Down a small pathway off Brattle Street in Cambridge is the Helen Keller fountain with a small lion with water coming from its mouth. Keller explains the revelation that Anne Sullivan brought to her in The Story of My Life (1924).
On the brick wall at each side of the fountain is a plaque, one of which is in Braille.
The other is in English:
'IN MEMORY OF
ANNE SULLIVAN
TEACHER EXTRAORDINARY — WHO,
BEGINNING WITH THE WORD WATER
OPENED TO THE GIRL HELEN KELLER
THE WORLD OF SIGHT AND SOUND
THROUGH TOUCH
BELOVED COMPANION THROUGH
RADCLIFFE COLLEGE
1900 — 1904'
The Anne Sullivan fountain in the Helen Keller garden!
ReplyDeleteThat would make a lot more sense, and certainly the One Hundred and Thirty-First Annual Report of Perkins School for the Blind (1962) agrees with you. So I was just misled by Susan Wilson's Literary Trail of Greater Boston, in which she calls it the 'Helen Keller fountain' (p. 95)? I'm certainly inclined to think so, but the trouble is there seems to be almost nothing else online to argue one way or the other! I wonder if this is a common error that's just become accepted through practice? Not that that's any excuse on my part though.
ReplyDeleteI spent 8 weeks living in the Cronkite Graduate Center in 1990 and I always thought it was the Helen Keller fountain. Frankly, I didn't notice a "garden". But I agree, it's the Sullivan fountain in the Keller garden.
ReplyDeleteThat decides it then, and I shall change the name of the post forthwith! Thanks a lot for this.
ReplyDelete