Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/77

Rh publishcd in his 'American Notes,' that Mrs. Keller became acquainted with the possibilities of education for one in Helen's position; and on March 3, 1887, Miss Sullivan came to Tuscumbia from the Perkins Institution in Boston—where Laura Bridgman lived—to take charge of Helen Keller. The first approaches to a mutual understanding between pupil and teacher were naturally dependent upon the utilization of the primitive sign language to which we all resort, with a success proportionate to our ingenuity, when thrown among those whose language we do not understand. Of this meeting Miss Sullivan wrote at the time: "She felt my face and dress and my bag, which she took out of my hand and tried to open. It did not open easily, and she felt carefully to see if there was a key-hole. Finding that there was, she turned to me, making the sign of turning a key and pointing to the bag." Later they went upstairs together and there, says Miss Sullivan: "I opened the bag, and she went through it eagerly, probably to find something to eat. Friends had probably brought her candy in their bags, and she expected to find some in mine. I made her understand by pointing to a trunk in the hall and to myself and nodding my head that I had a trunk, and then made the sign which she had used for eating and nodded again. She understood in a flash and ran downstairs to tell her mother by means of emphatic signs that there was some candy in the trunk for her." Miss Sullivan records a further instance of the child's spontaneous signs. "She had signs for small and large long before I came to her. If she wanted a small object and was given a large one she would shake her head and take up a tiny bit of the skin of one hand between the thumb and finger of the other. If she wanted to indicate something large, she spread the fingers of both hands as wide as she could, and brought them together, as if to clasp a big ball."

These instances are suggestive of the considerable range of perceptions and activities that even a deaf-blind child can acquire without the use of words. The concentration point of Miss Sullivan's efforts was the revelation to the 'infant' mind of the existence and the potency of a word. The humble instruments thereof were a doll and a piece of cake. The doll was given to the child and the deaf-mute signs for 'd-o-l-l' made by Miss Sullivan in the child's hand.

"She looked puzzled and felt my hand, and I repeated the letters. She imitated them very well and pointed to the doll. Then I took the doll from her, meaning to give it back to her when she had made the letters; but she thought I meant to take it from her, and in an instant she was in a temper and tried to seize the doll. I shook my head and tried to form the letters with her fingers; but she got more and more angry. . . . I let her go but refused to give up the doll. I went downstairs and got some cake (she is very fond of sweets). I