Representative women of New England/Sarah Fuller
SARAH FULLER, principal of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, is a native of Weston. Daughter of Hervey and Celynila (Fiske) Fuller, and a descendant of colonial and Revolutionary ancestry, she was born February 15, 1836. Growing to womanhood under the influence of a well-ordered farmhouse home, she had the advantage of instruction in the public schools of Weston and Newton and the Allen English and Classical School of West Newton.
At the age of nineteen she began her labors as a teacher in the public schools. Her first charge was in West Newton, under the supervision of the Rev. Cyrus Pierce of honored memory, the first principal of the first normal school in the country. In 1857 she entered the service of the Boston schools. For nearly ten years she taught in nearly every grade in the Boylston Grannnar School, under the mastership successively of Charles Kimball, William T. Adams (Oliver Optic), Alfred Hewins, John Jameson, and Lucius Wheelock. She was teaching in the Bowditch School, to which she had been transferred from the Boylston, when, after due preparation, she was ajjpointed (1869) the principal of the school in Boston now known as the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, the first successful public day-school ever opened for deaf children. She is still the head of this school, after over thirty years of service, in which there has been n« break or friction.
Miss Fuller is a director of the American Association to promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, and of the Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, a vice-president of the Sarah Fuller Home for Little Children who cannot hear (named in her honor), a member of the Massachusetts Teachers' and National Edu- cational Associations, the National Geographic Society, the New England Association of Teachers of English, and the New England Educational League. She is the author of an illustrated primer and a set of phonic charts that are found useful in the schools. She has written articles for educational publications, and has delivered suggestive addresses before conventions.
With Harriet B. Rogers, of the Clarke Insti- tution at Northam]:)ton, and Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, with whom she has ever worked in hearty sympathy. Miss Fuller called the first convention for teachers of articulation. In 1890 she taught Helen Keller to speak, and, with Dr. Bell, was instrumental in having Phillips Brooks open for her a way to spiritual truths.
That through organized effort parents might be even more helpful than they had been, Miss Fuller founded in 1895 a society (the first of its kind ever formed) known now as the Boston Parents' Education Association for Deaf Chil- dren. This organization, of which she is one of the directors, has proved a most useful ally. Its latest effort, the preparation of a booklet giving the history of the Horace Mann School and its relation to speech and speech-reading, testifies to her efficient, loving work and that of her co-workers.
Miss Fuller's labors in private as well as in public cannot be fully estimated. As one of n)any incidents that could be told of her indi- vidual action in behalf of the adult deaf, it may be mentioned that prominent residents of a New Hampshire town (Dublin) so appreciated what she and her special teacher of speech had done for an adult member of their comnmnity that they did what they knew would most please her — gave a valuable present to the school under her charge.
All of Miss Fuller's labor is imbued with the faithful, heroic spirit of her New England an- cestry. And with it all there is a gracious per- sonality which the home life at Newton Lower Falls, where she has lived in one house for more than half a century, as well as the school life, constantly reveals. As a member for over fifty years of St. Mary 's Protestant Episcopal Church in Newton Lower Falls, she has been active in the Sunday-School and in other work of that society.
The following is copied from Miss Fuller's statement relative to Helen Keller, addressed to the superintendent of public schools: —
The first intimation to me of Helen Keller's desire to speak was on the 26th of March, 1890, when her teacher. Miss Sullivan, called upon me with her, and asked me to help her to teach Helen to speak ; for, said she, " Helen has spelled upon her fingers, 'I must speak.'" She was then within three months of being ten years old. Some two years before, accompanied by her mother, Mr. Anagnos, and Miss Sullivan, she had visited the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, when her ready use of English and her interest in the children had suggested to me that she could be taught to speak. But it was not then thought wise to allow her to use her vocal organs. Now, however, that the attempt was to be made, I gladly undertook the work. I began by familiarizing her with the position and condition of the various mouth parts and with the trachea. This I did by passing her hand lightly over the lower part of my face and by putting her fingers into my mouth. I then placed my tongue in the position for the sound of i in it, and let her find the point, as it lay perfectly still and soft in the bed of the jaw, just behind the lower front teeth, and discover that the teeth were slightly parted. After she had tlone this, I placed one of her forefingers upon my teeth antl the other upon my throat, or trachea, at the lowest point where it may be felt, and repeated the sound I several times. During this time Helen, standing in front of me in the attitude of one listening intently, gave the closest attention to every detail; and, when I ceased making the sound, her fingers flew to her own mouth and throat, and, after arranging her tongue and teeth, she uttered the sound i so nearly like that I had made, it seemed like an echo of it. When told she had given the sound correctly, she repeated it again and again. I next showed her, by means of her sensitive fingers, the depression through the centre of the tongue when in position for the sound of a and the opening between the teeth tluring the utterance of that sound. Again she waited with her fingers upon my teeth and throat until I sounded a several times, and then she gave the vowel fairly well. A little prac- tice enabled her to give it perfectly. We then repeated the sound of i and contrasted it with a. Having these two differing positions well fixed in her mind, I illustrated the position of the tongue and lips while sounding the vowel 0. She experimented with her own mouth, and soon produced a clear, well-defined o. After acquiring this she began to ask what the sounds represented, and if they were words. I then told her that i is one of the sounds of the letter i, that a is one of the sounds of the letter a, and that some letters have many different sountls, but that it would not be difficult for her to think of these sounds after she had learned to speak words. I next took the position for a, Helen following as before with her fingers, and, while sounding the vowel, .slowly closed my lips, producing the word " arm." Without hesi- tation she arranged her tongue, repeated the sounils, and was delighted to know that she had pronounced a word. Her teacher suggested to her that she should let me hear her say the words "mamma" and "papa," which she had tried to speak before coming to me. She quickly and forcibly said, "nmm nmm" and puj) pup I commended her efforts, and said that it would be better to speak very softly, and to sountl one part of the word longer than she did the other. I then illustrated what I wanted her to understand, by pronouncing the word "mamma" very delicately, and at the same time drawing my finger along the back of her hand to show the relative length of the two syllables. After a few repetitions, the words "mamma" and "papa" came with almost musical sweetness from her lips.
