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ACQUIREMENTS OF LITTLE DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND HELEN KELLER.

From the Memphis Commercial.

TUSCUMBIA, Ala., May 18 -- In the Commercial of this morning your correspondent finds the following special from Boston:

"Helen Keller, aged ten, a deaf, dumb, and blind girl from Tuscumbia, Ala., whose remarkable mental development in the face of the tremendous handicap imposed on her by nature, has been the theme of much delighted comment, has within the last six weeks been taught to speak intelligibly. This is the only well-authenticated of the kind that has ever been known in the world. To a reporter who called on her last night she said: "I'm going to learn to make my voice sweet. I am going home in June. I shall talk to my dear little sister and my parents and brothers and all."

A copy of the Commercial was shown to Capt. Arthur H. Keller, father of the afflicted little girl. Capt. Keller said:

"I do not know anything positive in regard to her speaking. We have had no information of the kind from her teachers at the Perkins Institute, Boston. I only hope that is true. It may be that she has learned to articulate through what is termed the 'Tabisil method,' which consists in placing the hand of the person speaking upon the vocal cords directly beneath the chin and pressing steadily while speaking to the deaf and dumb person. The dumb are enabled to utter a few words-sometimes speak quite plainly for several minutes. But the pressure upon the muscles of the neck and the necessarily great strain upon the nervous system, I am convinced, preclude the possibility of perfect success by this method. While there is, of course, a possibility, there is no probability of her hearing or sight ever being restored. She has been examined by the most eminent specialists of the age, and their unqualified opinion is only to reiterate each other's first statement, that she will never see or hear.

"She has been writing home for some months that she had a beautiful secret to tell us when she returned home, but would not write us what it was: that she wanted to surprise us when she came home, which will be in June next. Her teacher, Miss Hopkins, also wrote us to that same effect -- that Helen had 'a beautiful secret to tell us when she came home.' Further than this we are not advised."

Helen Keller is the daughter of Capt. Arthur H. and Mrs. Kate Adams Keller of this city. She was born June 22, 1880, and was as bright and babyish as all babies until her third year. Nearing the close of her third year, the little one was afflicted with brain fever, and the disease left her deaf, dumb, and blind. But the disease which wrapped her in eternal darkness and silence did not impair her mental faculties -- rather it seemed to intensify her comprehensive and perceptive abilities, and as she grew physically her mental being developed even more rapidly.

A teacher from the Perkins Institute for the Blind at Boston was engaged for her and she acquired knowledge so rapidly that Miss Sullivan, her teacher, was astonished and asked and received permission to take her to Boston, New York, and other cities, where she excited the wonder and amazement of learned scientists and professional men who have spent a lifetime in teaching the blind and deaf.

She was taught the dumb alphabet by finger pressure and converses readily by that means with any member of her family. She can write, and that, too, with a clearness and distinctness that would do credit to many persons of greater age and possessed of all their faculties of sight, speech, and hearing. She finds her way readily about her house and garden, and is never at a loss nor hesitates at her play.

Some unknown instinct tells her everything, it seems. Though quite deaf, she can tell readily the footsteps of he father, her mother, her brother, her sister. The step of her particular dog and the family horse she easily distinguishes from any other.

She has been at the Boston Institute for the past six months, and has studied diligently and energetically during that time. She is quite an accomplished little lady to be not yet eleven years old. She speaks by the finger alphabet French, German, and English, with equal fluency, and can discuss with the intelligence of understanding natural and physical history, zoology, chirography, music, mineralogy, chemistry, mathematics -- at which she is an adept -- and, in fact, all the common school as well as the collegiate branches. Her especial delight is geography, for the study of which she is supplied with raised maps.

Little Helen is never morose or sullen: on the contrary, she is light, cheerful, and happy, always smiling and in high spirits. She amuses herself in various ways, just like other children, with her doll, which she named of her own accord "Miss Nancy," and her toys and books. She is never at a loss for something to do, and when at home here seems as happy and contented as any one could well be. Helen will return from Boston about the middle of June, and her letters to parents are filled with the joyous anticipations of home coming and the "beautiful secret" she has to tell, and seems to enjoy in advance the surprise she will evoke by telling it. She is certainly a wonderful -- not to say phenomenal -- child. There is not in this country, perhaps not in the world, whose mental faculties and capabilities have developed so rapidly and so completely. Her knowledge is through and finished. Everything that is put before her is acquired and understood in an astonishingly short time. Indeed she learns everything and forgets nothing.