Page 32 - English Reader - 7

At last, the family decided to get some help and contacted Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of
the telephone. He was working with deaf children at that time. Mr Bell suggested the family to hire
a young woman named Anne Sullivan as an instructor to the little girl.

Anne Sullivan, who was 20 years old at that time, was herself visually
impaired. She became Keller’s instructor. It was the beginning of a
49-year-long relationship.
Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller’s house in March 1887, and
immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by
spelling words into her hand, beginning with d-o-l-l for
the doll that she had brought for Keller as a present.
Keller’s big breakthrough in communication
came the following month.

One day, Anne led Helen to the water
pump and pumped water on her hand. She
spelled the letters W-A-T-E-R as the water
ran over Helen’s hand. She did this over
and over again. At last it dawned on Helen
that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand while running cool water over her
other hand symbolised the idea of “water”.

This opened up a whole new world for her and then, there was no stopping her, Helen nearly
exhausted her teacher, demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world and Anne
would patiently spell the words in her hand. This was the key which, at last, unlocked the world for
her.
This method was a wonderful means of communication for Helen and by her eighth birthday, she
became famous. Mark Twain befriended her and called her The Miracle Worker.

When she grew older, Helen Keller got admission to Radcliffe College, and Miss Sullivan went with
her to the college and tapped out the words of the instructors into her student’s hand. Thus, by
means of spelling out lectures into her palms by her teacher, Helen obtained a degree. She was the
first deaf and blind person to graduate from college.
Helen wrote her autobiography, entitled “The Story of My Life” while she was still in college. The
book became a big hit. And, with the money she earned from the book, she was able to buy a house.

Helen learned to read Braille, a system of raised dots representing letters which help blind people to
read by feeling the dots.

Helen’s remarkable memory and amazing skills helped her communicate with people in unusual
ways. She could put her fingers to a person’s lips and understand the words which were being
spoken. She even learned to speak by pressing her fingers against Sullivan’s throat and imitating the
vibrations.

Her tremendous determination not to let her disability stand in her way helped her to enjoy music
and even dance! By feeling the violin’s vibrations, she could tell which composer’s music was being
played and she learnt to dance by feeling the vibrations of the music.

30