Early childhood / by Margaret Mcmillan.

  • Margaret McMillan
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Early childhood / by Margaret Mcmillan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    other, that of touch, and thus create a new kind of mental process. “ With this purpose in view, I wrote to Mrs. Keller, who kindly sent me the titles of two plantation songs, which were commonly sung in her home in Alabama when Helen was a baby, but are not now generally sung—which I could procure only in manuscript from the South. These tunes I had played upon the piano while she stood beside the instrument with her fingers resting upon its wooden frame. Care was taken, of course, that she should know nothing of my intentions, and that she should be taken unawares. The effect was striking. The young woman became greatly ex- cited, laughed and clapped her hands after the first few bars of ‘Way Down in the Meadow a-Ivfowing of the Hay.’ ‘Father carrying baby up and down, swing- ing her on his knee. Black Crow! Black Crow 1 ’ she exclaimed repeatedly. On hearing the second song, ‘The Ten Foolish Virgins,’ the same effect was produced. It was evident to all those who were present that the young lady was carried back to her early surroundings, even into the time when she was carried about by her father; but we could not find a meaning for the words ‘Black Crow.’ I considered it prudent not to question her, but applied by letter to her mother, who was kind enough to send an early reply.
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