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In Greek I have practically finished the grammar, and am now reading the "Anabasis," and shall soon begin the "Iliad." I admire Greek very much indeed. It is easier to read than Latin, I think, and much more spontaneous and beautiful. I wish algebra and geometry were only half as easy for me as languages and literature! But somehow I cannot make myself care very much whether two and two make four or five, or whether two lines drawn from the extremities of the base of an isosceles triangle are equal or not. I cannot see that the knowledge of these facts makes life any sweeter or nobler!

On the other hand, each language I learn reveals a new world to me. If I sit down to study my "Aeneid," new thoughts, new ideas, new aspirations flash out from the Latin words with almost the same vividness and freshness they did when the meaning of my own beautiful language, first dawned upon my imprisoned soul.

Perhaps it may interest your readers to know that I spend as much time as possible in the open air. I take a little walk every morning before I begin work. It is my morning hymn, the key-note of my day. And most every pleasant day when my lessons are learned, I go wandering into the woods with a dear little friend in search of sheltered nooks, where wild flowers love to grow. Sometimes we follow a little brook through field and meadow, finding new treasures at every step, not only of flower and grass, but of thought and sweet experience also.

As to plans, I have but one, and that is to take my final examinations for college a year from now. Of course it is my fervent wish and earnest determination to pass them with credit for my teacher's sake as well as my own. Further than this I have not tried to look into the future; the present is so rich in all that makes life sweet and happy, I have no time for dreaming dreams or building air-castles.

Sincerely yours,

HELEN KELLER.

WRENTHAM, MASS., May 25.

Mr. WESTON JENKINS:

DEAR SIR: The foregoing letter from Miss Helen Keller must so far surpass in interest to your readers anything that I can write that I have hesitated about adding anything to it. Some details, however, may enhance the value of her general statement about her studies.

Miss Keller began work with me about four months ago. In Greek she already knew well the first and second declensions of nouns and adjectives and the indicative mood of verbs in w; and had translated very simple short sentences from Greek into English and from English into Greek. During the four months of Greek under my direction, she has mastered with absolute precision all the varied forms of Attic Greek Inflection, including about 150 verbs, classified according to seeming irregularities, and all the intricacies of Greek Syntax needed for ease and rapidity of power of translation. She has perfect control of fifteen hundred common Greek words, which she knows not merely as isolated facts, but as organisms growing from root or stem with significant suffixes and prefixes. In other words, she has systematically studied the principles of derivation and formation and affinity of words.

In doing this she has translated and written out for me with her type-writer about one thousand sentences, Greek into English, and six hundred sentences, English into Greek, many being long and intricate. She has translated about ten pages of simplified "Anabasis" and begun the "First Book of Xenophon's Anabasis." Her progress here will be very rapid, because her equipment is strong in accurate knowledge of forms, in clear appreciation of constructions and idioms, in ample and workable vocabulary, and in correct methods of study.

She takes delight in analyzing words, in tracing the development of their meanings, and in detecting their affinities. In translating she places the minimum dependence on the dictionary; for very often, by derivation or by inference from the context, she judges, within the limitations of the grammatical structure, the meaning of new words. Notes and helps in advance of her own strenuous efforts at interpretation, she spurns.

In a very short time she will be reading Homer with delight.

When I first inquired into Miss Keller's condition in Algebra, I found her preparation for doing that part of the subject with which she was then dealing altogether superficial. Accordingly I copied Socrates, and proceeded on the assumption that she knew nothing, to the end that she might know something. I aimed at giving her such mathematical conceptions, such accuracy in methods and such mental grasp as would improve her mind and bring some pleasure in the work. Especially I experimented to learn how far I could rely on her doing without raised type, how far she could carry in her mind algebraic language, and perform in her mind varied changes in algebraic processes. She has succeeded marvellously. Long and involved changes and combinations she handles with accuracy and ease.