This was her first lesson. She had but ten les.sons in all, although she was with me at other times talking freely, but not under in- struction. The plan was to develop at each lesson new elements, review those previously learnetl, listen to all of the combinations she could make with the consonants as initial and final elements, and construct sentences with the words resulting from the combinations. In the intervals between the les.sons she practised these with Miss Sullivan. She was an ideal pupil, for she followetl every direction with the utmost care, and seemed never to forget anything told her. On the day she had her seventh lesson (Aprl 19) she and Miss Sullivan were invited with me to lunch at the house of a friend. While on the way there Miss Sullivan remarked that she wished Helen woukl use the sentences she had learned, and added that she seemed unwilling to do so. It at once occurred to me that the cause of her reluctance was her conscientious care to pronounce every word perfectly; and so, in the moments I had with her during the visit, I encouraged her to talk freely with me while I refrained from making corrections. This hatl the desired effect. In going about the house of our friend she asked a great many ciuestions, using speech constantly. In the presence of all she told of her studies, her home, and her family. She also told of a visit to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes a short time before, when she "talked" to him. Noticing her words as .she spoke, there were but four which I did not readily understand. These I asked her to spell on her fingers. Her enjoyment of this, her first experience in the real use of speech, was touchingly expressed in her remark to Miss Sullivan on her way home, "I am not dumb now." In a conversation some two weeks later with Dr. Bell, Miss Sullivan, and myself, a still greater freedom in the use of speech was noticeable. Miss Sullivan fully appreciated the victory gained, for she wrote to Mr. Anagnos two months after Helen Had taken her first lesson: "Think of it! Helen achieved in less than two months what it takes the pupils of schools for the deaf several years to accomplish, and then they do not speak as plainly as she does." Helen's own joy in this conscious possession of a new power was shown in the following letter she wrote me a week or so after she had taken her first lesson. It also reveals the origin of her desire for speech.
My dear Miss Fuller:
My heart is full of joy this beautiful morning because I have learned to speak many new words, and I can make a few sentences. Last evening I went out in the yard and spoke to the moon. I said, "O moon, come to me I" Do you think the lovely moon was glad that I could speak to her? How glad my mother will be I I can hardly wait for June to come, I am so eager to speak to her and to my precious little sister. Mildred could not understand me when I spelled with my fingers, but now she wiU sit in my lap, and I will tell her many things to please her, and we shall be so happy together. Are you very, very happy because you can make so many people happy? I think you are very kind and patient, and I love you very dearly. My teacher told me Tuesday that you wanted to know how I came to wish to talk with my mouth. I will tell you all about it, for I remember my thoughts perfectly. When I was a very little child I used to sit in my mother's lap nearly all the time, because I was very timid, and did not like to be left by myself. And I would keep my little hand on her face all the while, because it amused me to feel her face and lips move when she talked with people. I did not know then what she was doing, for 1 was quite ignorant of all things. Then, when I was older, I learned to play with my nurse and the little negro children, and I noticed that they kept moving their lips like my mother, so I moved mine, too, but sometimes it made me angry, and I would hold my playmates' mouths very hard. I did not know then that it was very-naughty to do so. After a long time my dear teacher came to me, and taught me to connnunicate with my fingers, and I was satisfied and happy. but when I came to school in Boston I met some deaf people who talked with their mouths like all other people, and one day a lady who had been to Norway came to see me, and told me of a blind and deaf girl she had seen in that far-away land who had been taught to speak and understand others when they spoke to her. This good and happy news delighted me exceedingly, for then I was sure that 1 should learn also. 1 tried to make sounds like my little playmates, but teacher told me that the voice was very delicate and sensitive, and that it would injure it to make incorrect sounds, and promised to take me to see a kind and wise lady who would teach me rightly. That lady was yourself. Now I am as happy as the little birds, because I can speak; and perhaps I shall sing, too. All of my friends will be so surprised and glad.
Your loving little pupil,
From time to time I noted the improvement of this remarkable girl in the use of speech, and I am free to confess that one of the great joys of my life was when, six years after the first lessons, it was my privilege not only to suggest her as a speaker for the fifth summer meeting of the American Association to promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf at the Pennsylvania Institution at Mount Airy, but to see and hear the successful effort. The speech, written out by herself on the typewriter, was committed to memory and now repeated without a mistake.