DESIRE had commenced to pay dividends, but the victory
was not yet complete. The boy still had to find a definite and practical
way to convert his handicap into an equivalent asset.
Hardly realizing the significance of what had already been accomplished,
but intoxicated with the joy of his newly discovered world of sound,
he wrote a letter to the manufacturer of the hearing-aid, enthusiastically
describing his experience. Something in his letter; something, perhaps
which was not written on the lines, but back of them; caused the
company to invite him to New York. When be arrived, he was escorted
through the factory, and while talking with the Chief Engineer,
telling him about his changed world, a hunch, an idea, or an inspiration—
call it what you wish— flashed into his mind. It was this impulse
of thought which converted his affliction into an asset, destined
to pay dividends in both money and happiness to thousands for all
time to come.
The sum and substance of that impulse of thought was this: It occurred
to him that he might be of help to the millions of deafened people
who go through life without the benefit of hearing devices, if he
could find a way to tell them the story of his Changed World. Then
and there, he reached a decision to devote the remainder of his
life to rendering useful service to the hard of hearing.
For an entire month, he carried on an intensive research, during
which he analyzed the entire marketing system of the manufacturer
of the hearing device, and created ways and means of communicating
with the hard of hearing all over the world for the purpose of sharing
with them his newly discovered "Changed World." When this
was done, he put in writing a two-year plan, based upon his findings.
When he presented the plan to the company, he was instantly given
a position, for the purpose of carrying out his ambition.
Little did he dream, when he went to work, that he was destined
to bring hope and practical relief to thousands of deafened people
who, without his help, would have been doomed forever to deaf mutism.
Shortly after he became associated with the manufacturer of his
hearing aid, he invited me to attend a class conducted by his company,
for the purpose of teaching deaf mutes to hear, and to speak. I
had never heard of such a form of education, therefore I visited
the class, skeptical but hopeful that my time would not be entirely
wasted. Here I saw a demonstration which gave me a greatly enlarged
vision of what I had done to arouse and keep alive in my son's mind
the DESIRE for normal hearing. I saw deaf mutes actually being taught
to hear and to speak, through application of the self-same principle
I had used, more than twenty years previously, in saving my son
from deaf mutism.
Thus, through some strange turn of the Wheel of Fate, my son, Blair,
and I have been destined to aid in correcting deaf mutism for those
as yet unborn, because we are the only living human beings, as far
as I know, who have established definitely the fact that deaf mutism
can be corrected to the extent of