It is a question of great interest whether either Miss Keller or Fawcett, without their spur from blindness, without that need of iron determination and unflinching pluck to win their race in the dark, would, as seeing people, have attained their respective distinction and have been such great servants of humanity. Many fail on account of the insurmountable barriers which seem to accompany blindness, but not a few heroic souls are developed and stimulated by their blindness in a way that nothing else could have equalled. To these ranks it seems that Fawcett belonged. He hesitated greatly to allude to his blindness, and we find him doing so voluntarily, only to help those similarly afflicted. It was a very painful thing for him to speak on behalf of the blind, and on one such occasion he confided to a friend that he had never been so nervous in his life. He hated to be put, or to place himself, in a position to evoke pity, still more to seem to show what he had achieved despite his handicap. He said to the blind, ‘Act as if you were not blind, be of good courage, and help yourselves.’ He advised the seeing, ‘Do not patronise; treat us without reference to our misfortune; and, above all, help us to be independent.’ Also, he emphasised that ‘home associations are for the blind as important as for you’ (meaning the seeing); ‘you must not wall up the blind.’ ‘Do not sever them from all the pleasures and fascinations of home.’ [Sidenote: Sir Francis Campbell.] He was particularly interested in the work of Dr. Campbell, later Sir Francis Campbell, the intrepid American blind man who was knighted by King Edward for the splendid work he had done to emancipate the blind through education. Fawcett spoke often for the benefit of Campbell’s work at the Royal Normal College for the Blind. The following quotations from Fawcett’s speeches were written for this book by some of the blind stenographers employed at the college, the work of which was inspired by Sir Francis. Fawcett, referring to the blind, said, ‘Nothing, he found, was so hard to bear as to hear people, when they spoke of the blind, assume a patronising tone towards them, as if they were suffering from something for which in some mysterious way they should feel thankful. The kindest thing that could be done or said to a blind person was not to use patronising language, but to tell him, as far as possible, to be “of good cheer,” to give him confidence that help would be afforded him whenever it was required, that there was still good work for him to do, and the more active his career, the more useful his life to others, the more happy his days to himself.’ [Sidenote: Fawcett Reminiscences.]