reading and remembering words he does not uand. And though perhaps few children will have as much precocious i in books as did Helen Keller, yet the natural curiosity of every healthy child may be turo printed pages, especially if the teacher is clever and plays a wame 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 &quot;Wilhelm Tell&quot; and mao 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, o hearing the language spoken, the way for any oo get a fn 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: &quot;Often I found her, when she had a little leisure, sitting in her favourite er, in a chair whose arms supported the big volume prepared for the blind, and passing her finger slowly over the lines of Molieres Le Mede Malgre Lui, chug to herself at the ical situations and humorous lines. At that time her actual w 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 seogether 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 Kellers aptitude for language is her whole mental aptitude, turo language because of its extraordinary value to her.

    There have been many discussions of the questioher Helen Kellers 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 Sullivans genius could not have made a pupil so remarkable as Helen Keller out of a child born dull aally defit. 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 teag language to the deaf the essential principles of which are clearly expressed in Miss Sullivaers, written while she was disc the method and putting it successfully into practice. And it  be applied by any teacher to ahy deaf child, and in the broadest interpretation of the principles,  be applied to the teag 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 benius in Helen Keller, or a perfect method ieacher. Both things may be true at once, and there is aruth which makes the dilemma imperfect. Miss Sullivan is a person of extraordinary power. Her method might not succeed so pletely in the hands of any one else. Miss Sullivans vigorous, inal mind has lent much of its vitality to her pupil. If Miss Keller is fond of language and not ied especially in mathematics, it is not surprising to find Miss Sullivans is very similar.

    And this does not mean that Miss Keller is unduly depe oeacher. It is told of her that, as a child of eight, when some oried to interfere with her, she sat sober a few moments, and, when asked what was the trouble, answered, &quot;I am preparing to assert my independence.&quot; Su aggressive personality ot grow up in mere dependence even uhe guidance of a will like Miss Sullivans. But Miss Sullivan by her &quot;natural aptitude&quot; has done for her pupil much that is not capable of analysis aion 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 &quot;marvel of sweetness and goodness,&quot; if she has a love &quot;of all things good aiful,&quot; 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 whio other teacher  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 aeacher, living under favourable ditions, among plenty of external is, unseparated from her pupil allowed to have a free hand, and using as many as she needs 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  be taught. And the oo do it is the parent or the special teacher, not the school. I know that this idea will be vigorously bated by those who duct 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 o be taught is what other children learn before they go to school at all.

    When Miss Sulliva out in the barnyard and picked up a little chi and talked to Helen about it, she was giving a kind of instrupossible inside four walls, and impossible with more than one pupil at a time.

    Surely Dr. Howe is wrong when he says, &quot;A teacher ot be a child.&quot; That is just what the teacher of the deaf child must be, a child ready to play and romp, and ied in all childish things.

    The temptation to discuss, solely in the light of Helen Keller, the whole matter of edug 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 reinfore of the main ideas expressed by Miss Sullivan, who is an authority. It is a questioher Helen Kellers success has not led teachers to expeuch of other children, and I know of deaf-blind children who are dragged along by their teachers and friends, and bee the subjects of glowis, which are pathetically untrue, because one sees behind the reports how the childreugged at t them somewhere he 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 een  months experience of sight and sound. This meant some mental development. She had ied 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 depe on signs, Helens tendency to gesture developed. How far she could receive unications is hard to determine, but she knew much that was going on around her. She reized that others used their lips; she &quot;saw&quot; her father reading a paper and when he laid it dow in his chair ahe paper before her face. Her early rages were an unhappy expression of the natural force of character whistru was to turn into trained and anized power.

    It was, then, to a good subject that Miss Sullivan brought her devotion and intelligence, and fearless willio experiment. Miss Sullivahods were so good that even without the practical result, any one would reize the truth of the teachers ideas. Miss Sullivan has in addition a vigorous personality. And finally all the ditions were good for that first nature school, in which the teacher and pupil played together, expl together and edug themselves, pupil and teacher inseparable.

    Miss Kellers later education is easy to uand and needs no further explanation than she has given. Those ied 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.

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