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19 - Story of My Life by Helen Keller · Story of My Life

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen of the Story of My Life. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. The Story of My
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  Speaker 1: Life by Helen Keller, chapter nineteen. When I began my
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  Speaker 1: second year at the Gilman School, I was full of
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  Speaker 1: hope and determination to succeed. But during the first few
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  Speaker 1: weeks I was confronted with unforeseen difficulties. Mister Gilman had
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  Speaker 1: agreed that that year I should study mathematics. Principally, I
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  Speaker 1: had physics, algebra, geometry, astronomy, Greek and Latin. Unfortunately, many
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  Speaker 1: of the books I needed had not been embossed in
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  Speaker 1: time for me to begin with the classes, and I
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  Speaker 1: lacked important apparatus for some of my studies. The classes
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  Speaker 1: I was in were very large, and it was impossible
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  Speaker 1: for the teachers to give me special instruction. Miss Sullivan
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  Speaker 1: was obliged to read all the books to me and
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  Speaker 1: interpret for the instructors, and for the first time in
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  Speaker 1: eleven years, it seemed as if her dear hand would
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  Speaker 1: not be equal to the task. It was necessary for
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  Speaker 1: me to write algebra and geometry in class and solve
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  Speaker 1: the problems in physics, and this I could not do
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  Speaker 1: until we bought a braided writer by means of which
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  Speaker 1: I could put down the steps and processes of my work.
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  Speaker 1: I could not follow with my eyes the geometrical figures
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  Speaker 1: drawn on the blackboard, and my only means of getting
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  Speaker 1: a clear idea of them was to make them on
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  Speaker 1: a cushion with straight and curved wires which had bent
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  Speaker 1: and pointed ends. I had to carry in my mind,
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  Speaker 1: as mister Keith says in his report, the lettering of
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  Speaker 1: the figures, the hypothesis and conclusion, the construction and the
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  Speaker 1: process of the proof. In a word, every study had
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  Speaker 1: its obstacles. Sometimes I lost all courage and betrayed my
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  Speaker 1: feelings in a way I am ashamed to remember, especially
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  Speaker 1: as the signs of my trouble were afterward used again
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  Speaker 1: aainst Miss Sullivan, the only person of all the kind
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  Speaker 1: friends I had there who could make the crouped straight
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  Speaker 1: and the rough places smooth. Little by little, however, my
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  Speaker 1: difficulties began to disappear. The embossed books and other apparatus arrived,
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  Speaker 1: and I threw myself into the work with renewed confidence.
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  Speaker 1: Algebra and geometry were the only studies that continued to
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  Speaker 1: defy my efforts to comprehend them. As I have said before,
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  Speaker 1: I had no aptitude for mathematics. The different points were
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  Speaker 1: not explained to me as fully as I wished. The
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  Speaker 1: geometrical diagrams were particularly vexing because I could not see
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  Speaker 1: the relation of the different parts to one another, even
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  Speaker 1: on the cushion. It was not until mister Keith taught
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  Speaker 1: me that I had a clear idea of mathematics. I
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  Speaker 1: was beginning to overcome these difficulties when an event occurred
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  Speaker 1: which changed everything. Just before the books came, Mister Gilman
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  Speaker 1: had begun to rem straight with Miss Sullivan on the
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  Speaker 1: ground that I was working too hard, and in spite
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  Speaker 1: of my earnest protestations, he reduced the number of my recitations.
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  Speaker 1: At the beginning, we had agreed that I should, if necessary,
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  Speaker 1: take five years to prepare for college. But at the
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  Speaker 1: end of the first year, the success of my examinations
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  Speaker 1: showed Miss Sullivan, Miss Harbll, mister Gilman's head teacher, and
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  Speaker 1: one other that I could, without too much effort, complete
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  Speaker 1: my preparation in two years more. Mister Gilman at first
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  Speaker 1: agreed to this, but when my tasks had become somewhat perplexing,
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  Speaker 1: he insisted that I was overworked, and that I should
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  Speaker 1: remain at his school three years longer. I did not
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  Speaker 1: like his plan, for I wished to enter college with
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  Speaker 1: my class. On the seventeenth of November. I was not
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  Speaker 1: very well and did not go to school. Although Miss
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  Speaker 1: Sullivan knew that my indisposition was not serious yet, mister Gilman,
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  Speaker 1: on hearing of it, declared that I was breaking down
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  Speaker 1: and made changes in my studies which would have rendered
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  Speaker 1: it impossible for me to take my final examinations with
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  Speaker 1: my class. In the end, the difference of opinion between
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  Speaker 1: mister Gilman and Miss Sullivan resulted in my mother's withdrawing
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  Speaker 1: my sister Mildred and me from the Cambridge school. After
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  Speaker 1: some delay, it was arranged that I should continue my
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  Speaker 1: studies under a tutor, mister Merton s Keith of Cambridge.
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  Speaker 1: Miss Sullivan and I spent the rest of the winter
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  Speaker 1: with our friends, the Chamberlains in Wrentham, twenty five miles
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  Speaker 1: from Boston. From February to July eighteen ninety eight, mister
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  Speaker 1: Keith came out to Wrentham twice a week and taught
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  Speaker 1: me algebra, geometry, Greek and Latin. Miss Sullivan interpreted his instruction.
