Question

character sketch of edward everett hale from hellenkeller

Answer 1

Dr. Edward Everett Hale was a Unitarian minister and man of letters who wrote the well-known story "The Man without a Country," written in support of the Union during the Civil War. Hale was related to Helen Keller on her mother's side of the family, which went back to the Adams family in Massachusetts. Helen Keller's grandmother was Lucy Helen Everett, who was related to Edward Everett Hale. 

Helen knew Dr. Hale from the time she was eight, and she considered him a close and supportive friend. She writes of him that "He has filled the old skins of dogma with the new wine of love, and shown men what it is to believe, live and be free." As a minister, Dr. Hale broke with Calvinist tradition and taught about the promise and potential freedom of humans. Helen Keller wrote Hale many letters, and he returned his letters with his name written in Braille. He also sent her books and sea shells, and it was his idea, which Helen Keller's teacher Anne Sullivan adopted, that Helen study courses similar to those given at Radcliffe to prepare Keller for college.