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During the past year, the Perkins Institution and elsewhere, she has met a great many people who knew the manual alphabet, and who were delighted to converse with her. Thus the true use of language was brought forcibly before her mind, and practice has enabled her to use it with increased alacrity and correctness. She soon discovered that the words she began to learn a year and a half ago were capable of expressing not only her physical needs, but also her mental sensations and emotions, and of describing her many and varied experiences, as well as conveying her wishes and thoughts, her dreams and fancies, her hopes and fears. Her command of language has grown with the increase of her experiences. While these were few and elementary, her vocabulary was necessarily limited; but, as she learns more of the world about her, her judgment acquires accuracy, her reasoning powers grow stronger, more active and subtle, and the language by which she expresses this intellectual activity gains in fluency and logic.

When travelling from one place to another, she drinks in thought and language with an energy, which shows how insatiable is her thirst for knowledge. Sitting beside her in the car, I describe what I see from the window, -- the hills and valleys and the rushing rivers; the great cotton-fields, and immense gardens in which strawberries, peaches, pears, melons, and all kinds of vegetables are growing; the herds of cows and horses feeding in broad meadows, and the flocks of sheep on the hillside; the cities with their churches and schools, hotels and warehouses, and the occupations of the busy people. While I am communicating these things, Helen manifests the most intense interest, and, in default of words, she indicates by gestures and pantomime her desire to learn more of her surroundings and of the great forces which are operating everywhere. In this way she learns countless new expressions without any apparent effort.

From the day when Helen first grasped the idea that all objects have names, and that these can be communicated by certain movements of the fingers, I have talked to her exactly as I should have done had she been able to hear, with only this exception, that I have addressed the words to her fingers instead of her ears. Naturally, there was, at first, a strong tendency on her part to use only the important words in a sentence. She would say, "Helen milk." I would get the milk, to show her that she had used the correct word, but I would not allow her to drink it, until she had, with my assistance, made a complete sentence, as, "give Helen some milk to drink." In these early lessons I accustomed her to the use of different forms of expression for conveying the same idea. If she were eating some candy, I would say, "will Helen please give teacher some candy?" or, "teacher would like to eat some of Helen's candy," -- emphasizing the 's. She very soon perceived that the same idea could be expressed in a great many ways. In two or three months after I began to teach her, she would say, "Helen wants to go to bed;" or, "Helen is sleepy, and Helen will go to bed."

I am constantly asked the question, "how did you teach her the meaning of words expressive of intellectual and moral qualities?" It is extremely difficult to tell just how she came to understand the meaning of abstract ideas, and to acquire the power of expressing them; but I believe it was more through association and repetition than through any explanation of mine. This is especially true of her earlier lessons, when her knowledge of language was so slight as to make explanation well-nigh impossible.

I have always made it a practice to use the words descriptive of emotions, of intellectual or moral qualities and actions, in connection with the circumstance which required these words. Soon after she was put under my charge, Helen broke her new doll, of which she was very fond. She began to cry. I said to her, "teacher is sorry." After a few repetitions of this word whenever any occasion called for its use, she came to associate it with the feeling to which it belongs.

The word "happy" she learned in a similar way; also, "right," "wrong," "good," "bad," and others of like character. The word "love" she learned as other children do, -- by its association with caresses.

One day I asked her a very simple question in the combination of numbers, to which I was sure she could give a correct reply. But she began -- as children often do -- to answer at random. I checked her, and she stood still, the expression of her face plainly showing that she was trying to think. I touched her forehead, and then spelled "t-h-i-n-k." It was the first time that I had given her the word; but, being thus connected with the act, it seemed to impress itself upon her mind much as if I had placed her hand upon an object and then spelled its name. Since that time she always uses the word "think" intelligently.

At a later period I began to use such words as "perhaps," "suppose," "expect," "forget," "remember." If her mother was absent, Helen would ask, "where is mother now?" I would reply, "I do not know. Perhaps she is with Leila."