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In
spite, however, of these advantages, there were serious drawbacks to my
progress. Miss Sullivan could not spell out in my hand all that the books
required, and it was very difficult to have textbooks embossed in time to be
of use to me, although my friends in London and Philadelphia were willing to
hasten the work. For a while, indeed, I had to copy my Latin in braille, so
that I could recite with the other girls. My instructors soon became
sufficiently familiar with my imperfect speech to answer my questions
readily and correct mistakes. I could not make notes in class or write
exercises; but I wrote all my compositions and translations at home on my
typewriter.
Each
day Miss Sullivan went to the classes with me and spelled into my hand with
infinite patience all that the teachers said. In study hours she had to look
up new words for me and read and reread notes and books I did not have in
raised print. The tedium of that work is hard to conceive. Frau Grote, my
German teacher, and Mr. Gilman, the principal, were the only teachers in the
school who learned the finger alphabet to give me instruction. No one
realized more fully than dear Frau Grote how slow and inadequate her
spelling was. Nevertheless, in the goodness of her heart she laboriously
spelled out her instructions to me in special lessons twice a week, to give
Miss Sullivan a little rest. But, though everybody was kind and ready to
help us, there was only one hand that could turn drudgery into pleasure.
That
year I finished arithmetic, reviewed my Latin grammar, and read three
chapters of Caesar's "Gallic War." In German I read, partly with
my fingers and partly with Miss Sullivan's assistance, Schiller's "Lied
von der Glocke" and "Taucher," Heine's "Harzreise,"
Freytag's "Aus dem Staat Friedrichs des Grossen," Riehl's "Fluch
Der Schonheit," Lessing's "Minna von Barnhelm," and Goethe's
"Aus meinem Leben." I took the greatest delight in these German
books, especially Schiller's wonderful lyrics, the history of Frederick the
Great's magnificent achievements and the account of Goethe's life. I was
sorry to finish "Die Harzreise," so full of happy witticisms and
charming descriptions of vine-clad hills, streams that sing and ripple in
the sunshine, and wild regions, sacred to tradition and legend, the gray
sisters of a long-vanished, imaginative age--descriptions such as can be
given only by those to whom nature is "a feeling, a love and an
appetite."
Mr.
Gilman instructed me part of the year in English literature. We read
together, "As You Like It," Burke's "Speech on Conciliation
with America," and Macaulay's "Life of Samuel Johnson." Mr.
Gilman's broad views of history and literature and his clever explanations
made my work easier and pleasanter than it could have been had I only read
notes mechanically with the necessarily brief explanations given in the
classes.
Burke's
speech was more instructive than any other book on a political subject that
I had ever read. My mind stirred with the stirring times, and the characters
round which the life of two contending nations centred seemed to move right
before me. I wondered more and more, while Burke's masterly speech rolled on
in mighty surges of eloquence, how it was that King George and his ministers
could have turned a deaf ear to his warning prophecy of our victory and
their humiliation. Then I entered into the melancholy details of the
relation in which the great statesman stood to his party and to the
representatives of the people. I thought how strange it was that such
precious seeds of truth and wisdom should have fallen among the tares of
ignorance and corruption.
In
a different way Macaulay's "Life of Samuel Johnson" was
interesting. My heart went out to the lonely man who ate the bread of
affliction in Grub Street, and yet, in the midst of toil and cruel suffering
of body and soul, always had a kind word, and lent a helping hand to the
poor and despised. I rejoiced over all his successes, I shut my eyes to his
faults, and wondered, not that he had them, but that they had not crushed or
dwarfed his soul. But in spite of Macaulay's brilliancy and his admirable
faculty of making the commonplace seem fresh and picturesque, his
positiveness wearied me at times, and his frequent sacrifices of truth to
effect kept me in a questioning attitude very unlike the attitude of
reverence in which I had listened to the Demosthenes of Great Britain.
At
the Cambridge school, for the first time in my life, I enjoyed the
companionship of seeing and hearing girls of my own age. I lived with
several others in one of the pleasant houses connected with the school, the
house where Mr. Howells used to live, and we all had the advantage of home
life. I joined them in many of their games, even blind man's buff and
frolics in the snow; I took long walks with them; we discussed our studies
and read aloud the things that interested us. Some of the girls learned to
speak to me, so that Miss Sullivan did not have to repeat their
conversation.
At
Christmas, my mother and little sister spent the holidays with me, and Mr.
Gilman kindly offered to let Mildred study in his school. So Mildred stayed
with me in Cambridge, and for six happy months we were hardly ever apart. It
makes me most happy to remember the hours we spent helping each other in
study and sharing our recreation together.
I
took my preliminary examinations for Radcliffe from the 29th of June to the
3rd of July in 1897. The subjects I offered were Elementary and Advanced
German, French, Latin, English, and Greek and Roman history, making nine
hours in all. I passed in everything, and received "honours" in
German and English.
Perhaps
an explanation of the method that was in use when I took my examinations
will not be amiss here. The student was required to pass in sixteen
hours--twelve hours being called elementary and four advanced. He had to
pass five hours at a time to have them counted. The examination papers were
given out at nine o'clock at Harvard and brought to Radcliffe by a special
messenger. Each candidate was known, not by his name, but by a number. I was
No. 233, but, as I had to use a typewriter, my identity could not be
concealed.
It
was thought advisable for me to have my examinations in a room by myself,
because the noise of the typewriter might disturb the other girls. Mr.
Gilman read all the papers to me by means of the manual alphabet. A man was
placed on guard at the door to prevent interruption.
The
first day I had German. Mr. Gilman sat beside me and read the paper through
first, then sentence by sentence, while I repeated the words aloud, to make
sure that I understood him perfectly. The papers were difficult, and I felt
very anxious as I wrote out my answers on the typewriter. Mr. Gilman spelled
to me what I had written, and I made such changes as I thought necessary,
and he inserted them. I wish to say here that I have not had this advantage
since in any of my examinations. At Radcliffe no one reads the papers to me
after they are written, and I have no opportunity to correct errors unless I
finish before the time is up. In that case I correct only such mistakes as I
can recall in the few minutes allowed, and make notes of these corrections
at the end of my paper. If I passed with higher credit in the preliminaries
than in the finals, there are two reasons. In the finals, no one read my
work over to me, and in the preliminaries I offered subjects with some of
which I was in a measure familiar before my work in the Cambridge school;
for at the beginning of the year I had passed examinations in English,
History, French and German, which Mr. Gilman gave me from previous Harvard
papers.
Mr.
Gilman sent my written work to the examiners with a certificate that I,
candidate No. 233, had written the papers.
All
the other preliminary examinations were conducted in the same manner. None
of them was so difficult as the first. I remember that the day the Latin
paper was brought to us, Professor Schilling came in and informed me I had
passed satisfactorily in German. This encouraged me greatly, and I sped on
to the end of the ordeal with a light heart and a steady hand.
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