Page 260 - The Story of My Lif

there did not help Miss Sullivan, and Mr. Anagnos did not even use the manual

alphabet with facility as a means of communication. Mr. Anagnos wrote in the
report of the Perkins Institution, dated November 27, 1888: “At my urgent
request, Helen, accompanied by her mother and her teacher, came to the North in
the last week of May, and spent several months with us as our guests…. We
gladly allowed her to use freely our library of embossed books, our collection of
stuffed animals, sea-shells, models of flowers and plants, and the rest of our
apparatus for instructing the blind through the sense of touch. I do not doubt that
she derived from them much pleasure and not a little profit. But whether Helen
stays at home or makes visits in other parts of the country, her education is
always under the immediate direction and exclusive control of her teacher. No
one interferes with Miss Sullivan’s plans, or shares in her tasks.

She has been allowed entire freedom in the choice of means and methods for
carrying on her great work; and, as we can judge by the results, she has made a
most judicious and discreet use of this privilege. What the little pupil has thus far
accomplished is widely known, and her wonderful attainments command general
admiration; but only those who are familiar with the particulars of the grand
achievement know that the credit is largely due to the intelligence, wisdom,
sagacity, unremitting perseverance and unbending will of the instructress, who
rescued the child from the depths of everlasting night and stillness, and watched

over the different phases of her mental and moral development with maternal
solicitude and enthusiastic devotion.”

Here follow in order Miss Sullivan’s letters and the most important passages
from the reports. I have omitted from each succeeding report what has already
been explained and does not need to be repeated. For the ease of the reader I

have, with Miss Sullivan’s consent, made the extracts run together continuously
and supplied words of connection and the resulting necessary changes in syntax,
and Miss Sullivan has made slight changes in the phrasing of her reports and
also of her letters, which were carelessly written. I have also italicized a few
important passages. Some of her opinions Miss Sullivan would like to enlarge
and revise. That remains for her to do at another time.

At present we have here the fullest record that has been published. The first
letter is dated March 6, 1887, three days after her arrival in Tuscumbia.