4. New York Institution For The Blind
4
NEW YORK INSTITUTION
FOR THE BLIND
At fourteen, Fanny, small in stature, was a lively little girl with jet black curls. Although not especially attractive, she had a personality of rare intensity and vitality that tended to express itself in passionate emotions—violent sorrow as well as violent joy. Whatever she did—horseback riding, playing the guitar, singing, telling stories, writing poetry—she did with a fierce passion that was almost more than her meager frame could bear. It was to be so throughout her life.
She still attended the district school in spurts, but the harried schoolmaster, with more students than he could handle, had no time for the special attention and training she needed. After attending classes a few days, Fanny, in despair, would drop out.
But in November 1834, Mercy read to her a circular about the newly founded New York Institution for the Blind. Fanny clapped her hands and cried, “O, thank God! He has answered my prayer, just as I knew He could!” Seventy years of joy and sorrow later, she still could describe that day as the happiest of her life.
She left by stagecoach the morning of March 3, 1835. Fanny was “thoroughly unnerved” and trembled so badly she could scarcely dress. The lump in her throat allowed her to swallow only a few morsels of the breakfast Mercy had prepared. Forcing back sobs, she hurried from the house. The stage lurched forward on its route to Norwalk, Connecticut, where Fanny and her traveling companion—a woman whose name we do not know—would take a steamer to Manhattan.
The woman tried to get Fanny to talk, but she languished in silence. At length, the woman said severely, “Fanny, if you don’t want to go to New York, we will get out at the next station and take the returning stage home. Your mother will be lonesome without you, anyway.”
Fanny realized a return to the frustrating, unrewarding life as the village bard in a rustic Yankee community was not a viable option. She decided to “cross the Rubicon” by staying aboard at the next station. “Had I returned to my mother that morning,” she wrote, “I would have cast away my pearl of great price, for it is not probable that I should ever have been brave enough to start again for the Institution.”
Funded by the state and by public contributions, the Institution had been established four years earlier with three students. It was only the second such establishment in the United States, coming two years after the Institution for the Blind in Boston. The instructors sought to draw support by staging at schools and churches exhibitions of the pupils’ work. In those days, not many people believed the blind could be successfully educated.
IN THOSE DAYS, NOT MANY PEOPLE BELIEVED THE BLIND COULD BE SUCCESSFULLY EDUCATED.
The authorities also sent flyers to all parts of the state. The number of pupils increased so rapidly—thirty, by the year 1835—that the instructors were able to lease a private mansion on a pleasant country estate shaded by old willow trees. John Denison Russ, a physician and Yale graduate, was then the superintendent of the estate on Manhattan’s West Side—at that time situated in the country.
Dr. Russ (1801–1881) was much loved by his students. He invented a phonetic alphabet and worked diligently to perfect the system of raised characters and maps that Louis Braille had developed several years earlier in France. Russ came to the Institution when it was founded and served without pay for the first two years. Despite a busy schedule and heavy responsibilities, he was never too busy to take a personal interest in the pupils. He taught Bible classes and read to them from his favorite poet, Lord Byron.
Fanny arrived March 7. During her first days, she was simply homesick. The first night, she was led to the little room that was to be hers. “Everything was strange” and nothing was in the place where she was accustomed to find it at home. Thoroughly disconcerted, she was sitting on her trunk, trying to be brave and forcing back the tears, when the matron of the institution entered.
“Fanny,” said the motherly Quakeress, throwing herself about the girl’s thin body, “I guess thee has never been away from home before.”
“No, ma’am,” said Fanny weakly. “Please excuse me. I must cry.”
And she did, loud and long, until another pupil succeeded in comforting her.
Soon, the once-forbidding Institution became “my happy home” where, in the next two decades, she experienced “the brightest joys I e’er have known.” Outgoing, she rapidly made friends. With her keen mind, she quickly mastered her lessons in English, grammar, science, music, history, philosophy, astronomy, and political economy. The lessons were given in the form of lectures and readings, after which the pupils were expected to answer detailed questions on the text they had heard. The next day they were to paraphrase the entire lesson. Fanny learned unusually well; to the day of her death, she was able to recite the entire text of Brown’s Grammar.
