The morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it； but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while， Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word “d-o-l-l”. I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed； I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words， among them pin， hat， cup and a few verbs like sit， stand and walk. But my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name.
One day， while I was playing with my new doll， Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also， spelled “d-o-l-l” and tried to make me understand that “d-o-l-l” applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words “m-u-g” and “w-a-t-e-r.” Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water， but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time， only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and， seizing the new doll， I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still， dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth， and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat， and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought， if a wordless sensation may be called a thought， made me hop and skip with pleasure.