評(píng)論
打印
Mr. Vining was a stranger to me, and could not communicate with me, except by writing braille. The proctor was also a stranger, and did not attempt to communicate with me in any way.
維寧先生是帕金斯盲人學(xué)院的一位教師，除了寫(xiě)盲文，他對(duì)我就像陌生人一樣，并不同我交流。而監(jiān)考人也是一個(gè)陌生人，他也不打算以任何方式同我交流。
The braille worked well enough in the languages, but when it came to geometry and algebra, difficulties arose. I was sorely perplexed, and felt discouraged wasting much precious time, especially in algebra. It is true that I was familiar with all literary braille in common use in this country—English, American, and New York Point; but the various signs and symbols in geometry and algebra in the three systems are very different, and I had used only the English braille in my algebra.
在對(duì)付語(yǔ)言方面，盲文可以說(shuō)是綽綽有余的，但是一旦用到幾何和代數(shù)上面，問(wèn)題就來(lái)了。我感到既困惑又沮喪，尤其是代數(shù)，在這上面我浪費(fèi)了許多寶貴時(shí)間。事實(shí)上，我對(duì)這個(gè)國(guó)家通用的所有字母盲文熟稔于心——英式、美式，以及紐約浮點(diǎn)式；但是面對(duì)幾何和代數(shù)變化多端的符號(hào)和標(biāo)記，這三種盲文體系的表現(xiàn)形式卻是大相徑庭，而在代數(shù)課中，我只使用過(guò)英式盲文。
Two days before the examinations, Mr. Vining sent me a braille copy of one of the old Harvard papers in algebra. To my dismay I found that it was in the American notation. I sat down immediately and wrote to Mr. Vining, asking him to explain the signs. I received another paper and a table of signs by return mail, and I set to work to learn the notation. But on the night before the algebra examination, while I was struggling over some very complicated examples, I could not tell the combinations of bracket, brace and radical. Both Mr. Keith and I were distressed and full of forebodings for the morrow; but we went over to the college a little before the examination began, and had Mr. Vining explain more fully the American symbols.
在考試前兩天，維寧先生給我寄來(lái)了一份哈佛以前用過(guò)的代數(shù)試卷。令我感到沮喪的是，這是一份美式標(biāo)注的（盲文）試卷。于是，我立刻坐下來(lái)給維寧先生寫(xiě)信，請(qǐng)他給我解釋那些符號(hào)的意思。隨后，我收到了另外一份試卷和一張數(shù)學(xué)符號(hào)表，就這樣，我開(kāi)始著手學(xué)習(xí)這些符號(hào)標(biāo)注。當(dāng)時(shí)正是代數(shù)考試前一天的晚上，而我還在拼命地分析那些異常復(fù)雜的標(biāo)注，我還是無(wú)法知道大括號(hào)、圓括號(hào)和根號(hào)的組合排列方式。凱斯先生和我全都愁眉不展，我們對(duì)第二天的考試有了不祥的預(yù)感。好在我們?cè)诳荚嚹翘焯崆暗搅艘恍?huì)兒，而且請(qǐng)維寧先生詳細(xì)地解釋了美式符號(hào)的用法。
