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From
the printed slip it was but a step to the printed book. I took my
"Reader for Beginners" and hunted for the words I knew; when I
found them my joy was like that of a game of hide-and-seek. Thus I began to
read. Of the time when I began to read connected stories I shall speak
later.
For
a long time I had no regular lessons. Even when I studied most earnestly it
seemed more like play than work. Everything Miss Sullivan taught me she
illustrated by a beautiful story or a poem. Whenever anything delighted or
interested me she talked it over with me just as if she were a little girl
herself. What many children think of with dread, as a painful plodding
through grammar, hard sums and harder definitions, is to-day one of my most
precious memories. I cannot
explain the peculiar sympathy Miss Sullivan had with my pleasures and
desires. Perhaps it was the result of long association with the blind. Added
to this she had a wonderful faculty for description. She went quickly over
uninteresting details, and never nagged me with questions to see if I
remembered the day-before-yesterday's lesson. She introduced dry
technicalities of science little by little, making every subject so real
that I could not help remembering what she taught.
We
read and studied out of doors, preferring the sunlit woods to the house. All
my early lessons have in them the breath of the woods--the fine, resinous
odour of pine needles, blended with the perfume of wild grapes. Seated in
the gracious shade of a wild tulip tree, I learned to think that everything
has a lesson and a suggestion. "The loveliness of things taught me all
their use." Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or
bloom had a part in my education-noisy-throated frogs, katydids and crickets
held in my hand until forgetting their embarrassment, they trilled their
reedy note, little downy chickens and wildflowers, the dogwood blossoms,
meadow-violets and budding fruit trees. I felt the bursting cotton-bolls and
fingered their soft fiber and fuzzy seeds; I felt the low soughing of the
wind through the cornstalks, the silky rustling of the long leaves, and the
indignant snort of my pony, as we caught him in the pasture and put the bit
in his mouth--ah me! how well I remember the spicy, clovery smell of his
breath!
Sometimes
I rose at dawn and stole into the garden while the heavy dew lay on the
grass and flowers. Few know what joy it is to feel the roses pressing softly
into the hand, or the beautiful motion of the lilies as they sway in the
morning breeze. Sometimes I caught an insect in the flower I was plucking,
and I felt the faint noise of a pair of wings rubbed together in a sudden
terror, as the little creature became aware of a pressure from without.
Another
favourite haunt of mine was the orchard, where the fruit ripened early in
July. The large, downy peaches would reach themselves into my hand, and as
the joyous breezes flew about the trees the apples tumbled at my feet. Oh,
the delight with which I gathered up the fruit in my pinafore, pressed my
face against the smooth cheeks of the apples, still warm from the sun, and
skipped back to the house!
Our
favourite walk was to Keller's Landing, an old tumbledown lumber-wharf on
the Tennessee River, used during the Civil War to land soldiers. There we
spent many happy hours and played at learning geography. I built dams of
pebbles, made islands and lakes, and dug river-beds, all for fun, and never
dreamed that I was learning a lesson. I listened with increasing wonder to
Miss Sullivan's descriptions of the great round world with its burning
mountains, buried cities, moving rivers of ice, and many other things as
strange. She made raised maps in clay, so that I could feel the mountain
ridges and valleys, and follow with my fingers the devious course of rivers.
I liked this, too; but the division of the earth into zones and poles
confused and teased my mind. The illustrative strings and the orange stick
representing the poles seemed so real that even to this day the mere mention
of temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and I believe that if
any one should set about it he could convince me that white bears actually
climb the North Pole.
Arithmetic
seems to have been the only study I did not like. From the first I was not
interested in the science of numbers. Miss Sullivan tried to teach me to
count by stringing beads in groups, and by arranging kintergarten straws I
learned to add and subtract. I never had patience to arrange more than five
or six groups at a time. When I had accomplished this my conscience was at
rest for the day, and I went out quickly to find my playmates.
In
this same leisurely manner I studied zoology and botany.
Once
a gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, sent me a collection of
fossils--tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked, and bits of sandstone with
the print of birds' claws, and a lovely fern in bas-relief. These were the
keys which unlocked the treasures of the antediluvian world for me. With
trembling fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's descriptions of the terrible
beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable names, which once went tramping
through the primeval forests, tearing down the branches of gigantic trees
for food, and died in the dismal swamps of an unknown age. For a long time
these strange creatures haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a
somber background to the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and
echoing with the gentle beat of my pony's hoof.
Another
time a beautiful shell was given me, and with a child's surprise and delight
I learned how a tiny mollusk had built the lustrous coil for his dwelling
place, and how on still nights, when there is no breeze stirring the waves,
the Nautilus sails on the blue waters of the Indian Ocean in his "ship
of pearl." After I had learned a great many interesting things about
the life and habits of the children of the sea--how in the midst of dashing
waves the little polyps build the beautiful coral isles of the Pacific, and
the foraminifera have made the chalk-hills of many a land--my teacher read
me "The Chambered Nautilus," and showed me that the shell-building
process of the mollusks is symbolical of the development of the mind. Just
as the wonder-working mantle of the Nautilus changes the material it absorbs
from the water and makes it a part of itself, so the bits of knowledge one
gathers undergo a similar change and become pearls of thought.
Again,
it was the growth of a plant that furnished the text for a lesson. We bought
a lily and set it in a sunny window. Very soon the green, pointed buds
showed signs of opening. The slender, fingerlike leaves on the outside
opened slowly, reluctant, I thought, to reveal the loveliness they hid; once
having made a start, however, the opening process went on rapidly, but in
order and systematically. There was always one bud larger and more beautiful
than the rest, which pushed her outer, covering back with more pomp, as if
the beauty in soft, silky robes knew that she was the lily-queen by right
divine, while her more timid sisters doffed their green hoods shyly, until
the whole plant was one nodding bough of loveliness and fragrance.
Once
there were eleven tadpoles in a glass globe set in a window full of plants.
I remember the eagerness with which I made discoveries about them. It was
great fun to plunge my hand into the bowl and feel the tadpoles frisk about,
and to let them slip and slide between my fingers. One day a more ambitious
fellow leaped beyond the edge of the bowl and fell on the floor, where I
found him to all appearance more dead than alive. The only sign of life was
a slight wriggling of his tail. But no sooner had he returned to his element
than he darted to the bottom, swimming round and round in joyous activity.
He had made his leap, he had seen the great world, and was content to stay
in his pretty glass house under the big fuchsia tree until he attained the
dignity of froghood. Then he went to live in the leafy pool at the end of
the garden, where he made the summer nights musical with his quaint
love-song.
Thus
I learned from life itself. At the beginning I was only a little mass of
possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed them. When she
came, everything about me breathed of love and joy and was full of meaning.
She has never since let pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that is
in everything, nor has she ceased trying in thought and action and example
to make my life sweet and useful.
It
was my teacher's genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the
first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the
right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to
me. She realized that a child's mind is like a shallow brook which ripples
and dances merrily over the stony course of its education and reflects here
a flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to guide my
mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be fed by mountain
streams and hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep river,
capable of reflecting in its placid surface, billowy hills, the luminous
shadows of trees and the blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little
flower.
Any
teacher can take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher can make
him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his,
whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the
heart-sinking of disappointment before he takes with a will the tasks
distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull
routine of textbooks.
My
teacher is so near to me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How
much of my delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to
her influence, I can never tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from
my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me
belongs to her--there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy in me that
has not been awakened by her loving touch.
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