‘Muscles must be used’

Helen Keller (left) in 1899 with companion and teacher Anne Sullivan. Photo taken by telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell at his School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech, in Boston.

“All the wondrous physical, intellectual and moral endowments, with which man is blessed, will, by inevitable law, become useless, unless he uses and improves them. The muscles must be used, or they become unserviceable. The memory, understanding and judgment must be used, or they become feeble and inactive. If a love for truth and beauty and goodness is not cultivated, the mind loses the strength which comes from truth, the refinement which comes from beauty, and the happiness which comes from goodness.’’

— Anne Sullivan (1866-1936), teacher and lecturer, in her 1886 commencement address at the Perkins School for the Blind. Founded in 1829 and now in Watertown, Mass., it’s the oldest school of its kind in the United States. Ms. Sullivan, who was mostly blind, is most famous as the teacher of Helen Keller (1880-1968), the blind and deaf author, lecturer and political activist who was a household name in America for much of her adult life. The relationship between the two women was memorialized in the play and movie The Miracle Worker.

Too bad that the students can’t see it: The Howe Building Tower at the Perkins School for the Blind's campus, in Watertown, Mass.