At every stage of Helen Keller’s educational progress, she was beset by difficulties that would have caused many people to give up. She describes how difficult it was for her to learn to speak by feeling the position of her teacher’s lips and tongue and says that even after a great deal of work, her speech was still incomprehensible to anyone except her teachers. The lack of books in raised lettering or braille meant that Keller often had to have large amounts of text laboriously spelled out into her hand. A characteristic instance of the type of difficulty she had to face occurred when she discovered that the algebra paper for the Radcliffe entrance examination was written in an unfamiliar form of braille. She then had to learn this notation the night before the exam.

Against all these difficulties, Keller persevered to gain an education that would be regarded as excellent by any standards. Although she attended special schools for the blind and the deaf, she was particularly excited to go to schools (and eventually college) with other girls who could see and hear, where she was able to measure her achievements against theirs.

Although the difficulties she describes lie chiefly in the area of education, Keller also refers to many other activities, such as climbing trees and swimming in the ocean, which were initially frightening but came to be sources of joy after she persevered. The tone of the book, therefore, is overwhelmingly positive and free from self-pity. Keller describes a great many difficulties, but never one that she cannot surmount.