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The requirements for admission to Radcliffe College are identical with those for admission to Harvard College; the examinations are identical, and take place at the same hours. The examinations in the Languages mostly consist in translation at sight; that is, care is taken to present to the candidate passages unlikely to have been seen before. Much stress is laid on the use of good, idiomatic English in the translations, which, however, must be close. Questions based on the passages set for translation and relating to grammar and the subject-matter form the rest of the examination. In Plane Geometry usually rather more than half the paper is intended to be sight, or original, work, the rest being the book-work of the common textbooks. In Algebra, also, the intent of the examiners seems to be to test the originality and the ingenuity, as well as the knowledge and accuracy and readiness, of the candidate.

The examinations were to come on the last two days of June. During the months of preparation we had never provided for any other method of examination than that to which she had always been accustomed -- communication of the contents of examination papers by the manual alphabet, as used by her "Teacher," Miss Sullivan. Mr. Gilman had performed that service in the preliminary examinations two years before, in the manner described by him. But it was thought best to render it impossible that any doubt as to the genuineness and fairness of the examinations should ever arise in the mind of the most sceptical critic. And although it seemed to me that no one ought ever to cavil at an examination which had been conducted with Miss Sullivan as interpreter, or reader, of the papers, it was agreed on both sides that some one should be found who could reproduce the papers in the raised characters used by the blind and known as Braille -- some one who had had no educational, or even personal, relations with Helen and whom she had never known. Such a person was found in Mr. Eugene C. Vining, of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, South Boston.

Mr. Vining met Helen for the first time a few minutes before the hour for the first examination -- that in Elementary Greek. It had been arranged that he should send to Helen a few days previously for her inspection sample Radcliffe Examination Papers, transcribed by him in Braille, to make sure that there should be no hitch. It was fortunate that this provision had been made, as will be seen on reading the following account which Helen herself has given of the examinations:

HOW I PASSED MY ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS FOR RADCLIFFE COLLEGE.

On the 29th and 30th of June, 1899, I took my examinations for Radcliffe College. The first day I had Elementary Greek and Advanced Latin, and the second day Geometry, Algebra, and Advanced Greek.

The college authorities objected to Miss Sullivan's reading the examination papers to me; so Mr. Eugene C. Vining, one of the instructors at the Perkins Institution for the Blind, was employed to copy the papers for me in American Braille. Mr. Vining was a perfect stranger to me, and could not communicate with me, except by writing Braille. The Proctor also was a stranger, and did not attempt to communicate with me in any way.

However, the Braille worked well enough in the languages, but when it came to Geometry and Algebra it was different. I was sorely perplexed, and felt quite discouraged, and wasted much precious time, especially in Algebra. It is true that I am perfectly familiar with all literary Braille -- English, American, and New York Point; but the method of writing the various signs or symbols (used in Geometry and Algebra) in the three systems is very different, and I had used only the English method in my Algebra work.

Two days before the examinations Mr. Vining sent me a Braille copy of one of the previous examination papers in Algebra; but, to my dismay, I found that it was in the American notation. I sat down immediately, and wrote to Mr. Vining, asking him to explain some of the signs. I received another paper and a table of signs by return mail, and I went to work to learn the notation. However, on the night before the Algebra examination, when I was struggling over some very complicated examples, I could not tell the combinations of bracket, brace, and radicals. Both Mr. Keith and I were distressed and full of forebodings for the morrow; but we went over to the College, a little before the examinations began, and had Mr. Vining explain more fully the method of writing such examples.

In Geometry my chief difficulty was that I had always been accustomed to reading the propositions in Line Print or having them spelled into my hand; and somehow, although the propositions were right before me, yet the Braille confused me, and I could not fix in my mind clearly what I was reading. But when I took up Algebra I had a harder time still. I was terribly handicapped by my imperfect knowledge of the notation. The signs, which I had so lately learned, and which I thought I knew perfectly, confused me. Consequently my work was painfully slow, and I was obliged to read the examples over and over before I could form a clear idea what I was required to do. Indeed, I am not sure now that I read all the signs correctly, especially as I was much distressed, and found it very hard to keep my wits about me.