The Story of My Life
people to be good." He put her answer down in his note book. When it
was time for the church service to begin, she was in such a state of
excitement that I thought it best to take her away; but Captain Keller
said, "No, she will be all right." So there was nothing to do but stay.
It was impossible to keep Helen quiet. She hugged and kissed me, and the
quiet-looking divine who sat on the other side of her. He gave her his
watch to play with; but that didn't keep her still. She wanted to show
it to the little boy in the seat behind us. When the communion service
began, she smelt the wine, and sniffed so loud that every one in the
church could hear. When the wine was passed to our neighbour, he was
obliged to stand up to prevent her taking it away from him. I never was
so glad to get out of a place as I was to leave that church! I tried
to hurry Helen out-of-doors, but she kept her arm extended, and every
coat-tail she touched must needs turn round and give an account of the
children he left at home, and receive kisses according to their number.
Everybody laughed at her antics, and you would have thought they were
leaving a place of amusement rather than a church. Captain Keller
invited some of the ministers to dinner. Helen was irrepressible. She
described in the most animated pantomime, supplemented by spelling, what
she was going to do in Brewster. Finally she got up from the table and
went through the motion of picking seaweed and shells, and splashing
in the water, holding up her skirts higher than was proper under the
circumstances. Then she threw herself on the floor and began to swim
so energetically that some of us thought we should be kicked out of our
chairs! Her motions are often more expressive than any words, and she is
as graceful as a nymph.
I wonder if the days seem as interminable to you as they do to me. We
talk and plan and dream about nothing but Boston, Boston, Boston. I
think Mrs. Keller has definitely decided to go with us, but she will not
stay all summer.
May 15, 1888.
Do you realize that this is the last letter I shall write to you for
a long, long time? The next word that you receive from me will be in a
yellow envelope, and it will tell you when we shall reach Boston. I
am too happy to write letters; but I must tell you about our visit to
Cincinnati.
We spent a delightful week with the "doctors." Dr. Keller met us in
Memphis. Almost every one on the train was a physician, and Dr. Keller
seemed to know them all. When we reached Cincinnati, we found the place
full of doctors. There were several prominent Boston physicians among
them. We stayed at the Burnet House. Everybody was delighted with Helen.
All the learned men marveled at her intelligence and gaiety. There
is something about her that attracts people. I think it is her joyous
interest in everything and everybody.
Wherever she went she was the centre of interest. She was delighted
with the orchestra at the hotel, and whenever the music began she danced
round the room, hugging and kissing every one she happened to touch. Her
happiness impressed all; nobody seemed to pity her. One gentleman said
to Dr. Keller, "I have lived long and seen many happy faces; but I have
never seen such a radiant face as this child's before to-night." Another
said, "Damn me! but I'd give everything I own in the world to have
that little girl always near me." But I haven't time to write all the
pleasant things people said--they would make a very large book, and
the kind things they did for us would fill another volume. Dr. Keller
distributed the extracts from the report that Mr. Anagnos sent me, and
he could have disposed of a thousand if he had had them. Do you remember
Dr. Garcelon, who was Governor of Maine several years ago? He took us to
drive one afternoon, and wanted to give Helen a doll; but she said: "I
do not like too many children. Nancy is sick, and Adeline is cross, and
Ida is very bad." We laughed until we cried, she was so serious about
it. "What would you like, then?" asked the Doctor. "Some beautiful
gloves to talk with," she answered. The Doctor was puzzled. He had never
heard of "talking-gloves"; but I explained that she had seen a glove
on which the alphabet was printed, and evidently thought they could be
bought. I told him he could buy some gloves if he wished, and that I
would have the alphabet stamped on them.
We lunched with Mr. Thayer (your former pastor) and his wife. He asked
me how I had taught Helen adjectives and the names of abstract ideas
like goodness and happiness. These same questions had been asked me
a hundred times by the learned doctors. It seems strange that people
should marvel at what is really so simple. Why, it is as easy to teach
the name of an idea, if it is clearly formulated in the child's mind, as
to teach the name of an object. It would indeed be a herculean task to
teach the words if the ideas did not already exist in the child's mind.
If his experiences and observations hadn't led him to the concepts,
SMALL, LARGE, GOOD, BAD, SWEET, SOUR, he would have nothing to attach
the word-tags to.
I, little ignorant I, found myself explaining to the wise men of the
East and the West such simple things as these: If you give a child
something sweet, and he wags his tongue and smacks his lips and looks
pleased, he has a very definite sensation; and if, every time he has
this experience, he hears the word SWEET, or has it spelled into his
hand, he will quickly adopt this arbitrary sign for his sensation.
