I took my preliminary examinations for Radcliffe from the 29th of Juneto the 3rd of July in 1897. The subjects I offered were Elementary andAdvanced German, French, Latin, English, and Greek and Roman his-tory, making nine hours in all. I passed in everything, and received"honours"in German and English.
Perhaps an explanation of the method that was in use when I took myexaminations will not be amiss here. The student was required to pass insixteen hours--twelve hours being called elementary and four advanced.He had to pass five hours at a time to have them counted. The examina-tion papers were given out at nine o'clock at Harvard and brought toRadcliffe by a special messenger. Each candidate was known, not by hisname, but by a number. I was No. 233, but, as I had to use a type-writer, my identity could not be concealed.
It was thought advisable for me to have my examinations in a room bymyself, because the noise of the typewriter might disturb the other girls.Mr. Gilman read all the papers to me by means of the manual alphabet.A man was placed on guard at the door to prevent interruption.
The first day I had German. Mr. Gilman sat beside me and read thepaper through first, then sentence by sentence, while I repeated thewords aloud, to make sure that I understood him perfectly. The paperswere difficult, and I felt very anxious as I wrote out my answers on thetypewriter. Mr. Gilman spelled to me what I had written, and I madesuch changes as I thought necessary, and he inserted them. I wish tosay here, that I have not had this advantage since in any of my examina-tions. At Radcliffe no one reads the papers to me after they are written,and I have no opportunity to correct errors unless I finish before the timeis up. In that, case I correct only such mistakes as I can recall in thefew minutes allowed, and make notes of these corrections at the end ofmy paper. If I passed with higher credit in the preliminaries than in thefinals, there are two reasons. In the finals, no one read my work over tome, and in the preliminaries I offered subjects with some of which I wasin a measure familiar before my work in the Cambridge school; for at thebeginning of the year I had passed examinations in English, History,French and German, which Mr. Gilman gave me from previous Harvardpapers.
Mr. Gilman sent my written work to the examiners with a certificatethat I, candidate No. 233, had written the papers.
All the other preliminary examinations were conducted in the samemanner. None of them was so difficult as the first. I remember that theday the Latin paper was brought to us, Professor Schilling came in andinformed me I had passed satisfactorily in German. This encouraged megreatly, and I sped on to the end of the ordeal with a light heart and asteady hand.
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