With this knowledge, her father brought his daughter to Alexander Graham Bell, a family friend who was well known in society. Bell was so fascinated by six year old Helen that he recommended that she contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston. Anne Sullivan, who was also a recent Perkins graduate, was suggested to be Helen's teacher by Michael Anagnos. Michael Anagnos was the professor of Samuel Gridley Howe, a gentleman who was having great success working with the deaf and blind at Perkins (Notable 389).

             Helen's greatest inspiration and life long companion, Anne Sullivan, arrived at her home in Alabama in March of 1887. In just a couple of weeks, Helen learned that everything had a name and that she could communicate with others by using the manual alphabet. Helen also found that she could use the manual alphabet and lip reading to prove her intelligence. The manual alphabet is a system that contains 26 hand symbols, one for each letter of the alphabet. It is used to finger spell words. After a couple months of practice, she learned hundreds of new words. In the middle of July, just four months after Sullivan's arrival, Helen was able to write her very first letter to her mother. People around the world were so amazed by her accomplishments that her first biography was written when she was only fourteen years old (Ashby & Orhn 190). .

             After the earlier successes, Helen and her teacher both left for the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston in 1888 to provide Helen with a more formal education. Helen and Miss Sullivan moved to New York in 1894 in order for Helen to study at the Wright Humason School for the deaf. Anne raised money so that her student could attend the Cambridge School for Young Ladies. In 1896, Helen began her studies at Cambridge which included French, Greek, literature, mathematics, geography, and history. She then went on to attend Radcliffe College in 1980.