Page 351 - The Story of My Lif

pupil. If Miss Keller is fond of language and not interested especially in

mathematics, it is not surprising to find Miss Sullivan’s interests very similar.
And this does not mean that Miss Keller is unduly dependent on her teacher. It is
told of her that, as a child of eight, when some one tried to interfere with her, she
sat sober a few moments, and, when asked what was the trouble, answered, “I
am preparing to assert my independence.” Such an aggressive personality cannot
grow up in mere dependence even under the guidance of a will like Miss
Sullivan’s. But Miss Sullivan by her “natural aptitude” has done for her pupil
much that is not capable of analysis and reduction to principle; she has given the
inspiration which is in all close friendship, and which rather develops than limits
the powers of either person. Moreover, if Miss Keller is a “marvel of sweetness
and goodness,” if she has a love “of all things good and beautiful,” this implies
something about the teacher who has lived with her for sixteen years.

There is, then, a good deal that Miss Sullivan has done for Miss Keller which no
other teacher can do in just the same way for any one else. To have another
Helen Keller there must be another Miss Sullivan. To have another, well-
educated deaf and blind child, there need only be another teacher, living under
favourable conditions, among plenty of external interests, unseparated from her
pupil allowed to have a free hand, and using as many as she needs of the
principles which Miss Sullivan has saved her the trouble of finding out for
herself, modifying and adding as she finds it necessary; and there must be a
pupil in good health, of good native powers, young enough not to have grown

beyond recovery in ignorance. Any deaf child or deaf and blind child in good
health can be taught. And the one to do it is the parent or the special teacher, not
the school. I know that this idea will be vigorously combated by those who
conduct schools for the deaf.

To be sure, the deaf school is the only thing possible for children educated by the
State. But it is evident that precisely what the deaf child needs to be taught is
what other children learn before they go to school at all. When Miss Sullivan
went out in the barnyard and picked up a little chicken and talked to Helen about
it, she was giving a kind of instruction impossible inside four walls, and
impossible with more than one pupil at a time.