Several months after I was on the staff of the newspaper, an American scholar, who was writing a book on the Greek language, came to the office to see if he could find some one to work with him, and the proprietor recommended me. At his house I met his wife, who at once took an interest in me. Since she spoke very little French and I no more English, our progress was slow; but both of them were very kind to me. The husband became my regular pupil, paying me for one hour’s Greek lesson every day more than I was receiving from the newspaper for all my time. So I decided to give up my position with the latter, where there was really no chance for advancement, and devote myself to teaching and studying.
It was necessary for me at this time to change quarters. I could not keep on living in a place where I had no companionship; so my Greek pupil put an advertisement in the newspaper for me, saying that I was an educated young Greek girl, who would exchange French or Greek lessons for a home.
From the replies to my advertisement he chose a school, and I went to see the principal. She, too, had blue eyes, which had become the symbol of kindness to me. She knew French, and we were able to speak together. She wished me to coach a girl in Greek, to pass her entrance examinations, and for this she was willing not only to give me my room and board but my laundry. I at once moved to the school, and here ended the first chapter of my American life.
I was now living in an American school, surrounded by Americans. I was to see them live their American lives. One may imagine how interested I was. The school had about a hundred day scholars, ranging from four to twenty years of age; and twenty boarders, representing almost as many States, and who—even to my untrained ears—spoke in almost as many different ways.
As a teacher of Greek I failed utterly. My pupil read a Greek I could not follow, even with the text-book in my hand. My beautiful, musical mother-tongue was massacred in the mouth of that girl, and she understood me not at all. A living, thrilling language, with a literature to-day on a par with the best of Europe’s, and spoken by over ten million people, had to be considered as dead, and pronounced in a barbaric and ridiculous manner. The girl was very angry at me when I told her she did not pronounce it correctly. She informed me that the ancient Greeks pronounced Greek as she did, and that I, the lineal descendent of this people whose language had been handed down without a break from father to son, and who used the very words of Plato every day, did not know how to pronounce it. With what delight I should have boxed her ears, only I had to remember that I was no longer I, but a teacher, exchanging lessons for my living.
After several lessons together she went to the principal and told her that I was quite unfitted to teach her, and that she was only wasting her time.
The principal and I had a conference. “I can’t teach her,” I admitted, “unless I learn to pronounce my own language in the execrable way she does.”
So far then as the school was concerned I had failed. I was a Greek—but could not teach Greek! The thought of leaving the school hurt me, because I had become very fond of the principal, who even used to come to my room sometimes and kiss me good night.
She offered me an alternative. “Wouldn’t you like to teach the little girls French, talk French with the boarders, take them to church and out for their walks?”