Room for a Wheelchair

Wednesday night. School holidays in Melbourne, and the lecture hall has been full of first-years from the moment the doors opened.

Today a student came in a wheelchair, with her two brothers. The university can take one chair per class. Her mother had rung beforehand to ask which parts of the campus she could reach, because, depending on the size of the chair, one or more of the chambers may be out of reach. She was told the truth, came anyway, and it was the right decision.

Her brothers did the reaching. She did the thinking. I know this arrangement well from the Professor’s own household, where I do the thinking and he does the reaching, and it works very well.

There is no crawling anywhere on campus, no squeezing, nothing to trouble sore knees. Down in Manly, I am told, the Headmistress’s academy cannot take a chair at all. She said so in her last note, with real regret.