Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/87

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HELEN KELLER.
83

Keller's story that gives it the significance of a psychological biography.[1]


  1. The presentation of Miss Keller's story as a biography has left no place for the tribute that every account thereof should pay, and pay liberally, to the skill and devotion of Miss Sullivan. It is difficult to say what would have become of Helen Keller under less wise and less able guidance. The deep appreciation of the problem to which she has devoted her life is shown in Miss Sullivan 's contemporaneous letters. These letters form a most valuable portion of the volume. Free from theory or narrow devotion to any system. Miss Sullivan 's pedagogic tact detected the essence of the situation, and her insight quickly discovered the ways and means for further progress. The educational success, as well as our knowledge of how it was obtained, is immeasurably indebted to the discerning insight of Miss Sullivan.