Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1919 — No “Patient Resignation” for Blind; “Kicking Aggressiveness” Wanted [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

No “Patient Resignation” for Blind; “Kicking Aggressiveness” Wanted

By SIR ARTHUR PEARSON.

Bland Brink PUanthropHt

The handicap of blindness has been overcome. Men who lost their sight in the war have become actually more valuable in their own or Wier professions and trades than they were when they could see. Modern methods of treating the blind all tend toward the restoration of normality rather than the accentuation of affliction. St. Dunstan’s, the British institution, which I founded to aid men blinded in the war, is a place where darkness which is inevitable is never gloom that is impenetrable. The gallant fellows there, who gave

their sight in the war that the world might see peace, are showing the same courage they exhibited on the field of battle. They have nothing to do with the old Christian theory of “patient resignation.”. "We don t want men who are patiently resigned. We want kicking aggressiveness. And we have nothing to do with “afflictions.” We don’t let our fellows get the idea in their heads that they are “afflicted.” Our aim is to make them normal, and, through the quickened perception of their other senses, they are able to “see,” even though not with their eyes. A blind man’s other senlies do not become naturally sharper because of the loss of sight. Their increased efficiency is because they are made to do more work, to perform functions for which nature intended them, but which liave fallen into disuse because man has relied so much upon his sight. If anyone could have told me six years ago when I could sec what a blind man could do I should have dismissed him as a fool or liar or perhaps both. The great majority of graduates of St. Dunstan’s earn far more blind than they did when they could see. Moreover, men have gone back to their prewar occupations more expert than ever in unsuspected lines, such as engineering, barbering and other avenues of effort. I predict the same future for the American government institution, Evergreen, at Baltimore, and plead for help for the blind and disabled, both in military and civil life, toward making them self-supporting and self-reliant.