The Story of My Life - Helen Keller (top rated ebook readers .txt) 📗

than set exercises. The hour from twelve to one is devoted to the learning of new words. BUT YOU MUSTN’T

THINK THIS IS THE ONLY TIME I SPELL TO HELEN; FOR I SPELL IN HER

HAND EVERYTHING WE DO ALL DAY LONG, ALTHOUGH SHE HAS NO IDEA AS

YET WHAT THE SPELLING MEANS. After dinner I rest for an hour, and Helen plays with her dolls or frolics in the yard with the little darkies, who were her constant companions before I came. Later I join them, and we make the rounds of the outhouses. We visit the horses and mules in their stalls and hunt for eggs and feed the turkeys. Often, when the weather is fine, we drive from four to six, or go to see her aunt at Ivy Green or her cousins in the town. Helen’s instincts are decidedly social; she likes to have people about her and to visit her friends, partly, I think, because they always have things she likes to eat. After supper we go to my room and do all sorts of things until eight, when I undress the little woman and put her to bed. She sleeps with me now. Mrs. Keller wanted to get a nurse for her, but I concluded I’d rather be her nurse than look after a stupid, lazy negress.

Besides, I like to have Helen depend on me for everything, AND I FIND IT MUCH EASIER TO TEACH HER THINGS AT ODD MOMENTS THAN AT

SET TIMES.

 

On March 31st I found that Helen knew eighteen nouns and three verbs. Here is a list of the words. Those with a cross after them are words she asked for herself: DOLL, MUG, PIN, KEY, DOG, HAT, CUP, BOX, WATER, MILK, CANDY, EYE (X), FINGER (X), TOE (X), HEAD

(X), CAKE, BABY, MOTHER, SIT, STAND, WALK. On April 1st she learned the nouns KNIFE, FORK, SPOON, SAUCER, TEA, PAPA, BED, and the verb RUN.

 

April 5, 1887.

 

I must write you a line this morning because something very important has happened. Helen has taken the second great step in her education. She has learned that EVERYTHING HAS A NAME, AND

THAT THE MANUAL ALPHABET IS THE KEY TO EVERYTHING SHE WANTS TO

KNOW.

 

In a previous letter I think I wrote you that “mug” and “milk”

had given Helen more trouble than all the rest. She confused the nouns with the verb “drink.” She didn’t know the word for “drink,” but went through the pantomime of drinking whenever she spelled “mug” or “milk.” This morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name for “water.” When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats my hand. I spelled “w-a-t-e-r” and thought no more about it until after breakfast.

Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word I might succeed in straightening out the “mug-milk” difficulty. We went out to the pump-house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled “w-a-t-e-r” in Helen’s free hand. The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light came into her face. She spelled “water”

several times. Then she dropped on the ground and asked for its name and pointed to the pump and the trellis, and suddenly turning round she asked for my name. I spelled “Teacher.” Just then the nurse brought Helen’s little sister into the pump-house, and Helen spelled “baby” and pointed to the nurse. All the way back to the house she was highly excited, and learned the name of every object she touched, so that in a few hours she had adDED

THIRTY NEW WORDS TO HER VOCABULARY. HERE ARE SOME OF THEM: DOOR, OPEN, SHUT, GIVE, GO, COME, and a great many more.

 

P.S.—I didn’t finish my letter in time to get it posted last night; so I shall add a line. Helen got up this morning like a radiant fairy. She has flitted from object to object, asking the name of everything and kissing me for very gladness. Last night when I got in bed, she stole into my arms of her own accord and kissed me for the first time, and I thought my heart would burst, so full was it of joy.

 

April 10, 1887.

 

I see an improvement in Helen day to day, almost from hour to hour. Everything must have a name now. Wherever we go, she asks eagerly for the names of things she has not learned at home. She is anxious for her friends to spell, and eager to teach the letters to every one she meets. She drops the signs and pantomime she used before, as soon as she has words to supply their place, and the acquirement of a new word affords her the liveliest pleasure. And we notice that her face grows more expressive each day.

