North Carolina State School for the Blind - Astron Yearbook (Raleigh, NC)

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STELLA D, CLDYD CADER G. COX Director nf Band EDNA DELLXNGER

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MRS. EDNA R. HARRIS, A. B. Lady Principal G. E. LINEBERRY. B. A. Sukrinlcndcxll L, L, SANDY Hrad Industrial Deparmxcnlfor Boys

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10 THE AS-'IRON PRESlDENT'S ADDRESS Br XVLLLIAM Mosns HOLLOAIAX Classmates and Friends:-As your class president, made such, I am well aware, by your good will rather than by any merit on my part, I ani called upon to speak to you on some subject connected with our life and work as fellow-students, or suggested by the special circumstances under which we meet tonight. Vile have lived and worked together now for some years, and have learned to know one another well. Ties have been formed that will doubtless last through life--ties that may well prove more binding than any we shall form hereafter with new assoeiate and under very ditferent conditions. Memories, also, as well as a multitude of hopes, plans, and influences, might well have claimed my attentiong but others will speak of these things, and I would rather trust myself to tell you 'of the enlarged horizon and brighter prospects that now seein to be opening up before us. Until very recently, blind persons were debarred from the great majority of pursuits by which they might have earned a livelihood. Some half-dozen handicrafts were open to them, and a few persons without sight were able to earn seanty incomes as musicians, teachers, or preachers, hut, as a rule, the outlook was dreary enough. During the last two or three years, however, conditions have greatly improved. Many blind men and women, refusing to be discouraged, have bravely and persistently won their way to sueeessg that is, to independence, freedom, comfort, and confidence. The Matilda Ziegler Magazine and other periodicals in embossed print have been telling us, for years now, of sightless persons who have made good in many eallinga or pursuits that were formerly held to be impossible for the blind. YVe hear on all hands of sales- men, merehamts, manufacturers, public officials. authors, lecturers, and even lawyers and dot-tors who have aeliieved sueeess, in spite of their heavy handicap. N People of the last generation looked with wonder upon the career of Sir Henry Fawsett, who, having lost his sight by the accidental diseliarge of a fowling-piece while hunting, refused to give up the course of life that he had already chosen for himself, and in spite of a multitude of obstacles made his way to a seat in Parliament and to the position of Postmaster General of England. ln our own country, a generation ago, oncyof the Herreshof brothers, though