What were Helen's memories of Radcliffe? Explain in detail.
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In Helen's opinion, her experiences at Radcliffe College showed that college was not the universal Athens that she thought it would be. It means that college was not the idealized place for education that she thought of initially but a completely different place. There one did not meet the great and wise face to face or even feel their living touch. They were there but they seemed to be mummified and one had to extract them from the crannied wall of learning. Then one would have to dissect and analyze them before one could be sure they had the real work at hand and not a mere imitation of Milton or an Isaiah. Many scholars forgot that the enjoyment of the great works of literature depended more upon the depth of the readers' sympathy than their understanding. The trouble was that very few of their laborious explanations were memorable and the mind drops them as a branch would drop overripe fruit. In Helen's opinion, concerning oneself with these explanations and hypotheses were ineffectual in the study of literature. She did not object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works that were read in college but only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that one was taught. There were many opinions as there were men but one ought to be able to breathe new life into old works.
Helen had great expectations from college life but was bequeathed totally disappointed. She perceived that there was considerable pressure on education and no leisure time for introspection or self-analysis. The students were tutored in cramming the models and the manner of understanding and correlating with the exercise was entirely lacking. The dominant thought in the minds of the students was written examinations and tests. There was too many alternatives with too limited use of it. She spotted the model to be totally chaotic and non-synchronized. According to Helen, before an exam, she had to go through numerous phases of study due to which her memory became overburdened with a complex topic which would almost be fading during exam time. She attempted to retrieve the features and note down to put them into series but unluckily, she could not make head and tail out of it. It appeared as if the solutions had been concealed under in the pool of theories of mind and exploring for them equalized seeming for a piece of silk in a rag bag.