Chapter VII
百度搜索 The Story of My Life 天涯 或 The Story of My Life 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
The important step in my education was learning to read.As soon as I could spell a few words my teacher gave me slips of cardboard on which were printed words in raised letters. I quickly learhat each printed word stood for an object, an act, or a quality. I had a frame in which I could arrahe words in little sentences; but before I ever put sentences in the frame I used to make them in objects. I found the slips of paper which represented, for example, "doll," "is," "on," "bed" and placed eaame on its object; then I put my doll on the bed with the words is, on, bed arranged beside the doll, thus making a sentence of the words, and at the same time carrying out the idea of the senteh the things themselves.
One day, Miss Sullivan tells me, I pihe wirl on my pinafore and stood in the wardrobe. On the shelf I arrahe words, is, in, wardrobe. Nothing delighted me so much as this game. My teacher and I played it for hours at a time. Oftehing in the room was arranged in object sentences.
From the printed slip it was but a step to the printed book. I took my "Reader finners" and hunted for the words I knew; when I found them my joy was like that of a game of hide-and-seek. Thus I began to read.
Of the time when I began to read ected stories I shall speak later.
For a long time I had nular lessons. Even when I studied most early it seemed more like play than work. Everything Miss Sullivan taught me she illustrated by a beautiful story or a poem. Whenever anything delighted or ied me she talked it over with me just as if she were a little girl herself. What many children think of with dread, as a painful plodding through grammar, hard sums and harder definitions, is to-day one of my most preemories.
I ot explain the peculiar sympathy Miss Sullivan had with my pleasures and desires. Perhaps it was the result of long association with the blind. Added to this she had a wonderful faculty for description. She went quickly over uiails, and never nagged me with questions to see if I remembered the day-before-yesterdays lesson. She introduced dry teicalities of sce little by little, making every subject so real that I could not help remembering what she taught.
We read and studied out of doors, preferring the sunlit woods to the house. All my early lessons have ihe breath of the woods--the fine, resinous odour of pine needles, blended with the perfume of wild grapes.
Seated in the gracious shade of a wild tulip tree, I learo think that everything has a lesson and a suggestion. "The loveliness of things taught me all their use." Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom had a part in my education-noisy-throated frogs, katydids and crickets held in my hand until fetting their embarrassment, they trilled their reedy note, little downy chis and wildflowers, the dogwood blossoms, meadow-violets and budding fruit trees. I felt the bursting cotton-bolls and fiheir soft fiber and fuzzy seeds; I felt the low soughing of the wind through the stalks, the silky rustling of the long leaves, and the indignant snort of my pony, as we caught him in the pasture and put the bit in his mouth--ah me! how well I remember the spicy, clovery smell of his breath!
Sometimes I rose at dawn and stole into the garden while the heavy dew lay on the grass and flowers. Few know what joy it is to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful motion of the lilies as they sway in the m breeze. Sometimes I caught an i in the flower I lug, and I felt the faint noise of a pair of wings rubbed together in a sudden terror, as the little creature became aware of a pressure from without.
Another favourite haunt of mine was the orchard, wher.he fruit ripened early in July. The large, downy peaches would reach themselves into my hand, and as the joyous breezes flew about the trees the apples tumbled at my feet. Oh, the delight with which I gathered up the fruit in my pinafore, pressed my face against
the smooth cheeks of the apples, still warm from the sun, and skipped back to the house!
Our favourite walk was to Kellers Landing, an old tumbledown lumber-wha>?９9liｂ.</a>rf oennessee River, used during the Civil War to land soldiers. There we spent many happy hours and played at learning geography. I built dams of pebbles, made islands and lakes, and dug river-beds, all for fun, and never dreamed that I was learning a lesson. I listened with increasing woo Miss Sullivans descriptions of the great round world with its burning mountains, buried cities, moving rivers of ice, and many other things as strange. She made raised maps in clay, so that I could feel the mountain ridges and valleys, and follow with my fihe devious course of rivers. I liked this, too; but the division of the earth into zones and poles fused and teased my mind. The illustrative strings and the e stick representing the poles seemed so real that even to this day the mere mention of temperate zone suggests a series of twine circles; and I believe that if any one should set about it he could vince me that white bears actually climb the North Pole.
Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like. From the first I was not ied in the sce of numbers. Miss Sullivan tried to teach me to t by stringing beads in groups, and by arranging kintergarten straws I learo add and subtract. I never had patiee more than five or six groups at a time. When I had aplished this my sce was at rest for the day, and I went out quickly to find my playmates.
In this same leisurely manner I studied zoology and botany.
Once a gentleman, whose name I have fotte me a colle of fossils--tiny mollusk shells beautifully marked, and bits of sandstoh the print of birds claws, and a lovely fern in bas-relief. These were the keys whilocked the treasures of the antediluvian world for me. With trembling fingers I listeo Miss Sullivans descriptions of the terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable names, whice went tramping through the primeval forests, tearing down the branches of gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal ss of an unknown age. For a long time these strange creatures haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a somber background to the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and eg with the gentle beat of my ponys hoof.
Aime a beautiful shell was given me, and with a childs surprise and delight I learned how a tiny mollusk had built the lustrous coil for his dwelling place, and how on still nights, when there is no breeze stirring the waves, the Nautilus sails on the blue waters of the Indian O in his "ship of pearl." After I had learned a great many iing things about the life and habi.99liｂ.s of the children of the sea--how in the midst of dashing waves the little polyps build the beautiful coral isles of the Pacifid the foraminifera have made the chalk-hills of many a land--my teacher read me "The Chambered Nautilus," and showed me that the shell-building process of the mollusks is symbolical of the development of the mind. Just as the wonder-w mantle of the Nautilus ges the material it absorbs from the water and makes it a part of itself, so the bits of knowledge ohers undergo a similar ge and bee pearls of thought.
Again, it was the growth of a plant that furhe text for a lesson. We bought a lily a in a sunny window. Very soon the green, pointed buds showed signs of opening. The slender, fingerlike leaves oside opened slowly, relut, I thought, to reveal the lovelihey hid; once having made a start, however, the opening process went on rapidly, but in order and systematically. There was always one bud larger and more beautiful than the rest, which pushed her outer, c back with more pomp, as if the beauty in soft, silky robes khat she was the lily-queen by right divine, while her more timid sisters doffed their green hoods shyly, until the whole plant was one nodding bough of lovelbbr></abbr>iness and fragrance.
Ohere were eleven tadpoles in a glass globe set in a window full of plants. I remember the eagerness with which I made discoveries about them. It was great fun to plunge my hand into the bowl ahe tadpoles frisk about, and to let them slip and slide between my fingers. One day a more ambitious felloed beyond the edge of the bowl and fell on the floor, where I found him to all appearance more dead than alive.
The only sign of life was a slight wriggling of his tail. But no sooner had he returo his element than he darted to the bottom, swimming round and round in joyous activity. He had made his leap, he had seen the great world, and was tent to stay in his pretty glass house uhe big fuchsia tree until he attaihe dignity hood. Then he went to live in the leafy pool at the end of the garden, where he made the summer nights musical with his quaint love-song.
Thus I learned from life itself. At the beginning I was only a little mass of possibilities. It was my teacher who unfolded and developed them. When she came, everything about me breathed of love and joy and was full of meaning. She has never si pass an opportunity to point out the beauty that is ihing, nor has she ceased trying in thought and a and example to make my life sweet and useful.
It was my teachers genius, her quick sympathy, her loving tact which made the first years of my education so beautiful. It was because she seized the right moment to impart knowledge that made it so pleasant and acceptable to me. She realized that a childs mind is like a shallow brook which ripples and dances merrily over the stony course of its education and reflects here a flower, there a bush, yonder a fleecy cloud; and she attempted to guide my mind on its way, knowing that like a brook it should be fed by mountain streams and hidden springs, until it broadened out into a deep river, capable of refleg in its placid surface, billowy hills, the luminous shadows of trees and the blue heavens, as well as the sweet face of a little flower.
Any teacher take a child to the classroom, but not every teacher make him learn. He will not work joyously unless he feels that liberty is his, whether he is busy or at rest; he must feel the flush of victory and the heart-sinking of disappoi before he takes with a will the tasks distasteful to him and resolves to dance his way bravely through a dull routine of textbooks.
My teacher is so o me that I scarcely think of myself apart from her. How muy delight in all beautiful things is innate, and how much is due to her influence, I ever tell. I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her--there is not a talent, or an aspiration or a joy ihat has not been awakened by her loving touch.
百度搜索 The Story of My Life 天涯 或 The Story of My Life 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.