Library Collections: Document: Full Text

From The Boston Transcript.

Miss Helen Keller, having completed under the tutorship of Mr. Merton S. Keith her preparation for college in three years instead of in the four which had been assigned by some of her friends for the purpose, went to Cambridge in June last to take the regular entrance examinations for Radcliffe. She had successfully given the usual subjects at the preliminary examination two years ago, and these remained for this entrance examination: Geometry, algebra, elementary Greek, advanced Greek, and advanced Latin.

It is quite certain that no person ever took a college examination with so heavy a handicap -- we may say with so many kinds of a handicap -- as Helen Keller's on this occasion. As all the world knows, she could not see the examination papers nor hear the voice of an examiner. The natural method of communicating the questions to her would have been to make use of the fingers of her old-time "teacher" and interpreter, Miss Sullivan. Miss Sullivan does not know Greek or Latin or the higher mathematics, and while she is able to serve Helen by communicating to her printed Greek and Latin letter by letter, she could not have given her the slightest assistance in answering the examination questions. But it was deemed best by all concerned to avoid even the remotest suggestion or possibility of assistance. A gentleman was found -- Mr. Vining of the Perkins Institution, who had never met Helen Keller and who was quite unknown to her and unable to speak to her -- who could take the examination papers as fast as they were presented and write them out in Braille characters, the system of writing in punctured points now much used by the blind. The questions, thus transcribed by him, were put into Helen's hands in the examination room, in the presence of a proctor who could not communicate with her, and she wrote out her answers on the typewriter.

Here, however, came in one of the additional points of Helen's handicap. There are two systems of Braille writing -- the English and the American. There are marked differences between them. Helen Keller has been accustomed to the English system, in which nearly all the books which have been put into Braille are printed. As the arrangement with Mr. Vining was completed but a day or two before, and as it was not known to her that he did not write the English Braille, it was impossible to make any other arrangement. She had to puzzle out the unfamiliar method of writing. To add to her difficulties, her Swiss watch, made for the blind, had been forgotten at home, and there was no one at hand, on either of the days of examination, to give her the time. She worked in the dark with regard to the time which remained to her as she went along from question to question.

But she passed the examination triumphantly in every study. In advanced Latin she passed "with credit." In advanced Greek, which her tutor regarded as her "star" study, she received a "B," which is a very high mark. Yet here, the time and the Braille difficulty worked most heavily against her. What her marking was in the other studies is not known; it is only known that she passed them.

Helen Keller is now ready for matriculation as a student of Radcliffe College. Her passing of the examinations is in itself a wonderful achievement. No particle of its severity was abated for her because she is deaf, dumb, and blind, and no precautions were remitted because she is known to be incapable of deceit. She sat in total darkness and alone, without the touch of any friendly hand. A slip pricked with unfamiliar characters was put before her, and her typewriter clicked out its quick and true response to the hard questions.

The question may well be asked, Will Helen Keller now take the regular college course? Who will interpret to her the lectures in foreign languages which she cannot hear? No one can do this. No lecture, even in English, can be translated to her in the manual alphabet as rapidly as it is spoken. Her usual interpreter knows no foreign tongue. Who will read to her all the required matter of the courses of reading, none of which has been put into raised print? It is beyond mechanical possibility to give her all this through her fingers. The obstacles appear insurmountable. But that is the principal reason why Helen Keller is inclined to surmount them.