The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1886-02-04


undesirable place to emigrate to, unless
one has an abundance of means. AS
for myself, l am heartily glad to get
back to California.
A REMARKABLE BLIND MAN.
DR.. Campbell Tells of His College in
bing the Alps.
One of the most remarkable blind
men in the world has just paid visit to
Washington, says The Post, of that city.
He is DR.. Francis j. Campbell, LID,
principal of the Royal Normal College
and Acadamy of Music for the Blind in
London. A native of Tennessee, for
many years resident of Boston. he
went to Europe, especially to Germany,
in 1868, to study, and he was mainly in
strumental in 1872 in founding the
great institution of which he has ever
since been, and still is, the principal.
He comes to this country at the present
time nominally as royal commissioner
to investigate and collect information
about the best methods of educating the
blind that obtain here, but principally
to show to the people of America some
of the results produced by the Royal
Normal college. He is an American
citizen and owner of property in this
country, and is working for the estab-
lishment of national college in Ameri-
ca for the higher education of the blind.
In the Royal Normal college in London.
over which Dr. Campbell presides,
music is one of the main objects, but
the education given is general. The
college embraces q preparatory school,
a grammar and high school, technical
school, and an academy of music. A
great deal of attention is paid to'physic-
al training. The doctor is little man,
approaching 60 years of age, wears
dark glasses to cover his empty eye
cases. and dark gray beard. In con-
versation he is as frisky as a French
man, his features are enlivened with
wonderful animation, he talks quickly,
and there is peculiar childlike cheer
fulness in his tone that is only found in
blind men, and only in few of them.
physical exercise is most essential
to the education of the blind" said the
doctor. 81 have generally found in the
college that it has taken as much effort
to overcome their habits of idleness and
Incidence as to give them the training
for their special avocations. AS
is below the average vitality of seeing
persons The lack of physical power
leads to indulgence, timidity, and dis
couragement. The blind must be rous-
ed from their willingness to depend up
on others, and made to believe in the
possibility of independence and success.
We give our pupils courage and vitality
by gymnastic exercises. We have
very well appointed gymnasium con-
nected with the college. We teach the
boys to swim, too, and skate. They
don't have any more falls in learning
to skate than seeing people do, and the
falls they necessarily receive give them
hardihood that is worth everything to
them"
yes" said the doctors son, 1--WE
have some boys who can play around on
the ice and describe fancy figures as
neatly as you or / or perhaps the most
expert skater you can find in Washing
ton"
''Does everyone get the ice all to him.
self in turn or do they all skate at once
and together?" asked the reporter. IF
many skated at time would there not
be frequent collisions?"
1.-The ice-pond is circular in shape"
was the reply, with small islet in the
center, profusely set with trees and
shrubbery that overhang. This little
islet in the center gives an echo. by
which the boy knows how far he is FROM
the bank. A dozen of them will often
skate for half an hour across that pond
without single stumble. The echo
prevents them from running into the
bank. When they have skated perhaps
half an hour in the one direction bell
is rung, and then they turn and skate
for perhaps the same length of time the
other way. They go round on the ice
with just as free and easy a swing as
the contestants in a skating match at
Madison Square garden, in New York"
Doctor, you climbed the Alps once
yourself?'
"Oh, yes. In 1880, think it was,
ascended to the top of Mont Blanc. My
son, who was then only 10 years old,
accompanied me, and was the first of
his age who ever rose to that height.
But Mont Blanc is not by any means
the most difficult mountain to climb. [
never VIII forget belng showed up Tor
twenty-three hours on the Matterhorns
That was in 1882. I thought 1 wa.
never going to get down. 1t rather
dulled my appetite for mountain air, but
am very fond of travel and exercise.
You see have so much thinking to do
that great deal of physical exercise is
necessary for me. Two years ago my
son and l took a tandem tricycle. across
the channel, and crossed the continent
on it from Sweden to Russia. We
brought the machine with us to New
York, where we arrived from England
last Monday, and we intend to do good
deal of riding on it. But this country
is too big and distances are too great to
cover on a tricycleo