How well this noble and devoted teacher has succeeded in her work is amply evidenced by the brilliancy and thoroughness of her pupil’s attainments.

Miss Sullivan’s method of instruction was similar to that adopted by Dr. Samuel G. Howe in teaching Laura Bridgman. She used the manual alphabet, and cards bearing, in raised letters, the names of objects. At first, the pupil violently resisted the teacher’s efforts to instruct her, and so determined was her opposition, Miss Sullivan declares, that, if she had not exercised physical force and a determination even more strenuous than that of her refractory pupil, she would never have succeeded in teaching her anything. Night and day she was at her side, watching for the first gleam of conscious mind; and at length, after seven weeks of what she says was the hardest work she had ever done, the faithful teacher received her reward in the sudden dawning of the child’s intelligence. All at once, the light seemed to burst in upon her wondering soul; she understood then that the raised letters which she felt on the cards and the groups of manual signs on her hands, represented words, or the names of familiar objects. The delight of the pupil and teacher was unbounded, and from that moment Helen’s education, though still demanding the greatest patience and loving care on the part of her teacher, was a comparatively easy matter.

With the awakening of her intellectual faculties, she seemed literally to have been “born again.” The stubborn, headstrong, self-willed, almost unmanageable child became patient, gentle and obedient; and, instead of resisting instruction, her eagerness to learn was so great that it had to be restrained. So rapid was her progress that, in a few weeks, anyone who knew the manual alphabet could easily communicate with her, and in July, 1887, less than a year from the time Miss Sullivan first saw her, she could write an intelligent letter.