I HAVE DECIDED NOT TO TRY TO HAVE REGULAR LESSONS FOR THE PRESENT. I AM GOING TO TREAT HELEN EXACTLY LIKE A TWO-YEAR-OLD CHILD. IT OCCURRED TO ME THE OTHER DAY THAT IT IS ABSURD TO REQUIRE A CHILD TO COME TO A CERTAIN PLACE AT A CERTAIN TIME AND RECITE CERTAIN LESSONS, WHEN HE HAS NOT YET ACQUIRED A WORKING VOCABULARY. I sent Helen away and sat down to think. I asked myself, "How does a normal child learn language?" The answer was simple, "By imitation." The child comes into the world with the ability to learn, and he learns of himself, provided he is supplied with sufficient outward stimulus. He sees people do things, and he tries to do them. He hears others speak, and he tried to speak. BUT LONG BEFORE HE UTTERS HIS FIRST WORD, HE UNDERSTANDS WHAT IS SAID TO HIM. I have been observing Helen's little cousin lately. She is about fifteen months old, and already understands a great deal. In response to questions she points out prettily her nose, mouth, eye, chin, cheek, ear. If I say, "Where is baby's other ear?" she points it out correctly. If I hand her a flower, and say, "Give it to mamma," she takes it to her mother. If I say, "Where is the little rogue?" she hides behind her mother's chair, or covers her face with her hands and peeps out at me with an expression of genuine roguishness. She obeys many commands like these: "Come," "Kiss," "Go to papa," "Shut the door," "Give me the biscuit." But I have not heard her try to say any of these words, although they have been repeated hundreds of times in her hearing, and it is perfectly evident that she understands them. These observations have given me a clue to the method to be followed in teaching Helen language.I SHALL TALK INTO HER HAND AS WE TALK INTO THE BABY'S EARS. I shall assume that she has the normal child's capacity of assimilation and imitation. I SHALL USE COMPLETE SENTENCES IN TALKING TO HER, and fill out the meaning with gestures and her descriptive signs when necessity requires it; but I shall not try to keep her mind fixed on any one thing. I shall do all I can to interest and stimulate it, and wait for results.
April 24, 1887.
The new scheme works splendidly. Helen knows the meaning of more than a hundred words now, and learns new ones daily without the slightest suspicion that she is performing a most difficult feat. She learns because she can't help it, just as the bird learns to fly. But don't imagine that she "talks fluently." Like her baby cousin, she expresses whole sentences by single words. "Milk," with a gesture means, "Give me more milk." "Mother," accompanied by an inquiring look, means, "Where is mother?" "Go" means, "I want to go out." But when I spell into her hand, "Give me some bread," she hands me the bread, or if I say, "Get your hat and we will go to walk," she obeys instantly. The two words, "hat" and "walk" would have the same effect; BUT THE WHOLE SENTENCE, REPEATED MANY TIMES DURING THE DAY, MUST IN TIME IMPRESS ITSELF UPON THE BRAIN, AND BY AND BY SHE WILL USE IT HERSELF.
We play a little game which I find most useful in developing the intellect, and which incidentally answers the purpose of a language lesson. It is an adaptation of hide-the-thimble. I hide something, a ball or a spool, and we hunt for it. When we first played this game two or three days ago, she showed no ingenuity at all in finding the object. She looked in places where it would have been impossible to put the ball or the spool. For instance, when I hid the ball, she looked under her writing-board. Again, when I hid the spool, she looked for it in a little box not more than an inch long; and she very soon gave up the search. Now I can keep up her interest in the game for an hour or longer, and she shows much more intelligence, and often great ingenuity in the search. This morning I hid a cracker. She looked everywhere she could think of without success, and was evidently in despair when suddenly a thought struck her, and she came running to me and made me open my mouth very wide, while she gave it a thorough investigation. Finding no trace of the cracker there, she pointed to my stomach and spelled "eat," meaning, "Did you eat it?"
Friday we went down town and met a gentleman who gave Helen some candy, which she ate, except one small piece which she put in her apron pocket. When we reached home, she found her mother, and of her own accord said, "Give baby candy." Mrs. Keller spelled, "No—baby eat—no." Helen went to the cradle and felt of Mildred's mouth and pointed to her own teeth. Mrs. Keller spelled "teeth." Helen shook her head and spelled "Baby teeth—no, baby eat—no," meaning of course, "Baby cannot eat because she has no teeth."
May 8, 1887.
No, I don't want any more kindergarten materials. I used my little stock of beads, cards and straws at first because I didn't know what else to do; but the need for them is past, for the present at any rate.
I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.
Helen is learning adjectives and adverbs as easily as she learned nouns. The idea always precedes the word. She had signs for SMALL and LARGE long before I came to her. If she wanted a small object and was given a large one, she would shake her head and take up a tiny bit of the skin of one hand between the thumb and finger of the other. If she wanted to indicate something large, she spread the fingers of both hands as wide as she could, and brought them together, as if to clasp a big ball. The other day I substituted the words SMALL and LARGE for these signs, and she at once adopted the words and discarded the signs. I can now tell her to bring me a large book or a small plate, to go upstairs slowly, to run fast and to walk quickly. This morning she used the conjunction AND for the first time. I told her to shut the door, and she added, "and lock."
She came tearing upstairs a few minutes ago in a state of great excitement. I couldn't make out at first what it was all about. She kept spelling "dog—baby" and pointing to her five fingers one after another, and sucking them. My first thought was, one of the dogs has hurt Mildred; but Helen's beaming face set my fears at rest. Nothing would do but I must go somewhere with her to see something. She led the way to the pump-house, and there in the corner was one of the setters with five dear little pups! I taught her the word "puppy" and drew her hand over them all, while they sucked, and spelled "puppies." She was much interested in the feeding process, and spelled "mother-dog" and "baby" several times. Helen noticed that the puppies' eyes were closed, and she said, "Eyes—shut. Sleep—no," meaning, "The eyes are shut, but the puppies are not asleep." She screamed with glee when the little things squealed and squirmed in their efforts to get back to their mother, and spelled, "Baby—eat large." I suppose her idea was "Baby eats much." She pointed to each puppy, one after another, and to her five fingers, and I taught her the word FIVE. Then she held up one finger and said "baby." I knew she was thinking of Mildred, and I spelled, "One baby and five puppies." After she had played with them a little while, the thought occurred to her that the puppies must have special names, like people, and she asked for the name of each pup. I told her to ask her father, and she said, "No—mother." She evidently thought mothers were more likely to know about babies of all sorts. She noticed that one of the puppies was much smaller than the others, and she spelled "small," making the sign at the same time, and I said "very small." She evidently understood that VERY was the name of the new thing that had come into her head; for all the way back to the house she used the word VERY correctly. One stone was "small," another was "very small." When she touched her little sister, she said: "Baby—small. Puppy—very small." Soon after, she began to vary her steps from large to small, and little mincing steps were "very small." She is going through the house now, applying the new words to all kinds of objects.