Raleigh High School - Excelsior Yearbook (Raleigh, IN)

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Though imprisoned in darkness and silence, the beauty of her mind and spirit is shown as she stretches out a helping hand to the world, express- ing not only interest in L'The Training of a Blind Child or the Education of the Deaf, but equally in The Worker's Right the modern woman, so- cialism, sudrage, religion, and politics. From the silent dark she chants: 0 Dark! thou blessed, quiet dark! To the lone exile who must dwell with thee Thou art benign and friendly. - Helen Keller is especially favored with two of the greatest gifts-books and friends-and she is known as the girl Who Found the Bluebird. In her lecture on Happiness, she says, I want to tell people how to be happy. Happiness is greater than senses. There are people who think that one without sight or hearing could not be happy, but I know I am far happier than many people are who have good eyes and ears, and speaking of her abmitions, she had reached one of her highest- being able to tell to the world how she came out of darkness into light. Among some of her distinguished acquaintances and friends are Bishop Brooks, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Whittier, Edward Everett Hale, Dr. Alex- ander Bell. Her dearest and truest friend, who has been more than a teacher, is Anne Mansfield Sulli- van, who now is Mrs. Macy. Helen Keller's present home is in Wrentham, Massachusetts. Since her graduation from college, she has progressed not only intellectually but of broad knowledge and of generous sympathy. Some Page eighteen of her works are: The Story of My Life, books on 'tOptimism,'l The World I Live In, Out of the Dark. In poetry, The Song of the Stone Wall, A Chant of Darkness. Through her activeness to the sense of touch is shown as she describes the scenes of which she can have no conception only through this sense of touch. Accounts of a storm, the Wind, the rattling of branches against the windows, or of a hunt, and speaking of enjoyment of statuary, she says, I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye. Therefore, after seeing the face of Helen Keller, or reading of her wonderful achievements, one can- not help but feel that life is to her happy and full of many joys and interests. She is a tall, strongly built woman, a good talker, and impresses those who meet her or read her works with a respect for her character, charity, achievement, ambition and faith. VERA POPPOON. ' 'Thomas A. Edison' ' HOMAS A. EDISON-whose contributions to the human comfort are of more worth than any amount of gold--is undoubtedly the most celebrated and energetic American of the present age. He is the greatest inventor known, and the nations as a whole owe him great respect.

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sons of Miss Fuller, principal of the Horace Mann school. The method of teaching her was to allow her to feel the position of the tongue and lips of someone speaking. In the autumn, after she had learned to speak, she walked among the falling leaves with her teach- er, who described to her the various colors and of Jack Frost and his magic power. And as it seems three years before, a friend had read by the deaf and dumb symbols the story called the Frost Fairies. On her return home, Miss Sullivan read to her Little Lord Fauntleroyf' and after the de- scriptions of the autumn leaves and the frost, she sat down and wrote an imaginative little story which was named The Frost King. As the teacher and parents recognized her descriptive pow- er, sent the story to Mr. Anagnos, at the Perkins Institution, who published it in one of the institu- tion reports, and it was now discovered that she had obtained her material from the Frost Fair- ies, and it had faintly lain in the mind of the child until the realization of autumn and frost had come to her. This explanation is now accepted, but at that time Helen and her teacher were both made to suffer the suspicion of those who questioned and thought that they were deceiving the officers of the institution. They were brought before the court of investigation of otiicers and questioned and cross- questioned separately as to the authorship. This incident proved an unfortunate one for teacher and pupil, as they were for a time in constant fear that all of Helen 's writings would be thus criticised. It was also about this time that Helen Keller's parents decided that the development of her char- acter demanded the teachings of God. Bishop Brooks came to the Alabama home and disclosed the power of her Creator. By the aid of her teach- er, the world's beauty, of nature, mountains. the sky and sea were told to her, and her answer was I have known him all the time, but I never knew his name. Helen now undertook the study of foreign lan- guages and history. In 1896, she entered Cam- bridge school for young ladies, in preparation for the entrance of Radcliife College. In the summer of 1897, she passed the examinations, receiving honors in German and English. After being placed in a separate room from other students, she used her typewriter. The questions were read to her by the means of the manual alphabet. In June, 1899, she passed the final examinations. The ques- tions had been copied in braille, that is, in raised printed letters. No one of acquaintance was al' lowed in the room. As there was no one to read to her the answers as she had written them. the examination was very diiiicult, but as she said, They didn 't realize how difficult they were making my examinations, nor did they understand the peculiar difficulties I had to surmount. But if they unintentionally placed obsta.cles in my way I have the consolation of knowing that I overcame them all. Although her college days were full of trials and discouragements, they were very happy. Her com- ment on college life is the lack of time and multi- plicity of tasks. Also, One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think, and she praises the instructor who brings the literature to class, allow- ing the students to enjoy its power and beauty with- out interpretation or exposition. ' Page seventeen

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Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, February 11, 1847. He came of a hardy and in- dustrious stock, but the means of his parents being restricted, the advantages of his early education were few, and he attained only three months of public school education at Port Huron, Michigan. The rest of his learning was taught him by his mother, whose sweet, good, but firm disposition strove to keep her son in the right path. Before he was twelve years old, he became a train newsboy on the Grand Trunk railway between Detroit and Port Huron, and managed to save enough money to purchase a small hand press, and became an editor, printer and publisher of a news- paper, which he called The Weekly Herald. This was a small paper, consisting of a single sheet print- ed on both sides, with the subscription price at eight cents per month. A Still yearning after more knowledge, while on the train he purchased some equipments and made a small laboratory in one corner of the baggage car, but before he had progressed very far with his ex- periments, a bottle of phosphorus having fallen to the floor and broken, the car took fire, and he and his laboratory were doomed to bid farewell to rail- roading. While a newsboy, he had become interested in electricity, probably originating from his time spent in telegraph offices. About this time, an event occurred in his life which added much to his experiences. While stand- ing on the platform of a railway station, he noticed the child of the station agent standing in the middle of the track just as a locomotive was approaching, and with much presence of mind, rescued the child from the jaws of death. As a reward, he was given the position as operator in the station, where he was able to practice telegraphy. He now traveled from city to city, including In- dianapolis, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Boston, inves- tigating into the mysteries of telegraphy. At In- dianapolis, he invented an automatic telegraph re- ceiver. After leaving Boston, he went to New York, without many friends and having no money. Soon, however, an opportunity presented itself. Happen- ing one day to enter an office of a company who managed indicators, he found everything in con- fusion. The gold indicator was out of order, and as the superintendent failed to find the trouble, Edison remarked with great self-confidence that he thought he could correct the disturbance, which he did in a short time. As a result of this, Mr. Edison was made manager at a salary of three hundred dollars per month. While here he invented Edison 's Uni- versal Stock Indicator, for which he received forty thousand dollars, and the first patent on any of his inventions. This was sufficient money to purchase a labora- tory and factory in Newark, New Jersey. Here he employed many assistants and really began his life, making many surprising inventions. The first great invention was the duplex tele- graph, which sent messages two directions over the same wire. He sold this patent to the Western Union Telegraph Company, which made a contract for any further inventions that he might make. This discovery was followed by the quadruple tele- Page nineteen