It was Alexander Graham Bell who advised Helen’s parents to contact the Perkins Institute for Blind for her education. It was the institute where Laura Bridgman, a deaf and blind child had been educated. It was located in South Boston. Michael Anaganos, the director, asked former student Anne Sullivan to become Keller’s instructor. Miss Sullivan herself was visually impaired.
Helen made friends with the litle blind children. It was a unique pleasure to talk with other blind children in her own language. Until then she had been speaking through an interpreter like a foreigner. All the eager and loving children gathered round her and joined heartily in her frolics. They could read the books with their fingers. They were so happy and contented that she lost all sense of pain in the pleasure of their companionship. With the blind children she felt thoroughly at home in her new environment.
Helen learnt to speak in the spring of 1890. The impulse to utter audible sounds had always been strong within her. Mrs. Lamson, who had been one of Laura Bridgeman’s teachers came to see Helen. She had taught a deaf and blind child to speak in Norway. Helen resolved that she would learn to speak. Miss Fuller offered to teach her and gave eleven lessons in all. Her first connected sentence was, ‘‘It is warm.’’
