publication of extracts from letters which she wrote during the
first year of her work with her pupil. These letters were written
to Mrs. Sophia C. Hopkins, the only person to whom Miss Sullivan
ever wrote freely. Mrs. Hopkins has been a matron at the Perkins
Institution for twenty years, and during the time that Miss
Sullivan was a pupil there she was like a mother to her. In these
letters we have an almost weekly record of Miss Sullivan's work.
Some of the details she had forgotten, as she grew more and more
to generalize. Many people have thought that any attempt to find
the principles in her method would be nothing but a later theory
superimposed on Miss Sullivan's work. But it is evident that in
these letters she was making a clear analysis of what she was
doing. She was her own critic, and in spite of her later
declaration, made with her modest carelessness, that she followed
no particular method, she was very clearly learning from her task
and phrasing at the time principles of education of unique value
not only in the teaching of the deaf but in the teaching of all
children. The extracts from her letters and reports form an
important contribution to pedagogy, and more than justify the
opinion of Dr. Daniel C. Gilman, who wrote in 1893, when he was
President of Johns Hopkins University:

"I have just read... your most interesting account of the various
steps you have taken in the education of your wonderful pupil,
and I hope you will allow me to express my admiration for the
wisdom that has guided your methods and the affection which has
inspired your labours."


Miss Anne Mansfield Sullivan was born at Springfield,