The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-12
LEARNED BLIND STUDENT.
Remarkable Accomplishments of
SightIess Youth.

From the San Francisco Chronicle.
over in Berkeley at the State Univer-
sity. and among its most successful stu
dents, is a young man who has to rely
upon four of the FIVE avenues by which
men gain information of the outer world
yet he has not only acquired great power
as a mathematician, a reasoner and a
teacher. but he has actually gained more
knowledge of external nature than great
share of people possess.
Newell Perry is now q years of age,
and has been totally blind since the age
of 3, when a bad case of poison oak left
him sightless. His childhood had been
that of the average healthy boy, except
that his powers of observation were un-
commonly exercised, and his mind was
well stored with pictures of sea and sky
and hill and valley. These recollections
of early years have been Of inestimable
value to him since his loss of sight, serv-
ing to guide and correct his conception of
things of which maturer studies have
brought him.
After his blindness young Perry was sent
to the state institution for the blind, where
he soon distinguished himself as stu
dent He had before acquired the ability
to read and to handle simple figures. In
his work under the teachers of the blind
his misfortune served to Intensity the
senses left him. II he could now read
with much less facility than formerly, still
reading came to mean much more to him.
His mind was free to throw all its powers
into forming the conceptions suggested by
the words. If he could not now manage
large numbers so readily by the use of
written figures, he soon acquired the abil-
ity to carry and manipulate comparatively
large numbers in his mind with marvel
Gus accuracy and rapfdity.
Young Perry,s advance from the institu-
ton for the blind to city high school and
thence to the State University was rapid.
In his later studies he has always employ
ed a reader to save time. He selects for this
office person who is willing to be guild
ed, who will be passive instrument and
literally lend his eyes" In these years his
rank as q student has always been good
among the best, in fact; and in mathemat-
les especially 1t has been extremely high.
The construction for the most complex
geometrical problem can be drawn In his
mind and held there while the compa usonS
are being made which lead TO the solution.
The profundities of the differential and in
tegral calculus. so full of dread to most
minds, are pleasures to mentality of his
grasp and concentration.
An instance may illustrate young Perry's
power. He requested a student to read to
him several logarithms which he wished to
use, and three or four were read of fifteen
figures each. Perry requested that they
be read a second time, after which he went
to his room to use the sixty figures, each
in it's proper place. 1t is an ordinary
thing for him to work with an algebraic
expression of twenty terms. carrying it in
his mind through all the changes of a
mathematical computation.
But not only in mathematics is Perry's
wonderful ability displayed He speaks,
read and writes the German language. He
is exceedingly well read in history and
English literature He is a thorough stu
dent of the natural sciences, possessing
the spirit of an investigator and the habit
of strict reasoning. He is an excellent mu-
sician, and, strange TO say, fair dancer
One of the surprising powers possessed
by Perry is his ability to direct his move
ments nearly or quite as well as can the
average man. Many persons who meet him
upon his rambles over the Berkeley hills
or see him take the train for San Fran
cisco or pass him upon crowded Market
street do not realize that he has not the
advantage of optical vision. SO remark
ably accurate are his movements on the
street, in a jostling crowd, in descending
a stairway two steps at time, in enter
ing a crowded lodging house and finding
the room of his friend and selecting the
book he wishes to borrow in his friends