A BLIND BOY GRADUATE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 21, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 16.

A BLIND BOY GRADUATE.

Takes the Highest Honors in the University of Texas.

The following, from Prof. John A. Lomax, registrar of the University of Texas, speaks for itself. How it ought to stimulate those to work who have the use of all the senses:—

Franz Joseph Dohmen, of Austin, Texas, ranks above any of his fellow-students of the present senior class of the University of Texas. At the next commencement he will receive the degree of Bachelor of Literature. The fact that Mr. Dohmen is the first-honor man of his class is only remarkable because since his tenth year he has been totally blind. He is twenty-four years old, and was born at New Braunfels, Texas, of German parents. His father, Dr. Dohmen, was at the time of his death the State oculist, and one of the most distinguished men of his profession in the State. When young Dohmen was ten years old, he was seized with an attack of the typhoid fever, which settled in his eyes, and when his strength was restored, it was found that he had completely lost his sight. His fondness for study and his natural musical taste have apparently afforded him ample recompense for the loss of his sight. He was placed in the Blind Asylum, and there had his talents for music developed, and at the same time received splendid preparatory training for his university career.

While he was studying in the blind asylum he received training in a system of writing that has been invaluable to him while a student in the University. This system consists of piercing full of small holes a stiff waxed paper by means of a sharp instrument, the position of the hole being determined by a small metal frame held on the opposite side of the paper; this furnishes projections, which the blind learn to read as readily as they do raised letters. Mr. Dohmen is a perfect master of this system, and writes it as rapidly as an ordinary writer does long hand. He comes to the university daily with his notebook, attends classes, takes notes, and goes about the building so easily and naturally that the loss of his sight is scarcely noticed. When a term examination occurs, he writes his answers to the questions according to his short-hand system for the blind, and then takes his replies home and makes a neat copy himself upon his typewriter. He does his typewritten work rapidly and neatly, and presents to his professors manuscript faultless in its appearance and almost flawless as to its scholarly grasp of the subject under consideration.

Mr. Dohmen graduated from the blind asylum in 1893 with the highest honors, and has now been a student of the University of Texas for five years. His proficiency as a performer on the piano is a great solace both to himself and to his friends, but his greatest delight consists in delving in the problems of higher mathematics, philosophy, and political science. He speaks and writes English, German, and French. He is a fair Latin scholar, and knows a smattering of Greek. At present he is studying Greek, French, German, mathematics, Latin, and political science. Upon these studies next June he will receive his degree of Bachelor of Literature, and will leave immediately for Germany, to pursue further investigation in his favorite subjects of philosophy, mathematics, and political science in some one of the great universities there.

Mr. Dohmen is rather tall. His face is sensitive, refined, and pleasingly intelligent. His disposition is bright and cheerful. He is popular with every one, and the small coterie of his friends to whom he reveals in some degree his inner self, all testify by their sincere admiration to the true nobility and greatness of his character. His life after his return from Germany will be spent in teaching.

No citizen of Texas can ever begrudge the generosity of the State that has provided means for educating the unfortunate blind, and surely every one will rejoice that the honors of the present graduating class of the University of Texas will be taken by a blind boy who received his preparatory education in the State Institute for the Blind. And patient, persistent, persevering application has won this honor for young Dohmen. His record will be left behind him on the books of the University, and it is as phenomenal as it is hoped his success will be in after life.