The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-03-21

he should have been up and doing. let
ting the prize escape out of his into the
reprobate's hands.
All this time there were hunting ga
lore, splendid descriptions of the life led
by the cultivated gentlemen and lady
farmers and riders of England.
The husband of The Straw" (she who
had married the reprobate only to help
him as she thought was found dead.
Who killed him? You are not told until
the last page of the book Even then
you had never suspected the real killer.
THE Straw is all right. 1t will hold
the interest and give much pleasure in
the reading to most classes of people who
buy books.
THE Story of My Life by Helen Kel-
Ter. doubleday, Page & Coz
This book contains the story of Helen
Keler's life, written by herself. together
with her letters and a supplementary ac-
count of her education, Including pas
sages from reports and letters of her
teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, written
by Mr.. John Albert Macy, one Of the ed
itors of the Youths Companion, who
not SO long ago married Miss Sullivan.
The whole country is naturally inter-
ested in the life of this wonderful girl;
particularly Is Alabama interested in this,
one of its most notable productions.
Helen Keller was born on June q, 1885,
in Tuscumbia Her father was Capt Ar
thur II. Keller of the Confederate army
a United States marshal under President
Grover Cleveland. Helen's mother, Cap
tain Keller's second wife, was Miss Kate
Adams.
Most people do not know that Helen
Keller for the first 10 months of her life
was a normal child. The misfortune by
which she lost her power of hearing,
sight and speech came to her when she
n a pa
from an attack of illness, called by the
physicians acute congestion of the stom-
ach and brain. When the child got well
she could not hear, talk nor could she
see.
The book tells of the struggles of Cap
tain and Mrs. Keller to find some ply
stefan or surgeon that could relieve the
child At Baltimore DIR. Chisom referred
the parents to Dr. Alexander Graham
Bell of Washington, who in turn sug-
gested communicating with DR.. Anagnos,
director of the Perkins institution in Bos-
ton, to ask him if he had a teacher
no surgeon could do anything-competent
to take up Helen's education. In, a few
weeks DR.. Anagnos advised Captain KEEL
Ter that teacher had been found This
was in the summer Of 1886. But Miss Sui
Ivan did not arrive in Tuscumbia until
1887 when the education began.
No doubt the thought which has oc-
Cured to everyone who has given any
attention to this wonderful woman--Helen
Keller-has been, how did Miss Sullivan
begin first? Here was a child who could
not hear, could not see you make signs,
nor tell you in turn whether or not she
understood. How on earth Miss Sullivan
began the education? The first steps to
reach that dark room--Helens brain? OF
course one can understand in a great
measure how after the first steps were
taken others might be attempted, but
the first ones, how about them?
In the letters from Miss Sullivan all
that is explained, so far as any wonder
full thing can be explained.
Most of us have Kept up with Helen
since her great, wonderful awakening;
how she matriculated at Radcliffe col
lege, woman's department of Harvard;
how she now talks, writes and does lots
of other wonderful things But to find
out how she first arrived through the
guidance of that other woman, almost
as wonderful as she, Miss Sullivan, the
STORY should be read 1t is very interest
ing also Helen Keller lives near Bos-'
ton now engaged in literary work and
helping. the blind and afflicted.
',The How and Why of Electricity" by
Charles Tripler Child. electrical Re-
view Publishing COD
This is one of the best books to be found
any place that will give the non-techncal
reader-1n plain Engllsn-ali Oh tne nlof-
nation known about how and why cleo
tricity is what it is, or supposed to be-
Most such books are wrapped all up,
to the exclusion of any help to the av-
erage reader, with technicalities. that de-
stroy the intent of the book. This book
Is different.
The author says that 1T was not the pur-
pose of his little book to tell what cleo
tricity is. for the writer does not know,
nor does ANYBODY else, but he wished to
tell something of electricitys properties
of how it is generated, handled, con-
trolled, measured and set to work. and
further to explain how familiar electrical
apparatus operates.
Soon after the original manuscript OF