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

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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

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

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THE ASTRON 11 totally without sight, was the leading member of the famous firm of that IIIHIIP, who built many of the best gnnboats and other war craft of our navy and of the uavies of foreign eountries. The poet, preacher, and author, Matheson of Edinburgh, the Eng- lish poet Marston, and Fannie Crosby, who has written more than eight thousand saered songs that have brought hope, peaee, and comfort to multitudes of burdened hearts-all have proved that the loss of sight does not shut out The light that never was on land or sea. lt is good to think, too, of the success of Edward Baxter Perry, the well known pianist and lecturer, of Sir Francis Campbell, founder and for many years director of the Royal Normal Col- lege at Upper Norwood, near London. Though an American stranger, he sueeeeded in interesting some wealthy English gentle- men in the problem of higher education for the blind. Sir Frederick Frazer, superintendent of the School for the Blind at Halifax, Nova Seotia. like Sir Francis Campbell, was knighted hy the King of England for his eminent service to the blind, For the last quarter of a century the eyes of the world have been focused upon that miraele of modern times, Ilelen Keller, whose triumph over the seemingly insurmountable obstaele of combined deafness and blindness, has inspired thousands to 'tearry on, in spite of difficulties. Sir Arthur Pearson, as most of you know, himself blind, has been appointed by the Ih-itish Government as superintendent of the great institution for the training of hlinded soldiers, to enable them to return to their former oeeupations or to prepare them for new ones. lie has struek, T think, the true keynote of future endeavor in this direetion-the note of confidence, hope, and good cheer. NVith the great problem of ''reeonstruetion whieh is today elaiming the attention of the greatest minds of every nation, a new era seems to be dawning for the blind. Since the elose of the world war, the wounded soldiers have returned to homes and to people made compassionate through suffering. There they have found, not the spirit of demoralizing pity or eold inditferenee, but the warm hand-elasp of intelligent eo-operation in the diftieult, task of set- ting about living their lives over again. From St. lJunstan's in London, Fort McHenry in America, and 't'l'he Lighthouse in Paris rome reports of the inspiring success of the industrial edueation of blinded soldiers. Already brmnl-minded statesnien are realizing the praetieability