The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1909-09-16
PARENTS PEOPLE
OF SMALL MEANS
WAS BLINDED IN YOUTH
Sent to the Nashville Institution
For the Blind, Where He Made
Record of good Standing.

Tennessee has only one living knight
of the English school, and he has lived
away from home so many years that
his native state may have to be re-
minded this year that he owes his En-
gllSh honorS, not to an accident of
birth, but to an accident of his boy
hood in Franklin county, Tennessee.
The long accounts Boston papers have
been devoting lately to the doings of
'Sir Francis and Lady Campbelln on
their arrival from England would not
appear now if more than a generation
ago little Frauk Campbell, 5 years old,
while playing in Winchester, Tenn,
had not run against thorn and lost
the sight of one of his eyes as result
says the st. Louis Globe-Democrat. 1t
is said that an "acacia thsrn pierced
an eyeball' and that he lost the sight
of both eyes as result of the intiama-
tion from the wound. While it is more
likely to have been the thorn of q Ten
nessee hOneG locust, there is no doubt
that his blindness was the first step to-
wards his knighthood ond his present
celebrity as the head of the English
Royal Normal College and Academy
of Music for the Bliud. The difficult
ties of his life, made so much greater
by his blindness, gave him the spirit
of determination in overcoming them,
and also the help from many quarters,
which in his old age show in results of
usefulness above the ''honors of knight
hood"
His parents were people of small
means, but they sent him to the Nash
vile Institution for the Blind, where
he made record of good standing in
all studies except music. AS often oc-
ours in cases of blindness, he had a
passion for music, but through some
MISUNDERSTANDING it was taken for
granted that his backwardness in it
was too great to be overcome and he
was left out Of the music class. Some
time afterwards, the instructor in mu-
sic, who was also blind, heard strains
of music he did not recognize as possi-
BILE for one of his own pupils. He in
vestigated and found that the blind
boy who was supposed to have no ear
for music had such passien for it
that he had used his pocket money to
get himself taught privately, after be-
ing rejected in the music class. From
this time on he had the best instruc-
tions the Nashville institution could
give him in music and everything else.
After leaving Nashville in his teens,
his parents were not able to raise the
money TO pay for the college course he
wished to take. He undertook to make
the money himself by giving lessons in
muse. He was disappointed though
not discouraged on finding that he had
not learned how to teach others what
he knew himself. This, which may
happen so easily to those who have sc
fine an ear for music that they Learn
without the drudgery of studying its
principles, turned him back to the be
ginning. He studied once more thai
he might teach, and after beginning t
toach, succeeded so we'll that he earned
money enough TO enter Harvard col
lege. On his return to Tennessee from
New England he became the musica
director in "1emale seminary" Thel
another crisis came in his life Secont
in importance only TO the misfortune
of his childhood They explain il il
Boston by saying that he had "imbibet
the views of William Lloyd Garrison
while in New England, and that OF
proclaiming them in Tennessee in tn
heat of the struggle just before the be
ginning of the civil war, he would hav
been hanged for black abolitionis
had no not been blind man.
According to the Boston understand
ing of Tennessee habits, they woul,
/ not allow blind man to be lynchet
for political opinions which woul,
. have hanged any one else. This ma,
not call for argument at this late day
but il is a matter of fact that in Il Ten
nessee town not very far from Frank
! lin, new England veteran of the wa
Z of 1912, with no armament except
J flint-lock musket of that date, ran u
] United States flag over his house a