I shall divide it with her on behalf of my race and my family.
I was Jew enough to have an aptitude for language in general, and to bend my mind earnestly to my task; I was Antin enough to read each lesson with my heart, which gave me an inkling of what was coming next, and so carried me along by leaps and bounds.

As for the teacher, she could best explain what theory she followed in teaching us foreigners to read.

I can only describe the method, which was so simple that I wish holiness could be taught in the same way.
There were about half a dozen of us beginners in English, in age from six to fifteen.

Miss Nixon made a special class of us, and aided us so skilfully and earnestly in our endeavors to "see-a-cat," and "hear-a-dog-bark," and "look-at-the-hen," that we turned over page after page of the ravishing history, eager to find out how the common world looked, smelled, and tasted in the strange speech.

The teacher knew just when to let us help each other out with a word in our own tongue,--it happened that we were all Jews,--and so, working all together, we actually covered more ground in a lesson than the native classes, composed entirely of the little tots.
But we stuck--stuck fast--at the definite article; and sometimes the lesson resolved itself into a species of lingual gymnastics, in which we all looked as if we meant to bite our tongues off.