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Helen Keller's studies under my direction began early in February, 1898, and ended in June, 1899, occupying in all about thirteen months. During the first five of these months instruction and recitation came only once a week, in a period of three and a half hours. During about eight months, beginning with the middle of October, 1898, we had lessons five times a week, in periods of somewhat more than one hour each. In June, 1899, we worked together only twice, she being in Wrentham, Mass., with Miss Sullivan, in a lakeside cottage, pursuing her studies under my directions, partly by mail; and also enjoying the pleasures of outdoor life, such as boating and bathing and bicycle riding. Considering the limitations of time and other conditions to be described governing our work, one may readily judge, as this narrative proceeds, whether the results were commensurate with the efforts.

A few weeks before this campaign of study began, Miss Keller had been taken from the Cambridge School, in which, the year before, she had studied in preparation for the preliminary examinations for admission to Radcliffe College, under circumstances which had seriously unnerved so gentle and sensitive, and withal so ambitious, a scholar. It is not for me here to dilate upon those circumstances, or pass judgment upon those responsible for them. I allude to them because I was warned by one of Helen's best friends, the one who engaged me to tutor her, to be on the watch for any signs of overwork, or undue nervous strain. I was told that it was a common impression that she was often under too high pressure of work, and in danger of breaking down. It was implied that there existed considerable difference of opinion about this, and that the Director of the Cambridge Fitting School, above mentioned, entertained the belief of her being overworked. I was very solemnly cautioned against incurring the risk of the realization of such woful forebodings. Especially just at the juncture where we then were, with Helen hardly recovered from the shock of recent events, the question of health was of prime importance.

It was allowed by all that my one session a week ought to be two or three sessions of shorter periods. I could not, in the three and one-half hours Saturdays, do justice to all the work which Helen could prepare for me during the preceding week. I always had to leave much unfinished, or even untouched. And yet the Saturday period was in one sense too long; the strain of continuous drill or instruction, mostly in Mathematics, for three and a half hours was often very great, even for me. Miss Sullivan was sometimes well nigh exhausted, and now and then I gave Helen a respite by changing from Mathematics to Greek. For it was the Algebra and the Plane Geometry that we spent the most time on. The Latin we at first omitted, and soon, in order to gain time Saturdays for Mathematics, I corrected at home written work in Greek consisting of translations from Greek into English and from English into Greek, my corrections being supplemented by liberal remarks on constructions and principles suggested by her work.

But these difficulties attending our work at Wrentham were considered unavoidable. It was hardly possible for me to go twice a week to Wrentham, a place about twenty-six miles from Boston with inconvenient railway accommodations. The journey thither and back and the lessons took nearly seven hours. The railway timetable fixed for us the period. The expense of more frequent lessons would have been great. It was intended that Helen should for awhile at least pursue her studies rather leisurely. Her residence in Cambridge, or in Boston, would have been better educationally, and for me personally; but Wrentham was, all things considered, thought to be the best place for Helen. The home-life there, -- the outdoor recreations, were indeed ideal. A country farmhouse, children driving, bicycle riding, boating, bathing, wood and field rambling, a free and joyous life in close communion with nature, -- may not these things be reckoned among the means of wholesome education?

Director Gilman, of the Cambridge School, had laid out for Helen a three years' course of study in preparation for the final examinations at Radcliffe; it was hoped that I might be able to encourage the belief that entrance to Radcliffe could be attained in 1899. Could Miss Keller endure the strain? Every one, including the persistent, energetic, indomitable Miss Sullivan, seemed utterly discouraged over the Algebra and Geometry. I was pathetically asked again and again, during the first five or six weeks, whether we were torturing poor Helen on the rack of Mathematics; whether there was a grain of profit to her in such studies, or any hope of success in the examinations in them. Of course, Helen neither liked them nor saw any good in them. One rarely likes, or sees the use of, failure. Delight comes from success, and appreciation from ample knowledge. Appeal had been made to Miss Irwin, Dean of Radcliffe, who had suggested that Helen might be allowed to substitute at the examinations subjects more congenial to her.