686 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
does not have the sensation of visual beauty. I do not know of a 
person born blind who has formed a precise idea of the beauty of a 
countenance, of a landscape, or of a statue, and I recognize that 
what he lacks here is very considerable. Many powerful emotions 
are denied him. But his loss can not properly be called intellectual. 
These relations do not give birth to any clear and distinct idea. 
They arouse only subjective impressions. When we speak of a 
blind artist, it is necessary to notice this capital defect, but in the 
study of his intelligence it is of little consequence. 
I believe that I have enumerated all the blanks in mentioning light, 
color, physical beauty, and adding thereto perspective, which mani- 
festly is connected with the function of sight alone. These defects 
are found only among those blind from birth and those individuals 
who have been affected at a very early age, which is not ordinarily 
the case. Only allow one a few years and he will acquire all these 
notions, and to the end of his life his memory will reproduce them 
in the darkness. 
‘Let it be granted, then, that nearly all ideas can find lodgment in 
the brain of a blind person. But, it will be said, if it be not impos- 
sible for a blind man to conceive them, at all events he will have 
great difficulty in acquiring them. The obstacle is not in the nature 
of the ideas, but in the paucity of the means which the blind man 
has at his disposal for assimilating them. The person who can 
see owes them for the most part to his sight, and there is no other 
route by which they can be conveyed to the mind with equal rapidity 
and precision. It will be seen, therefore, that the stock in trade of 
the intellect must necessarily remain rudimentary. This is the capi- 
tal objection, that which is at the bottom of all the wonders of which 
we speak. To those who mention it to me I always propound the 
same question, “ Do you know Helen Keller? ” 
Helen Keller, as everybody knows, is a young American, who, 
from the age of 18 months, as the result of a severe illness, became 
blind and deaf, and dumb also in consequence of her deafness. Her 
little soul seemed, then, to be completely closed to impressions from 
without. Her intellectual equipment, it would seem, must be lim- 
ited to a few rare ideas, ideas within the reach of her hands. It 
would be doubtful, furthermore, whether in the thick darkness she 
could ever have distinct conceptions of them. Notwithstanding, 
Helen Keller, to-day 28 years old, still deaf and still blind, is a very 
distinguished and cultivated person, who has followed the course of a 
university, passed examinations with brilliant success, and speaks 
many languages. It was only necessary to make certain signs on 
her hand while she touched some object to enable her in twenty 
days to comprehend the complete idea which a special sign repre- 
sented, and, thanks to this convention, persons could communicate 
