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You must not imagine, however, that, as soon as Helen grasped the idea that everything had a name, she at once became mistress of the treasury of the English language, or that "her mental faculties emerged, full armed, from their then living tomb, as Pallas Athena from the head of Zeus," as one of her enthusiastic admirers would have us believe. At first, the words, phrases, and sentences which she used in expressing her thoughts were all reproductions of what we had used in conversation with her, and which her memory had unconsciously retained. And, indeed, this is true of the language of all children. Their language is the memory of the language they hear spoken in their homes. Countless repetition of the conversation of daily life has impressed certain words and phrases upon their memories, and when they come to talk themselves, memory supplies the words they lisp. Likewise, the language of educated people is the memory of the language of books.

Language grows out of life, out of its needs and experiences, its joys and sorrows, its dreams and realities. At first my little pupil's mind was all but vacant. Up to the time when I began to teach her, she had no means of registering on its blank pages her childish impressions and observations. She had been living in a world she could not realize. Language and knowledgee are like Siamese twins -- they are indissolubly connected; they are interdependent. Good work in language presupposes and necessitates a real knowledge of things. As soon as my little pupil grasped the idea that everything had a name, and that by means of the manual alphabet these names could be transmitted from one to another, I proceeded to awaken her further interest in the objects whose names she learned to spell with such evident joy. I never taught language for the PURPOSE of teaching it; but invariably used language as a medium for the communication of thought; thus the learning of language was coincident with the acquisition of knowledge. In order to use language intelligently, one must have something to talk about, and having something to talk about is the result of general culture; no amount of language training will enable our little children to use language with ease and fluency, unless they have something clearly in their minds which they wish to communicate, or unless we succeed in awakening in them a desire to know what is in the minds of others. From the very first, Helen was eager and enthusiastic in the pursuit of knowledge. In the little story of her life she says: "I was never still during the first glad days of my freedom. I was continually spelling and acting out words as I spelled them. I would run, skip, jump, and swing, no matter where I happened to be. Everything I touched seemed to quiver with life. It was because I saw everything with the new, strange, beautiful sight which had been given me."

She had one advantage over ordinary children, -- nothing from without distracted her attention; so that each new thought made upon her mind a distinct impression, which was rarely forgotten. At first I did not attempt to confine my pupil to any systematic course of study. I felt that she would accomplish more if allowed to follow her own natural impulses. I always tried to find out what interested her most, and made that the starting-point for the new lesson, whether or not it had any bearing on the lesson I had planned to teach, and her eager inquiries often led us far away from the subject with which we began. During the first two years of her intellectual life, I required Helen to write very little. In order to write with profit to himself, a child must have something to write about, and having something to write about, necessitates some mental preparation. The memory must be stored with ideas, and the mind must be enriched with knowledge before writing becomes a natural and pleasurable effort. Too often, I think, children are required to write before they have anything to say. Teach them to think and read and talk without self-repression, and they will write without self-consciousness.

Helen acquired language in an objective way, by practice and habit rather than by study of rules and definitions. Grammar, with its puzzling array of classifications, nomenclatures, and paradigms, was wholly discarded in her education. She learned language by being brought in contact with the living language itself; she was made to deal with it in everyday conversation, and in her books, and to turn it over in a variety of ways until she had mastered its anatomy. As I have at another time stated, I talked to her almost incessantly in her waking hours, and encouraged her to talk to me. I spelled into her hand a description of what was taking place around us; what I saw; what I was doing; what others were doing; anything, everything. I talked to her with my fingers as I should have talked to her with my mouth had she been a hearing child; and, no doubt, I talked much more with my fingers, and more constantly than I should have done with my mouth; for, had she possessed the use of sight and hearing, she would have been less dependent on me for entertainment and instruction.