Page 306 - The Story of My Lif

SHOULD BE NATURAL AND HAVE FOR ITS OBJECT AN EXCHANGE

OF IDEAS.

If there is nothing in the child’s mind to communicate, it hardly seems worth
while to require him to write on the blackboard, or spell on his fingers, cut and

dried sentences about “the cat,”

“the bird,” “a dog.” I HAVE TRIED FROM THE BEGINNING TO TALK

NATURALLY TO HELEN AND TO TEACH HER TO TELL ME ONLY
THINGS THAT

INTEREST HER AND ASK QUESTIONS ONLY FOR THE SAKE OF
FINDING OUT

WHAT SHE WANTS TO KNOW. When I see that she is eager to tell me
something, but is hampered because she does not know the words, I supply them
and the necessary idioms, and we get along finely.

The child’s eagerness and interest carry her over many obstacles that would be
our undoing if we stopped to define and explain everything. What would happen,
do you think, if some one should try to measure our intelligence by our ability to
define the commonest words we use? I fear me, if I were put to such a test, I
should be consigned to the primary class in a school for the feeble-minded.

It was touching and beautiful to see Helen enjoy her first Christmas. Of course,
she hung her stocking—two of them lest Santa Claus should forget one, and she
lay awake for a long time and got up two or three times to see if anything had
happened.

When I told her that Santa Claus would not come until she was asleep, she shut
her eyes and said, “He will think girl is asleep.” She was awake the first thing in
the morning, and ran to the fireplace for her stocking; and when she found that
Santa Claus had filled both stockings, she danced about for a minute, then grew

very quiet, and came to ask me if I thought Santa Claus had made a mistake, and
thought there were two little girls, and would come back for the gifts when he
discovered his mistake. The ring you sent her was in the toe of the stocking, and
when I told her you gave it to Santa Claus for her, she said, “I do love Mrs.