6. OPTIMISM – The Optimism of Helen Keller
Following this moment of what Helen called her “soul’s sudden awakening,” her enthusiasm for learning was ignited. She did nothing but explore with her hands and learn the names of every object she touched. With Sullivan guiding her, Helen next focused on learning how to read books and not just books written in Braille for the blind, but also books with raised type. Thus, she became knowledgeable in arithmetic and biology; the histories of Greece, Rome, and the United States; and German, French, and Latin languages. She next decided to learn how to speak. And in the spring of 1890, she did just that. Remarkably, by the time she was twenty years old, and despite never hearing or seeing a word, Helen knew how to read and write and speak.
The next challenge she set her mind to was graduating from high school and college. Helen, not being one to doubt she couldn’t do it, enrolled in common schools, not schools for the blind. And so, just as she planned, on June 28, 1904, Helen received her Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude — “cum laude” is Latin for “with honors” — from Radcliffe College.
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