 

I HAVE DECIDED NOT TO TRY TO HAVE REGULAR LESSONS FOR THE

PRESENT. I AM GOING TO TREAT HELEN EXACTLY LIKE A TWO-YEAR-OLD

CHILD. IT OCCURRED TO ME THE OTHER DAY THAT IT IS ABSURD TO

REQUIRE A CHILD TO COME TO A CERTAIN PLACE AT A CERTAIN TIME AND

RECITE CERTAIN LESSONS, WHEN HE HAS NOT YET ACQUIRED A WORKING

VOCABULARY. I sent Helen away and sat down to think. I asked myself, “How does a normal child learn language?” The answer was simple, “By imitation.” The child comes into the world with the ability to learn, and he learns of himself, provided he is supplied with sufficient outward stimulus. He sees people do things, and he tries to do them. He hears others speak, and he tried to speak. BUT LONG BEFORE HE UTTERS HIS FIRST WORD, HE

UNDERSTANDS WHAT IS SAID TO HIM. I have been observing Helen’s little cousin lately. She is about fifteen months old, and already understands a great deal. In response to questions she points out prettily her nose, mouth, eye, chin, cheek, ear. If I say, “Where is baby’s other ear?” she points it out correctly. If I hand her a flower, and say, “Give it to mamma,” she takes it to her mother. If I say, “Where is the little rogue?” she hides behind her mother’s chair, or covers her face with her hands and peeps out at me with an expression of genuine roguishness. She obeys many commands like these: “Come,” “Kiss,” “Go to papa,”

“Shut the door,” “Give me the biscuit.” But I have not heard her try to say any of these words, although they have been repeated hundreds of times in her hearing, and it is perfectly evident that she understands them. These observations have given me a clue to the method to be followed in teaching Helen language.I SHALL TALK INTO HER HAND AS WE TALK INTO THE BABY’S EARS. I shall assume that she has the normal child’s capacity of assimilation and imitation. I SHALL USE COMPLETE SENTENCES IN TALKING TO HER, and fill out the meaning with gestures and her descriptive signs when necessity requires it; but I shall not try to keep her mind fixed on any one thing. I shall do all I can to interest and stimulate it, and wait for results.

 

April 24, 1887.

 

The new scheme works splendidly. Helen knows the meaning of more than a hundred words now, and learns new ones daily without the slightest suspicion that she is performing a most difficult feat.

She learns because she can’t help it, just as the bird learns to fly. But don’t imagine that she “talks fluently.” Like her baby cousin, she expresses whole sentences by single words. “Milk,”

with a gesture means, “Give me more milk.” “Mother,” accompanied by an inquiring look, means, “Were is mother?” “Go” means, “I want to go out.” But when I spell into her hand, “Give me some bread,” she hands me the bread, or if I say, “Get your hat and we will go to walk,” she obeys instantly. The two words, “hat” and “walk” would have the same effect; BUT THE WHOLE SENTENCE, REPEATED MANY TIMES DURING THE DAY, MUST IN TIME IMPRESS ITSELF

UPON THE BRAIN, AND BY AND BY SHE WILL USE IT HERSELF.

 

We play a little game which I find most useful in developing the intellect, and which incidentally answers the purpose of a language lesson. It is an adaptation of hide-the-thimble. I hide something, a ball or a spool, and we hunt for it. When we first played this game two or three days ago, she showed no ingenuity at all in finding the object. She looked in places where it would have been impossible to put the ball or the spool. For instance, when I hid the ball, she looked under her writing-board. Again, when I hid the spool, she looked for it in a little box not more than an inch long; and she very soon gave up the search. Now I can keep up her interest in the game for an hour or longer, and she shows much more intelligence, and often great ingenuity in the search. This morning I hid a cracker. She looked everywhere she could think of without success, and was evidently in despair when suddenly a thought struck her, and she came running to me and made me open my mouth very wide, while she gave it a thorough investigation. Finding no trace of the cracker there, she pointed to my stomach and spelled “eat,” meaning, “Did you eat it?”

 

Friday we went down town and met a gentleman who gave Helen some candy, which she ate, except one small piece which she put in her apron pocket. When we reached home, she found her mother, and of her own accord said, “Give baby candy.” Mrs. Keller spelled, “No—baby eat—no.” Helen went to the cradle and felt of Mildred’s mouth and pointed to her own teeth. Mrs. Keller spelled “teeth.” Helen shook her head and spelled “Baby teeth—no, baby eat—no,” meaning of course, “Baby cannot eat because she has no teeth.”

 

May 8, 1887.

 

No, I don’t want any more kindergarten materials. I used my little stock of beads, cards and straws at first because I didn’t know what else to do; but the need for them is past, for the present at any rate.

 

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.

Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.

 

Helen is learning adjectives and adverbs as easily as she learned nouns. The idea always precedes the word. She had signs for SMALL

and LARGE long before I came to her. If she wanted a small object and was given a large one, she would shake her head and take up a tiny bit of the skin of one hand between the thumb and finger of the other. If she wanted to indicate something large, she spread the fingers of both hands as wide as she could, and brought them together,