OCR Text |
Show 1 HANDICAPS 1 By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK Dean of Men, University of Illinois I have thought sometimes that maybe may-be the mountains which loomed up as piit;1 PI a barrier before the eyes of 'the first settlers Jn this country were a challenge rather than a discouragment as they pushed their way westward first beyond the Alleghanies and then, as the challenge chal-lenge flung itself into their faces blind, lie could see olj:vts only by getting his face close to ilium, yet, lie wanted to he a chemist. He went ahead as if there was nothing the matter, tie used to go about the laboratory with the utmost nonchalance, nonchal-ance, sticking his face down into t lie mixtures which were brewing. lie '' seemed never to have an explosion; nothing ; ever w ent wrong as far as we knew. He. came to ignore the handicap, he received the degree of doctor of science iu chemistry from an eastern institution, and is today one of the well-known commercial chemists of the country. Most people peo-ple would have said at once that the thing which he accomplished was quite an impossible thing. I had a letter from Ellis a few days ago. He has been blind from birth, but he has managed, without money and sightless as he is, to graduate grad-uate from college, and now he has come up for an advanced degree and is going to teach in a recognized college. col-lege. He is as cheerful as if he had 'his eyesight. One of the men who graduated from our college of engineering en-gineering two years ago had been stone deaf since childhood. All the instruction he got was what he could pick up from reading the lips of his instructors. Yet he won honors in his engineering course; he was one of the most cheerful, happy boys whom I have ever known. I sometimes think that a handicap is for many people a blessing in disguise. dis-guise. ' ' ((c). 1928. Western Newspaper Union.) still more arrogantly, to the Pacific coast. The thought of conquering the heights stirred their blood, fired their curiosity and their pride, became be-came in time an adventure. So. too, I have been sure at times that what at first sight seemed a physical or a mental barrier to success has acted only as an incentive to greater effort on the part of the young person upon whom the handicap has been laid. Four years ago I had a letter from a boy In a country town in southern Illinois. He was just graduating from high school and was hesitating about trying to go further with his education. A nervous disease had seemed to put up for him an almost Insuperable barrier. He walked with difficulty; his speech was halting and sometimes almost unintelligible; and he was sensitive as to his physical physi-cal deficiencies. I had known another an-other boy much like him, however, who had overcome his handicaps and had done well as a free lance writer, and I said so. I met the boy a few weeks ago. He has graduated from a neighboring college, he has made honors, for him the handicap has proved only the challenge of the mountains which he has climbed. A clasipatepf mine was alinost |