She was “in love with” grammar, philosophy, astronomy, and political science, but she had trouble with Braille and math. She was taught to read the Bible, The Pilgrim’s Progress, and Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in Braille, but apparently did so very slowly and laboriously. This woman who could recognize a person instantaneously by the touch of the hand claimed she could never master the raised alphabet; this she blamed on her guitar playing, which callused her fingertips. After she left the Institution, she rarely used Braille. She relied more on her memory and training. Whenever she wanted to read a book, she would have someone read it to her; after one reading, the contents were stamped on her remarkable memory.
Mathematics was a “great monster.” It was taught on metal slates with holes; the students could count and realize the numbers as they worked. She managed to learn addition and subtraction. Multiplication was harder, and when it came to division, Fanny balked entirely. “I have never been a very good hater,” she said later, “even when the best material was provided for the purpose; but I found myself an adept at the art of loathing, when it came to the Science of Numbers.”
Advanced students sometimes were assigned to teach newer ones. Anna Smith, who later became one of Fanny’s most intimate friends, was trying to teach her arithmetic. She soon realized Fanny had no aptitude for figures and told Russ so. The superintendent wisely decided Fanny could better spend her time in other studies, so he excused her from taking more arithmetic. “From that hour I was a new creature,” Fanny recalled. “What a nightmare I was escaping!”
Fanny’s favorite avocation continued to be writing poetry. She tried to imitate the leading poets of the day. Her schoolmates, in turn, tried to imitate Fanny’s poetry. She was considered adept enough to compose the words to a march by Anthony Reiff, a sighted music teacher. The march was sung by the Institution choir at the laying of the cornerstone for the new school building in 1837.
FANNY’S FAVORITE AVOCATION CONTINUED TO BE WRITING POETRY.
But Fanny’s instructors noticed she was developing a “swelled head.” This was brought to the attention of Dr. Silas Jones, who had replaced Russ as superintendent in 1836. He called Fanny into his office one morning. She expected to be asked to write another poem “to the honor of some distinguished person or event.” She was flabbergasted when Jones instead delivered a grave lecture. “Do not think too much about rhymes and the praises that come from them,” he said. “Store your mind with useful knowledge and think more of what you can be than of how you can appear.”
His words, Fanny recalled, “were bombshells in the camp of my self-congratulatory thoughts.” Hot tears came to her eyes. But she recovered, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the forehead. “You talked to me as my father would have talked if he were living, and I thank you for it.”
In the coming weeks and months, the quality of her poetry rapidly improved. Before she was twenty, she was the Institution’s most promising pupil. She had become proficient at the piano and organ and was reputed to be one of the finest harpists in America.
These years at the Institution were filled with hard work and pleasant diversion. Though respected for her progress and abilities, she was a high-spirited girl, sure to be part of any mischief.
To help support her mother, she decided to become a teacher. Although not one of the regular instructors, she was assigned to teach some of the subjects and skills to newcomers, just as Anna Smith had tried to teach arithmetic to her.
Dr. Jones was concerned that Fanny was devoting too much of her time to poetry, to the exclusion of her other studies. He wanted to determine if she had real talent or if she were one of those people who write rhymes because they are poetry lovers. He forbade her to write any poetry for three months. He reasoned that if she were a real poet, she would not be able to withstand this “trial by fire,” but if she were merely a dilettante, the enforced layoff would not faze her.
She became so despondent she could do nothing. After six weeks of failure in her lessons, Jones called her to his office and demanded the reason for the poor work. Fanny’s only excuse was that poetry occupied her thoughts so much it was impossible to keep her mind on other things when she was forbidden to write it. Convinced she was a real poet, Jones agreed to let her write poetry if she would pay more attention to the lectures.
Soon afterward, the Institution was visited by George Combe (1778–1858), a Scottish phrenologist. A believer in character determination based on the shape and texture of the skull, Combe studied Fanny’s head and remarked, “Why, here is a poetess! Give her every advantage. Read the best books to her, and teach her to appreciate the best poetry.”
So Jones found Fanny a teacher in poetic composition: Hamilton Murray, who claimed that while he could not write poetry, he could teach others to do so. Murray read long passages of poetry to Fanny and required her to memorize them. He taught the proper use of rhyme, rhythm, and meter, pointed out the defects of her poetry, and had her imitate the works of well-known poets.
He was very strict. From him, she learned not only poetic technique but rapidity of composition. It was owing to his discipline that in later years she was able to whip up as many as a dozen hymns a day. For all Murray did, she was eternally grateful.
SHE WAS ABLE TO WHIP UP AS MANY AS A DOZEN HYMNS A DAY.