For weeks we did nothing but talk and read and tell each other
stories about Christmas. Of course I do not try to explain all
the new words, nor does Helen fully understand the little stories
I tell her; but constant repetition fixes the words and phrases
in the mind, and little by little the meaning will come to her. I
SEE NO SENSE IN "FAKING" CONVERSATION FOR THE SAKE OF TEACHING
LANGUAGE. IT'S STUPID AND DEADENING TO PUPIL AND TEACHER. TALK
SHOULD BE NATURAL AND HAVE FOR ITS OBJECT AN EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.
If there is nothing in the child's mind to communicate, it hardly
seems worth while to require him to write on the blackboard, or
spell on his fingers, cut and dried sentences about "the cat,"
"the bird," "a dog." I HAVE TRIED FROM THE BEGINNING TO TALK
NATURALLY TO HELEN AND TO TEACH HER TO TELL ME ONLY THINGS THAT
INTEREST HER AND ASK QUESTIONS ONLY FOR THE SAKE OF FINDING OUT
WHAT SHE WANTS TO KNOW. When I see that she is eager to tell me
something, but is hampered because she does not know the words, I
supply them and the necessary idioms, and we get along finely.
The child's eagerness and interest carry her over many obstacles
that would be our undoing if we stopped to define and explain
everything. What would happen, do you think, if some one should
try to measure our intelligence by our ability to define the
commonest words we use? I fear me, if I were put to such a test,
I should be consigned to the primary class in a school for the
feeble-minded.

It was touching and beautiful to see Helen enjoy her first
Christmas. Of course, she hung her stocking--two of them lest
Santa Claus should forget one, and she lay awake for a long time
and got up two or three times to see if anything had happened.