HELEN KELLER’S FRIEND.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1932, Page 17 (Supplement)

HELEN KELLER’S FRIEND.

When, last year, Helen Keller was given, an honorary degree rt Temple University in America- it-was hoped, that her friend and. teacher, Mrs. Anne Macy, would Also accept a degree. But •he declined, saying that she did not feel her education called for such an honour.

Those who know her story -know otherwise, and they will be glad to hear that- she has beeu persuaded to visit Temple. University and receive the highest honour it- can award her.

Her story is linked with that of Helen Keller, the scholar who is both blind and deaf, and who, but for Aline Macy, would also be dumb. When Helen was seve., An.r: Sullivan was '2O, doing splendid work at th© Boston Institute for the Blind. It was Dr. Graham Bell who suggested that Helen’s father should write to the institute for « teacher. Anne Sitllivan was sent, and she found a small unruly girl, blind and deaf and dumb. ’ In a month Helen knew 30 words, taught by the touch of the older girl’s- fingers. Then came the more difficult task of combining words.

One day Anne tried to teach the child that water was in her mug. She knew

tho word mug, but did not understand the rest. In despair Anne led her pupil into the garden, and there she had the idea of sprinkling water from the pump on the child’s hand. Again she spelled out w-a-t-e-r,with her finger-tips, and suddenly the child understood. From that day the little sullen girl has been alive with eager curiosity. When she was eight Anne achieved the impossible by teaching the blind and deaf child to epeak. Pressing her sensitive finger-tips to tho throat of her teacher Helen the sounds, first Of consonants, then vowels and syllables. • Since that day Helen Keller has talked to many of the greatest scholars in the world, and they have been proud to listen to her. She has mastered more knowledge than most women, and she has written books -which have put heart and courage into lives vastly less handicapped than her own. And this is the dedication in her latest book: To Anne Sullivan, whose love is the story of my life. It was when they were preparing Helen Keller’s first book for press that Anne Sullivan met John Macy—and she married him. It was Helen Keller who : insisted on her accepting the tribute from Temple University