Impressions of Helen Keller--A Short Studdy

Savides interviewed Helen Keller in 1933 and later recorded his impressions and Miss Keller's responses to certain questions. A condensed version of his notes is printed below commemorating Harvard's first honorary degree awarded to a woman. Savides holds an A.D. degree from Robert College, Istanbul, and an A.M. ('11) and Ph.D. ('17) from Harvard. A retired professor of Philosophy and Psychology, Savides has lectured publicly in America.

I first heard of Miss Helen Keller when I was 15 years old and only a freshman. One of my best professors called our attention to Miss Sullivan's book about her and what he said, in a ffew words, made such an appeal to my boyish imagination that I lost little time in securing the book and reading it. Sometime later the story of her life appeared in the "Ladies Home Journal" and the wife on an American professor kindly lent it to me. I was so interested that I spoke about this most remarkable personality before the Greek Y.M.C.A. of Robert College, my Alma Mater.

From my readings about her at the time I well remember what Mark Twain had said, namely, "Napoleon and Helen Keller were the most interesting personalities of the nineteenth century." At the end of the first third of our century I'll go even further than Mark Twain and say that no living personality is as interesting and unique as Helen Keller. I'm wondering whether in all history there has been any woman as unique and interesting an Helen Keller!

Naturally I looked forward to the interview as one of the greatest privileges of my life. I reached Helen Keller's home at the appointed time and was ushered into the living room by the maid who said that Helen Keller had to go unexpectedly to New York. Her teacher, Mrs. Macy--her "liberatorr and guardian angel"--had to consult an oculist as she was losing her eyesight rapidly and Helen Keller went with her and her secretary. So while waiting I availed myself of the invitation to look at her library and read any book I wished. In addition to other books, I noticed the works of Mark Twain, Carlyle, Turgeney, and Hardy. The living room was decorated with unusual fine taste and among the pictures were her mother's portrait, the autographed picture of the Yugoslavian king--at whose palace Miss Helen Keller and her party were entertained--Alexander Graham Bell's effigy, Miss Sullivan's picture, and Tagore's autographed picture....

At about five o'clock Miss Helen Keller and her secretary appeared. They welcomed me to their home with southern hospitality. Miss Helen Keller was born and lived a number of years in Alabama. Miss Thompson revealed her Scotch origin in her speech every now and then, nor did she need to conceal it...

Much to Teach

Miss Helen Keller has doubtless much to teach us who have our normal physical eyes as to what and how to see. She impresses one as a person of great soul-wealth. Hers is a most meaningful face, possessed with an ideal worthy of any human being. She is very vivacious and looks healthy and happy. She answered all my questions herself but Miss Thompson had to repeat to me all her words as I could understand only a very few words which she pronouced very distinctly indeed. A stranger has to be used to her speech before he can under stand all she says. Her voice, however, was not "ghost-like" as a friend of mine suggested. Perhaps it becomes that when she is tired. Another friend has told me that some say that others help her to write her books. When one has the privilege of conversing with her, any such suspicions are dispelled. She has such a keen and really well-informed mind as well as a very apt vocabulary. She graduated from Radcliffe, cum laude. There seems to be less incompletences in her life than in the lives of the great majority of normal people. "She is the only one who has ever been received without apology into the world of the seeing." Miss Helen Keller has been blessed and deservedly so with invaluable friends such as H. H. Rogers, Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, Dr. Van Dyko, Mark Twain, Phillips Brooks, William James, and the Dowager, Queen of Rumania. She has met many a magnate in America, including Ford and Edison. She has also been to the White House and met most of the presidents of her life-time: Cleveland, Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, and Coolidge. Before I proceed to the questions I asked, I must mention that her secretary, Miss Thompson, spoiled on her palm every word I uttered. The interview follows:

Question: What is your message to my Education class of eighty prospective teachers?

Answer: If we work long enough and oarnestly enough we can all hope to do something worthwhile. When we try to enlarge men's conception of beauty, truth and happiness, we are on the road to achievement. We cannot all be great after the world's opinion, but in the midst of the one thousand small things we can keep our spirits serene and our hearts sweet.

Question: What does human nature need most?

Answer: Human nature needs most education on the very fundamentals of living. It is astonishing how few people know the ABC of science, for example, Economics and still less of spiritual needs. How can they float their ideas, of ideals, if they know so little about the essentials of right living. The people are so ignorant of the truths that would enable them to build up a progressive and constructive and fairly happy society.

Question: Gaza, a Greek scholar of the fifteenth century said that if all the books of the world were on a ship fated to be wrecked and he could save only one author, Plutarch would be the one. Under similar circumstances which two or three books would you save?

Answer: The Bible. It has brought the light in my darkness and has been a continued inspiration in my life. Shakespeare and Walt Whtiman's Poems would come second and third.

Question: Who are your greatest favorities among the writers in addition to the above?

Answer: I have as many as I have moods: Keats, Shelley, Browning, Mark Twain, Shaw, Conrad, etc. Mark Twain? I never sensed him laugh!

Question: Which do you consider the two or three greatest thoughts you have come across in your life?

Answer: I Corinthians, the whole thirteenth chapter, beginning with, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal" and ending with "and now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greaterst of them is charity."

Emerson's: "The greatest enterprise both for splender and scope is the building-up of man."

Another; "As a men thinketh in his heart, so is he."

Question: Which is the most beautiful thought you have read in your life?

Answer: Shakespeare's sonnet, XXIX.

Question: What are the greatest problems today in the world?

Answer: They are economic: the equitable distribution of advantages and no undue burden should rest on one class.

Question: What education would you advocate?

Answer: An education that shall develoop a child joyously to be a useful and intelligent human being.