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Though Deaf, Dumb, and Blind, She Speaks and Understands Spoken Words.

Boston, June 17. -- The commencement exercises of the Perkins Institution for the Blind brought out an audience on one of the hottest afternoons of the past week that crowded the Boston Theatre even to the back seats of the top gallery.

The chief interest of the afternoon centred in Helen Keller, the little girl made deaf and dumb and blind by illness at the age of nineteen months. During the past three years Helen has learned to articulate, and her contribution to the afternoons programme was a selection from Longfellow's poem, "Flowers." thirty-six lines in length, read in a clear and natural voice.

There was a certain monotony in the voice, of course, prevented, however, from being in any way disagreeable by a certain sonorousness and pathos. During the past year Helen has grown a great deal. She is now a tall, noble-looking girl, finely proportioned and appearing much older than her thirteen years.

Although the poem which she read she could have recited from memory, Mr. Anagnos preferred to have her read. As she stood by the little table on which her book rested, rapidly feeling the words, she made a pretty picture in her white dress with her brown hair falling in long curls on each side of her face.

Beside her stood her devoted teacher, Miss Sullivan, to whom great credit must be given for Helen's progress. When it is remembered that three years ago Helen's audible vocabulary consisted of only five words, "papa," "mamma," "baby," "teacher," "sister," what she has accomplished seems the more wonderful.

In March, 1890, she took the first of eleven lessons in audible speech from Miss Fuller of the Horace Mann School for Deaf-Mutes. These lessons are all that she has taken, for her success is due largely to her own indefatigable zeal. At the end of a month she could speak to those about her so as to be understood, and today she can express all her thoughts in fluent and intelligible speech.

She prefers this means of expression to the sign language, and is always delighted when people tell her that they can understand her. She likes also to have people talk to her orally rather than by signs, and she gets their meaning by reading the motion of their lips with her fingers.

The most intelligent of seeming deaf-mutes hitherto taught to articulate have never equaled Helen Keller's quickness of learning. But she shows the same quickness in every branch; three months after receiving her first lesson in French she was able to write a correct and easy letter in this language.

Her memory, too, is marvelously retentive. One of her feats was the committing to memory of a carol by Dr Brooks, which had been read to her only twice.

So active is her mind that during the past few months she has been allowed little regular study. Although she is not delicate there is always some danger that intense mental application may do her harm, and so she is encouraged to spend considerable time in outdoor exercise at her Alabama home. Yet even when not studying she is usually accompanied by her teacher, Miss Sullivan, her faithful interpreter of the outside world.