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  Speaker 1: In October eighteen ninety eight, we returned to Boston. For
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  Speaker 1: eight months. Mister Keith gave me lessons five times a
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  Speaker 1: week in periods of about an hour. He explained each
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  Speaker 1: time what I did not understand in the previous lesson,
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  Speaker 1: assigned new work, and took home with him the Greek
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  Speaker 1: exercises which I had written during the week on my typewriter,
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  Speaker 1: corrected them fully, and returned them to me. In this way,
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  Speaker 1: my preparation for college went on without interruption. I found
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  Speaker 1: it much easier and pleasanter to be taught by myself
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  Speaker 1: than to receive instruction in class. There was no hurry,
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  Speaker 1: no confusion. My tutor had plenty of time to explain
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  Speaker 1: what I did not understand, so I got on faster
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  Speaker 1: and did better work than I ever did in school.
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  Speaker 1: I still found more difficulty in mastering problems in mathematics
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  Speaker 1: than I did in any other of my studies. I
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  Speaker 1: wish algebra and geometry had been half as easy as
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  Speaker 1: the languages and literature. But even mathematics mister Keith made interesting.
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  Speaker 1: He succeeded in whittling problems small enough to get through
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  Speaker 1: my brain. He kept my mind alert and eager, and
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  Speaker 1: trained it to reason clearly and to seek conclusions calmly
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  Speaker 1: and logically, instead of jumping wildly into space and arriving nowhere.
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  Speaker 1: He was always gentle and forbearing, no matter how dull
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  Speaker 1: I might be, and believe me, my stupidity would often
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  Speaker 1: have exhausted the patience of job. On the twenty ninth
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  Speaker 1: and thirtieth of June eighteen ninety nine, I took my
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  Speaker 1: final examinations for Radcliffe College. The first day I had
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  Speaker 1: Elementary Greek and Advanced Latin, and the second day Geometry,
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  Speaker 1: Algebra and Advanced Greek. The college authorities did not allow
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  Speaker 1: Miss Sullivan to read the examination papers to me, so
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  Speaker 1: mister Eugene C. Vining, one of the instructors at the
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  Speaker 1: Perkins Institution for the Blind, was employed to copy the
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  Speaker 1: papers for me in American Braille. Mister Vining was a
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  Speaker 1: stranger to me and could not communicate with me except
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  Speaker 1: by writing brain. The proctor was also a stranger and
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  Speaker 1: did not attempt to communicate with me in any way.
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  Speaker 1: The braille worked well enough in the languages, but when
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  Speaker 1: it came to geometry and algebra difficulties rose I was
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  Speaker 1: sorely perplexed and felt discouraged wasting much precious time, especially
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  Speaker 1: in algebra. It is true that I was familiar with
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  Speaker 1: all literary braille in common use in this country, English, American,
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  Speaker 1: and New York point. But the various signs and symbols
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  Speaker 1: in geometry and algebra in the three systems are very different,
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  Speaker 1: and I had used only the English braille in my algebra.
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  Speaker 1: Two days before the examinations, mister Vining sent me a
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  Speaker 1: braille copy of one of the old Harvard papers in algebra.
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  Speaker 1: To my dismay, I found that it was in the
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  Speaker 1: American notation. I sat down immediately and wrote to mister Vining,
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  Speaker 1: asking him to explain the signs. I received another paper
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  Speaker 1: and the table of signs by return mail, and I
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  Speaker 1: set to work to learn the notation. But on the
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  Speaker 1: night before the algebra examination, while I was struggling over
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  Speaker 1: some very complicated examples, I could not tell the combinations
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  Speaker 1: of bracket, brace, and radical. Both mister Keith and I
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  Speaker 1: were distressed and full of forebodings for the morrow, but
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  Speaker 1: we went over to the college a little before the
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  Speaker 1: examination began and had mister Vining explain more fully the
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  Speaker 1: American symbols in geometry. My chief difficulty was that I
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  Speaker 1: had always been accustomed to read the propositions in line print,
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  Speaker 1: were to have them spelled into my hand, And somehow,
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  Speaker 1: although the propositions were right before me, I found the
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  Speaker 1: braille confusing and could not fix clearly in mind what
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  Speaker 1: I was reading. But when I took up algebra, I
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  Speaker 1: had a harder time. Still. The signs which I had
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  Speaker 1: so lately learned, and which I thought I knew, perplexed me. Besides,
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  Speaker 1: I could not see what I wrote on my typewriter.
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  Speaker 1: I had always done my work in braille or in
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  Speaker 1: my head. Mister Keith had relied too much on my
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  Speaker 1: ability to solve problems mentally, and had not trained me
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  Speaker 1: to write examination papers. Consequently, my work was painfully slow,
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  Speaker 1: and I had to read the examples over and over
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  Speaker 1: before I could form any idea of what I was
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  Speaker 1: required to do. Indeed, I am not sure now that
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  Speaker 1: I read all the signs correctly. I found it very
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  Speaker 1: hard to keep my wits about me. But I do
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  Speaker 1: not blame any one. The administrative board of Radcliffe did
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  Speaker 1: not realize how difficult they were making my examinations, nor
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  Speaker 1: did they understand the peculiar difficulties I had to surmount.
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  Speaker 1: But if they unintentionally placed obstacles in my way, I
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  Speaker 1: have the consolation of knowing that I overcame them all.
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  Speaker 1: End of Chapter nineteen