CHAPTER 15-22
Chapter 15
Helen spent the next summer and winter with her family in
Alabama. Staying at home made her forget about the controversy over ‘The Frost
King’. Helen was scared that people would discover that the ideas were not her
own. To help her, Helen’s teacher Anne Sullivan encouraged her to write the
story of her own life in the form of an assignment. Helen was 12 years old at
that time and used to write for a magazine called Youth's Companion. Her visit
to President Cleveland’s inauguration, to Niagara Falls, and to the World’s
fair were the big events of 1893. Although she couldn’t see the Falls, Helen
said that their power had a big impact on her. Helen claimed that beauty and
music were like goodness and love to her.
Chapter 16
By the time Helen was 13, she could fingerspell and read in
raised print and Braille. He could not only speak in English, but also a little
bit of French. Helen began her formal schooling and preparation for college in
for college by taking Latin and Math lessons. She initially liked Math
more, but later grew to love Latin too.
Anne Sullivan taught Helen based on her interests until now. She
used to teach her what she wanted to know and provided her with experiences.
However, when preparing for college, Helen worked systematically and things
that did not gratify her immediately. She had to achieve her goal of receiving
formal education.
Chapter 17
In October 1894, Helen went to the Wright-Humason School for the
Deaf in New York City for two years. Miss Sullivan accompanied her and attended
the school as her interpreter. Helen studied arithmetic, physical geography,
French and German at the school. The school was chosen because it was the best
for continuing the development of Helen’s speech and lip reading skills. Helen
and her teachers were disappointed as her lip-reading and speech skills were
not what they had hoped and expected to be despite the practice. Helen did not
like Math. In spite of the setbacks, her admiration for geography and languages
helped her form fond memories of her stay in New York. The only thing she
liked about New York was Central Park. The daily walks in Central park and
closeness to nature were the two things that helped her get closer to her
former life in her country.
Chapter 18
In 1896, Helen went to Cambridge school for Young Ladies to be
prepared to get into Radcliffe. It was her first experience of attending
classes with girls who could hear and see. At the Cambridge School too, Miss
Sullivan was to attend the classes with Helen as her interpreter. The teachers
had never taught someone like Helen. The subjects that Helen learnt in the
first year were English history, English literature, German, Latin, arithmetic,
Latin composition and occasional themes. Miss Sullivan tried her best to spell
into Helen’s hands everything that was in the books. Although Helen’s sponsors
in London and Philadelphia worked to have the textbooks embossed in raised
print for Helen to read, the books were not ready in time to suit Helen’s
purpose. The Principal and the German teacher learnt to fingerspell so that
Miss Sullivan could take a break. Although they were not as fluent as Miss
Sullivan, Principal Gilman took over teaching Helen English Literature for the
remaining part of the year.
Chapter 19
Helen looked forward to her second year at Gilman’s school.
However, she was confronted with unexpected difficulties that year which caused
her a great deal of frustration. She had to study mathematics without the
needed tools. The classes were larger and it was not possible for the Cambridge
teachers to give her special instructions. Anne Sullivan had to read all the
books to her. Helen had to wait in order to buy a Braille writer so that she
could do her algebra, geometry and physics.
When the embossed books and the other apparatus arrived, Helen’s
difficulties began to disappear and she began to study with confidence.
However, Mr. Gilman thought that Helen was overworked and was breaking down. He
insisted that I was overworked, and that I should remain at his school three
years longer. He made changes in her studies. A difference of opinion between
Mr. Gilman and Miss Sullivan resulted in Helen’s mother withdrawing Helen and
Mildred from the Cambridge school. Helen went on to continue her studies under
a tutor. Helen found it easier to study with a tutor than receive instructions
in class.
When Helen took her exam in June 1899, she faced many
difficulties, as the administrative board of Radcliffe did not realize how
difficult they were making her examinations. They did not understand the
peculiar difficulties Helen had to go through. However, Helen, with her grit
and determination, overcame them all.
Chapter 20
Helen Keller took the entrance exams for Radcliffe College in
1899 just after her 19th birthday. She became the first blind-deaf college
student in the fall of 1900. She had thought of college romantically,
that it would be a time to reflect and think about her subjects. However, her
college life was different from her fellow students. She had to use her hands
to listen rather than take down notes. The speed at which the lectures took
place made it difficult for Keller to understand and remember everything that
was taught.
Ms. Keller and Ms. Sullivan worked hard at Radcliffe College.
Ms. Sullivan attended all of Ms. Keller's classes and helped with reading.
Radcliffe was not prepared for deaf or blind students at that time. Many of the
other students had never met a deaf and blind person. Although she enjoyed
college, Ms. Keller thought that schedules of the students were too hectic and
gave no time to sit and think. She also wrote, "we should take our
education as we would take a walk in the country, leisurely, our minds
hospitably open to impressions of every sort."
Chapter 21
In this chapter, Helen Keller goes back to tell readers about
her initial experiences with reading. Helen first read when I was seven years
old. That was her first connected story in May 1887. There were only a few
books in raised print, which Helen read repeatedly until a time when the words
were so worn and pressed that she could scarcely make them out.
During her visit to Boston, she was allowed to spend a part of
each day at the Institution library, and here she used to wander from bookcase
to bookcase and take down whatever her “fingers lighted upon”. When she
discovered the book ‘Little Lord Fauntleroy,’ Miss Sullivan read it to her and
the book became Helen’s “sweet and gentle companion” throughout her childhood.
From there she read many books and she loved "Little
Women" because it gave her a sense of kinship with girls and boys who
could see and hear. She also loved ‘The Jungle Book’ and ‘Wild ‘Animals I Have
Known’ as she felt a genuine interest in the animals themselves, they being
“real animals and not caricatures of men”. She was fascinated by Greek
literature and it was Iliad that made Greece her “paradise”. According to her,
great poetry did not need an interpreter but a responsive heart. Macbeth and
King Lear impressed her most among Shakespeare’s works. She read the Bible for
years “with an ever-broadening sense of joy and inspiration”. She said she
loved it as she loved no other book.
Helen also expresses her love for history apart from her love
for literature. The first book that gave her a real sense of the value of
history was Swinton's "World's History," which she received on her
thirteenth birthday. Among the French writers, she liked Molière and Racine
best. Literature was Helen’s Utopia, where she faced no barrier of the senses.
The things that she had learned and the things that were taught to her seemed
of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and
heavenly charities."
Chapter 22
Books and reading were not the only things that Helen enjoyed.
When Helen was not reading, she enjoyed outdoor activities. She liked swimming,
canoeing, and sailing. She also loved trees and used to feel close to them so
much so that she believed she could hear their sap flow and see the sun shining
on the leaves. Helen felt that each one of us had the ability to understand the
impressions and the emotions experienced by mankind from the beginning.
Blindness or deafness could not rob us of our memory in the subconscious about
the green earth. This, she termed as the sixth sense which can see, feel and
hear.
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