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The Story of My Life / With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy cover

The Story of My Life / With her letters (1887-1901) and a supplementary account of her education, including passages from the reports and letters of her teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, by John Albert Macy

Chapter 4: Editor's Preface
By Helen Keller
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About This Book

The author recalls early childhood, a severe illness that left her deaf and blind, and the gradual breakthrough when a patient teacher introduced tactile spelling and object-sign associations that opened language, reading, and writing. The memoir traces schooling, learning to speak, and literary development, interspersed with personal letters and edited commentary that explain educational methods, personality traits, and practical challenges. An editor's supplementary account and teachers' reports contextualize the training techniques and offer reflections on style and achievement, presenting a combined portrait of inner life, intellectual growth, and the relationship at the heart of the author's education.

Editor's Preface

This book is in three parts. The first two, Miss Keller's story and the extracts from her letters, form a complete account of her life as far as she can give it. Much of her education she cannot explain herself, and since a knowledge of that is necessary to an understanding of what she has written, it was thought best to supplement her autobiography with the reports and letters of her teacher, Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan. The addition of a further account of Miss Keller's personality and achievements may be unnecessary; yet it will help to make clear some of the traits of her character and the nature of the work which she and her teacher have done.

For the third part of the book the Editor is responsible, though all that is valid in it he owes to authentic records and to the advice of Miss Sullivan.

The Editor desires to express his gratitude and the gratitude of Miss Keller and Miss Sullivan to The Ladies' Home Journal and to its editors, Mr. Edward Bok and Mr. William V. Alexander, who have been unfailingly kind and have given for use in this book all the photographs which were taken expressly for the Journal; and the Editor thanks Miss Keller's many friends who have lent him her letters to them and given him valuable information; especially Mrs. Laurence Hutton, who supplied him with her large collection of notes and anecdotes; Mr. John Hitz, Superintendent of the Volta Bureau for the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge relating to the Deaf; and Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins, to whom Miss Sullivan wrote those illuminating letters, the extracts from which give a better idea of her methods with her pupil than anything heretofore published.

Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company have courteously permitted the reprinting of Miss Keller's letter to Dr. Holmes, which appeared in "Over the Teacups," and one of Whittier's letters to Miss Keller. Mr. S. T. Pickard, Whittier's literary executor, kindly sent the original of another letter from Miss Keller to Whittier.

John Albert Macy.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 1, 1903.