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But I do not blame any one. They did not realize how difficult they were making the examinations for me, nor did they understand the peculiar difficulties which I had to surmount. But if they unintentionally placed obstacles in my way, I have the consolation of knowing that I overcame them all.

HELEN KELLER.

To this story of struggle and victory I wish to add here only a few words by way of explanation. In regard to the time allowance, Helen exceeded the limits only in the Mathematics. Here it had been agreed that because of the mechanical difficulties in recording the results of her work for the examiner, she should be allowed extensions of time. In doing and writing out Algebra papers for me, she had, at first, taken sometimes three hours, or more; but she had by practice usually completed them well within the time limit of one and one-half hours. So it had been also with Geometry. Still in these subjects it was not surprising that so much time was consumed in the Radcliffe examinations. As I have explained already, it is very easy to make mistakes in this recording of work; and Helen explains the slowness partly by the fact of her being very careful to make no slips.

The examinations were over. The evening following was spent in some little discussion of the events of the day, but also with jovial diversion. Helen seemed bright and fresh. The next morning, at the breakfast table, on my jokingly asking her if she would like to try the examination that forenoon in Greek Prose Composition, she was all eagerness to try. A shadow of disappointment came over her face when I told her I had no intention of having her try.

On her return to Wrentham that day her mother remarked her freedom from nervousness and fatigue. Indeed, Mrs. Keller has since assured me that she had never seen Helen in as good health as just before and just after the examinations. Certain signs of nervousness which had for years been almost habitual with her had disappeared.

It was at first with some degree of disappointment to Helen that the results of the examinations were received. For she was only told that she had passed in every subject and with credit in Advanced Latin. The ambitious soul had aspired to approximate perfection in most of the subjects. In a letter to me on July announcing the results, she expressed her feelings in these words:

"I was bitterly disappointed not to have done better, and my disappointment often throws a shadow upon the pleasure which this summer is bringing me; but, dear Mr. Keith, I did my best, and I hope that in the future I may find a far better medium through which to show you my gratitude, and appreciation of what you have done for me."

It was a pity that the examinations happened to afford no better test of Miss Keller's real proficiency in Greek and Mathematics. It is a wonder that the Latin examination did give something like such a test. With the novelties of the American Braille and the strange isolation in which she worked and the various incitements to nervousness to which she was exposed, the results seem wonderful. Could she have done her work under the conditions habitual with her, higher marks would have been won, but the achievement would have been really no greater.

Soon after each examination in Latin and Greek she gave me orally from memory her version of the text. This she did wholly without reference to the paper which I held in my hand to follow her. Only once or twice in each case did she hesitate, as if in doubt as to what came next; and never did she fail in her remembrance of the text, or of her translation.

As to any helps to the theory or practice of teaching to be gained from the education of Miss Keller, the observant reader may have noted a few in the detailed account already made. Perhaps no absolutely new truths can be seen there; but certainly many a good old principle has been proved correct and a few doubtful ones made clearer. Her case is a new illustration of the fact that a good memory is at least a concomitant of high intelligence; but her education is also a proof that memory may be too much relied upon. While memory must be the ever ready and alert servant of the other powers of mind, it should be kept their servant. The stronger the memory the greater the danger of relying upon it too much. The powers of analysis, of comparison, judgment, and reasoning, and even of imagination, must be aroused and employed, or the materials furnished by experience and memory remain or become a meaningless mass or chaos. I do not mean to imply that Miss Keller's mind ever was in this condition, or in danger of being so; but I do mean that in the teaching of many subjects, especially of a high order, one must make constant appeals to first principles, constant appeals to all the faculties of mind, rather than rely on the mere memory of processes and results. The inner meaning of things, their logical relations, even imaginative views of them, must be gained.