Question

helen keller at radcligfe

Answer 1

Helen’s wish to join Radcliff College was fulfilled in the fall of 1900 after a considerable effort. She was so excited at the prospect of studying with girls who could see and hear. She began her studies with eagerness hoping to find a reality match to her world of imagination at the college. The lecture-halls seemed filled with the spirit of the great and the wise, and she thought the professors were the embodiment of wisdom. However, a bitter disillusionment awaited her. She soon discovered that college was not quite the romantic place she had imagined. Helen expresses her disillusionment in the following words: “Many of the dreams that had delighted my young inexperience became beautifully less and "faded into the light of common day." Gradually I began to find that there were disadvantages in going to college.”

Helen felt at college there was lack of time. Learning was imparted at a fast pace without considering whether it was being imbibed or not. Inside the class Helen felt ‘practically alone’. The professor appeared to be as remote as if he were speaking through a telephone. The lectures were spelled into her hand as rapidly as possible, and much of the individuality of the lecturer was lost to her in the effort to keep in the race.  Helen describes the hurry in the following simile: “The words rush through my hand like hounds in pursuit of a hare which they often miss.”

So we see Helen was not much impressed with her experience at Radcliffe College.