Likewise, if you put a bit of lemon on his tongue, he puckers up his
lips and tries to spit it out; and after he has had this experience a
few times, if you offer him a lemon, he shuts his mouth and makes faces,
clearly indicating that he remembers the unpleasant sensation. You label
it SOUR, and he adopts your symbol. If you had called these sensations
respectively BLACK and WHITE, he would have adopted them as readily; but
he would mean by BLACK and WHITE the same things that he means by SWEET
and SOUR. In the same way the child learns from many experiences to
differentiate his feelings, and we name them for him--GOOD, BAD, GENTLE,
ROUGH, HAPPY, SAD. It is not the word, but the capacity to experience
the sensation that counts in his education.
This extract from one of Miss Sullivan's letters is added because it
contains interesting casual opinions stimulated by observing the methods
of others.
We visited a little school for the deaf. We were very kindly received,
and Helen enjoyed meeting the children. Two of the teachers knew the
manual alphabet, and talked to her without an interpreter. They were
astonished at her command of language. Not a child in the school, they
said, had anything like Helen's facility of expression, and some of them
had been under instruction for two or three years. I was incredulous
at first; but after I had watched the children at work for a couple
of hours, I knew that what I had been told was true, and I wasn't
surprised. In one room some little tots were standing before the
blackboard, painfully constructing "simple sentences." A little girl
had written: "I have a new dress. It is a pretty dress. My mamma made my
pretty new dress. I love mamma." A curly-headed little boy was writing:
"I have a large ball. I like to kick my large ball." When we entered the
room, the children's attention was riveted on Helen. One of them pulled
me by the sleeve and said, "Girl is blind." The teacher was writing on
the blackboard: "The girl's name is Helen. She is deaf. She cannot see.
We are very sorry." I said: "Why do you write those sentences on the
board? Wouldn't the children understand if you talked to them
about Helen?" The teacher said something about getting the correct
construction, and continued to construct an exercise out of Helen. I
asked her if the little girl who had written about the new dress was
particularly pleased with her dress. "No," she replied, "I think not;
but children learn better if they write about things that concern them
personally." It seemed all so mechanical and difficult, my heart ached
for the poor little children. Nobody thinks of making a hearing child
say, "I have a pretty new dress," at the beginning. These children
were older in years, it is true, than the baby who lisps, "Papa kiss
baby--pretty," and fills out her meaning by pointing to her new dress;
but their ability to understand and use language was no greater.
There was the same difficulty throughout the school. In every classroom
I saw sentences on the blackboard, which evidently had been written to
illustrate some grammatical rule, or for the purpose of using words that
had previously been taught in the same, or in some other connection.
This sort of thing may be necessary in some stages of education; but it
isn't the way to acquire language. NOTHING, I THINK, CRUSHES THE
CHILD'S IMPULSE TO TALK NATURALLY MORE EFFECTUALLY THAN THESE BLACKBOARD
EXERCISES. The schoolroom is not the place to teach any young child
language, least of all the deaf child. He must be kept as unconscious as
the hearing child of the fact that he is learning words,AND HE SHOULD BE
ALLOWED TO PRATTLE ON HIS FINGERS, OR WITH HIS PENCIL, IN MONOSYLLABLES
IF HE CHOOSES, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS HIS GROWING INTELLIGENCE DEMANDS THE
SENTENCE. Language should not be associated in his mind with endless
hours in school, with puzzling questions in grammar, or with anything
that is an enemy to joy. But I must not get into the habit of
criticizing other people's methods too severely. I may be as far from
the straight road as they.
Miss Sullivan's second report brings the account down to October 1st,
1888.
During the past year Helen has enjoyed excellent health. Her eyes and
ears have been examined by specialists, and it is their opinion that she
cannot have the slightest perception of either light or sound.
It is impossible to tell exactly to what extent the senses of smell and
taste aid her in gaining information respecting physical qualities; but,
according to eminent authority, these senses do exert a great influence
on the mental and moral development. Dugald Stewart says, "Some of the
most significant words relating to the human mind are borrowed from the
sense of smell; and the conspicuous place which its sensations occupy in
the poetical language of all nations shows how easily and naturally they
ally themselves with the refined operations of the fancy and the moral
emotions of the heart." Helen certainly derives great pleasure from
the exercise of these senses. On entering a greenhouse her countenance
becomes radiant, and she will tell the names of the flowers with which
she is familiar, by the sense of smell alone. Her recollections of the
sensations of smell are very vivid. She enjoys in anticipation the
scent of a rose or a violet; and if she is promised a bouquet of these
flowers, a peculiarly happy expression lights her face, indicating that
in imagination she perceives their fragrance, and that it is pleasant to
her. It frequently happens that the perfume of a flower or the flavour
of a fruit recalls to her mind some happy event in home life, or a
delightful birthday party.
Her sense of touch has sensibly increased during the year, and has
gained in acuteness and delicacy. Indeed, her whole body is so finely
organized that she seems to use it as a medium for bringing herself
into closer relations with her fellow creatures. She is able not only to
distinguish with great accuracy the different undulations of the air and
the vibrations of the floor made by various sounds and motions, and to
recognize her friends and acquaintances the instant she touches their
hands or clothing, but she also perceives the state of mind of those