Schooling and Teachers

The Perkins School for the blind sent Anne Sullivan on March 3, 1887 to help the beleaguered Keller family deal and help teach Helen. Anne Sullivan was born on April 14, 1866, in Agawam, Massachusetts. She was not deaf but had extremely poor eye sight though she wasn’t completely blind. Anne herself was a graduate of the Perkins school where she had also obtained teacher training. When she met Helen, Anne struggled to find a way to communicate with the child. She was, however, able to sign words into Helens palms. Even with signing, Anne was still at a loss, because it just wasn’t clicking for Helen. Then one day while signing the word water to Helen, Anne put Helens other hand under a running water pump and everything just clicked. That day Anne was able to teach Helen 30 more words. But Helen was satisfied with just learning words, she also wanted to learn how to read and write. So Anne taught Helen Braille and using a ruler and having Helen feel the letters then signing them into her hands taught her the English alphabet. Then Anne Taught Helen to write the letters by using a ruler and drawing block letters. Thus Helen learned to not only communicate but also read and write. (“Helen Keller Biography”)
The next part in Helen’s learning process came when she was invited by the Head Master of the Perkins Institute for the blind, Michael Anagnos, to be a guest at the school. Helen became a celebrity at the school, but after people saw what she could do some scrutinized her and called her a phony. People couldn’t believe that she could read and write as well as she could and some thought she wasn’t as deaf or as blind as everyone believed. Her critics were rewarded, when a story written by Helen called “The Frost King”, was published by Michael Anagnos in a Newspaper Magazine; the story had the exact same plot line as a story written by Margaret Canby “The Frost Fairies”. Helen couldn’t explain how this had happened and Anne attributed it to her confusion earlier on in her childhood when she might have been read the story. Anagnos wasn’t as sympathetic and asked the two to leave the institute thus ending Helen and Anagnos’s short lived friendship. Thus they decided to make the trip back south until Helen was old enough to go into a proper school. (“Helen Keller Biography”)
When Helen was 13 she moved with Anne to New York to attend the Wrights Humason School for the deaf. She was the only person in attendance that was both deaf and blind. John D Wright and Dr Thomas Humason, who were professors at the school, started instructing Helen on how to speak with the help of Anne. This pleased Helen a lot, because she yearned to be able to communicate with people on her own, without the help of Anne. In the meantime, Anne attended classes with Helen and signed to her everything the professors wrote and gave to the class for reading. Helen progressed extremely quickly and excelled at any subject that was taught to her. (“Helen Keller Biography”)
In 1896, in preparation for college, Helen went to the Cambridge School for young ladies. The director Arthur Gilman promised that the school would help Helen with her College entry exams. He was correct, Helen was admitted to She was admitted to Radcliff College in 1899 a sister college to Harvard University, which was all males at the time. Helen, like always, excelled in her studies which included learning different languages such as French, German, and Latin. Helen also enjoyed the extracurricular activities that the school offered such as horse back riding and chess, which she learned by feeling both the board and pieces and having Anne sign the rules to her. Helen also enjoyed reading, but at the time there weren’t many books available in Braille, so Anne would read the book and sign to Helen what she read. Although Helen could handle the large work load, Anne could not; the work load did permanent damage to her eyesight. But among the small dark spots of college, Helen and Anne had many accomplishments. They met and befriended many famous people such as Mark Twain, author of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After meeting Mark Twain, Helen was inspired to write a book which was The Story of My Life, published in 1903, and edited by future husband of Anne Sullivan, John Albert Macy. The book sold extremely poorly at first, but later on become a best seller, and was translated into over 50 languages. Helen dedicated the book to her good friend Alexander Graham Bell, who she owed her entire education to. Alexander Graham Bell didn’t only effect Helens life he also helped the entire deaf community when he set up the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf awhile back in 1888. His dedication and care was so great that he actually married a deaf woman named Mabel. Soon after writing the book, Helen graduated on, 28, June 1904 from Radcliffe College. In doing so she became the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. (“Helen Keller Kids Museum”)

Helen, Anne, and Mark Twain