INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 687 
their thoughts to her. A month and a half later she recognized the 
letters of the alphabet by touch. After another month she wrote a 
letter to one of her cousins. At the end of three years she had 
acquired a stock of ideas’ sufficient to enable her to converse freely, to 
read with intelligence, and to write good English. The idea was then 
conceived of having her feel the movements of the pharynx, the lips, 
and the tongue which accompany human speech, and, by imitating 
these movements, she reproduced the sounds which were articulated 
in her presence. A month sufficed her in which to learn to speak 
English correctly, and by merely placing her hands on the lips of 
her interlocutor she commenced to read with her fingers the words 
which were spoken. Thus, by the aid of touch alone, Helen Keller 
procured three openings into the external world, three routes which 
brought her ideas from without—the manual alphabet, reading in 
relief, and human speech. By these three means of acquisition she 
placed herself within that small intellectual aristocracy comprised of 
the very highly cultivated. Finally, not content with speaking her 
native language, she studied French—which she writes correctly— 
Latin, and even Greek. 
If Helen Keller was able to do these things why should one be 
astonished that the blind, who hear and talk, progress daily toward 
a complete development of their intellectual faculties? Her example 
shows us how our brains come to us rich in hereditary endowments 
centuries old, fashioned for life, eager to receive ideas, and to develop 
them. It proves to us that sometimes a faint ray of light suffices to 
illumine the covering of darkness which envelops- these endow- 
ments, and to fructify them. The intellect of the blind, which we 
readily look upon as entirely overcast, is illuminated through and 
through by light from without. Leaving out of account taste and 
smell, which, though rich in sensations, convey only elementary ideas, 
he has the sense of hearing and that of touch, the former for spoken 
thought and the latter for written thought—both precious as means 
of knowing external objects. Through these two large windows 
open on the world a flood of ideas enters. What matters that before 
the third a blind remains lowered? The daylight penetrates abun- 
dantly enough into the interior to rouse full activity within. 
By the sense of hearing, not less than by that of sight, man is, 
as it were, plunged into a world of sensations which stimulate him. 
He is enveloped by them. However passive one may suppose him 
to be, he is aroused from his torpor and is led on to the common 
life. Excited without pause by the talk of his parents, his brothers, 
and his sisters, who mingle continually in the external life, the 
mind of the blind infant can not remain inactive. There is no reason 
why he should remain enervated by idleness. Provided that some 
care is shown him, that the things which are beyond the reach of his 
