Keller, Helen Adams

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

Helen Adams (1880-), a remarkable blind deaf-mute, who, in spite of her limitations, has acquired an excellent education and no little reputation as a writer. She was born in Tuscambia, Alabama. At the age of nineteen months she had scarlet fever , which left her blind and deaf. No effort was made to educate her until she was about seven years old, when Miss Anna Sullivan, of the Perkins Institution of Boston, became her teacher. She began by winning the child's interest and affection. The first word the little girl learned was "water," traced in the palm of her hand by her teacher whenever she drank water. When Helen realized what this meant--that the lines traced in her hand stood for that which quenched her thirst--the first great step was taken. After this her progress was rapid. Although she had been somewhat wayward and selfwilled, she became most tractable, her eagerness for knowledge outweighing everything else. She learned to read and write and to use the finger alphabet. Then she determined to learn to talk. Sarah Fuller, of the Horace Mann School of New York , became her teacher. The pupil was made to place her hand on her teacher's throat while the teacher spoke; then placing her hand on her own throat, Helen would try to imitate the sound, her delicate sense of touch enabling her to know when she was right. In less than a month, incredible as it seems, she had learned to talk intelligibly. Later Miss Keller attended the Wright Humason School, then the Cambridge School, and in 1900 entered Radcliffe College . She has written many magazine articles, and an account of her education in The Story of My Life.