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We are going to leave this dear city, and our many, many loved friends, on the 22d of June. I am so eager to see my darling little sister and my mother and father that I can hardly wait patiently for the days to fly by; but the many pleasant things winch happen every day keep my heart so full of gladness that there is no room in it for impatience. I hope that when we return in the autumn we shall see you again; and I hope your summer will be full of happiness. Please give my love to all my Andover friends, and if you see Mrs. Downs please tell her that I thank her very much for the invitation to the musicale, and I was sorry I could not be present. Teacher sends her kind remembrances.

With much love and a kiss, from your little friend,

HELEN A. KELLER-

BIOGRAPHY OF LAURA BRIDGMAN.

"She was a worthy woman all hire live,"
Chaucer.

"Biography is an inspiring and ennobling study."
Horace Mann.

The work upon Laura Bridgman which is in preparation by Mrs. Florence Howe Hall and Mrs. Maud Howe Elliott is progressing rapidly. It is hoped that by the end of this year this important book will be ready for publication. The scope of the work is large, and it is believed will be of great value to the institution. The writers have been at great pains to collect the many letters which, during the early years of Laura's education, were addressed to Dr. Howe by persons of eminence in Europe and the United States. Among those selected for publication are letters from Harriet Martineau, Charles Dickens, Mrs. Sigourney, George Combe, Francis Lieber and Horace Mann.

As Laura's history is intimately bound up with the early history of the institution, a part of the book will be devoted to that, as well as to the account of some of the early difficulties which beset the path of Dr. Howe, in placing the infant school on the strong, permanent basis upon which it now rests.

A very full history of Laura's early life at Hanover has been prepared. Her first lessons have been carefully described. Besides the accounts already printed from Dr. Howe's reports, certain side lights are thrown by his private correspondence, Laura's own reminiscences, and the letters of friends and acquaintances.

Much of the material used is entirely new. Extracts from the quaint and original journals which Laura kept tell us of her progress from an entirely new stand-point. Her own autobiography, fresh, breezy and full of personal charm, will be an important feature of the work, which aims to be an exhaustive history of the methods pursued in teaching Laura Bridgman, Lucy Reed and Oliver Caswell.

The pictures of life at the school in the early days when it was held in the house of Dr. Howe's father in Pleasant street, are infinitely touching and interesting. The vigorous growth, which in so short a time carried the establishment from Pleasant street to Col. Perkins' mansion in Pearl street, is carefully traced. The school journals, kept in the handwriting of the first director, were found to contain a rich fund of anecdote, and are curiously picturesque annals of the daily life of the institution, through which we get glimpses of the life of Boston in the second quarter of this century.

The letter books of those days furnish in themselves enough materials for a volume of letters touching on a hundred points of interest. They are addressed to many of the most prominent citizens of the day, and incidentally touch on many matters of public as well as private interest. Indeed, so rich is the fund of material on which the writers can draw, that their embarrassment is one of choice. Where all is so precious it is hard to know, not what to give, but what to withhold. It is their aim not only to make their work of value as the only authentic and thorough account of the education of Laura Bridgman, -- that feat which aroused the wonder and enthusiasm of Europe and America, -- but also to make it a precious contribution to the history of the Boston of that day. They undertook their grave task with the sense of a profound filial duty; they have found in it not only the gratification of putting on record the most remarkable of the many services to humanity which crowded the years of Dr. Howe's long life, but another and quite unexpected pleasure. The old folios, the faded letters, the rusty journals, instead of proving a dusty and dry record of uninteresting details, breathe forth romance, sentiment, anecdote and wit. They have lived in the Boston of 1837, and found it a pleasant place in which to forget some of the perplexities of the Boston of 1891. They have explored a fresh new country, full of color, full of pleasant odors, tuneful with music. It is this unforeseen pleasure which has given them the belief that their work will be fruitful of enjoyment to many others.

Instead of a dry record of facts, they believe that they will be able to present to their readers that rare and precious union of history and romance which makes the biography the most human and interesting of all books. They are able to guarantee scientific accuracy in the accounts of the methods of teaching the deaf, dumb and blind, invented by Dr. Howe, because they have followed with the most thorough research every word that he ever wrote upon the subject, and have also studied the notes made upon the case by Francis Lieber, Dr. G. Stanley Hall, Professor Jastrow and other writers. The purely human side of the relations between Laura and her teacher, between Laura and her many friends, they have studied with equal care.