the Perkins Institution, which deals with Helen Keller. For this
report Miss Sullivan prepared, in reluctant compliance with the
request of Mr. Anagnos, an account of her work. This with the
extracts from her letters, scattered through the report, is the
first valid source of information about Helen Keller. Of this
report Miss Sullivan wrote in a letter dated October 30, 1887:

"Have you seen the paper I wrote for the 'report'? Mr. Anagnos
was delighted with it. He says Helen's progress has been 'a
triumphal march from the beginning,' and he has many flattering
things to say about her teacher. I think he is inclined to
exaggerate; at all events, his language is too glowing, and
simple facts are set forth in such a manner that they bewilder
one. Doubtless the work of the past few months does seem like a
triumphal march to him; but then people seldom see the halting
and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is
achieved."

As Mr. Anagnos was the head of a great institution, what he said
had much more effect than the facts in Miss Sullivan's account on
which he based his statements. The newspapers caught Mr.
Anagnos's spirit and exaggerated a hundred-fold. In a year after
she first went to Helen Keller, Miss Sullivan found herself and
her pupil the centre of a stupendous fiction. Then the educators
all over the world said their say and for the most part did not
help matters. There grew up a mass of controversial matter which
it is amusing to read now. Teachers of the deaf proved a priori
that what Miss Sullivan had done could not be, and some discredit
was reflected on her statements, because they were surrounded by
the vague eloquence of Mr. Anagnos. Thus the story of Helen