In October, 1896, I ehe Cambridge School for Young Ladies, to be prepared for Radcliffe.
When I was a little girl, I visited Wellesley and surprised my friends by the annou, "Some day I shall go to college--but I shall go to Harvard!" When asked why I would not go to Wellesley, I replied that there were only girls there. The thought of going to college took root in my heart and became an ear desire, which impelled me to enter into petition for a degree with seeing and hearing girls, in the face of the strong opposition of many true and wise friends. When I left New York the idea had bee a fixed purpose; and it was decided that I should go to Cambridge. This was the approach I could get to Harvard and to the fulfillment of my childish declaration.
At the Cambridge School the plan was to have Miss Sullivan attend the classes with me and interpret to me the instru given.
Of course my instructors had had no experien teag any but normal pupils, and my only means of versing with them was reading their lips. My studies for the first year were English history, English literature, German, Latin, arithmetic, Latin position and occasional themes. Until then I had aken a course of study with the idea of preparing for college; but I had been well drilled in English by Miss Sullivan, and it soon became evident to my teachers that I needed no special instru in this subject beyond a critical study of the books prescribed by the college. I had had, moreover, a good start in French, and received six months instru in Latin; but German was the subject with which I was most familiar.
In spite, however, of these advahere were serious drawbacks to my progress. Miss Sullivan could not spell out in my hand all that the books required, and it was very difficult to have textbooks embossed in time to be of use to me, although my friends in London and Philadelphia were willing to hasten the work. For a while, indeed, I had to y Latin in braille, so that I could recite with the irls. My instructors soon became suffitly familiar with my imperfect speech to answer my questions readily and correct mistakes. I could not make notes in class or write exercises; but I wrote all my positions and translations at home on my typewriter.
Each day Miss Sullivao the classes with me and spelled into my hand with infiience all that the teachers said. In study hours she had to look up new words for me and read and reread notes and books I did not have in raised print. The tedium of that work is hard to ceive. Frau Grote, my German teacher, and Mr.
Gilman, the principal, were the only teachers in the school who learhe finger alphabet to give me instru. No one realized more fully than dear Frau Grote how slow and ie her spelling was.
heless, in the goodness of her heart she laboriously spelled out her instrus to me in special lessons twice a week, to give Miss Sullivan a little rest. But, though everybody was kind and ready to help us, there was only one hand that could turn drudgery into pleasure.
That year I finished arithmetic, reviewed my Latin grammar, ahree chapters of Caesars "Gallic War.」
In German I read, partly with my fingers and partly with Miss Sullivans assistance, Schillers "Lied von der Glocke" and "Taucher," Heines "Harzreise," Freytags "Aus dem Staat Friedrichs des Grossen," Riehls "Fluch Der Sheit," Lessings "Minna von Barnhelm," and Goethes "Aus meinem Leben." I took the greatest delight in these German boo