An English traveller tells of a visit he paid to Brittany after the war, and of a quaint village festival he attended. Hundreds of peasants moved around the village green clad in their spotless holiday attire. Among the laughing maidens and jovial men he saw one man who seemed to radiate sunshine wherever he went. Then he discovered that this prince of fun-makers was the blinded artist--Jean Lemoidant. For several years now he has been lecturing on art, and in 1919 he visited the United States of America in order to have conferred upon him a very great distinction, the Howland Prize. This prize is only conferred upon such as have displayed extraordinary skill in some branch of science. The condition reads that it can only be conferred on “The citizen of any country in recognition of some achievement of marked distinction in the field of literature, fine arts, or the science of government.” In years to come no doubt the Howland Prize will be conferred upon many great men; deservedly distinguished for their great gifts as authors, musicians, statesmen or soldiers, but one would feel safe in saying that it is improbable that the great honour will ever be conferred upon any braver man than Jean Lemoidant, who, although maimed and blinded, just when he seemed to be nearing the goal of his ambition, faced the world with a smile upon his lips and a song of hope and cheer in his brave heart. CHAPTER VIII FROM BOOKBINDER’S ERRAND BOY TO GREAT SCIENTIST One day in September, 1791, a boy was born in the heart of London to whom was given the name, Michael Faraday. The father, James Faraday, was a blacksmith, but he was in such feeble health that he could seldom work for a whole day at a time, and sometimes for several weeks was unable to work at all. This meant that he and his wife and their four children had to live on very little and poverty often stared them in the face. Michael was the third oldest child. In those days education was harder to get than now and most of what he learned was secured at home, and as neither of his parents had much education, Michael soon had to face the world with one of the most serious of handicaps, an almost total lack of education. Near Michael’s home was a little yard known as Spanish Place; here the little fellow spent most of his early years playing marbles and romping around with other children who, like himself, were growing up, as most children of the poor did, without education. James Faraday, though poor and delicate, was a kind father and provided for his family as well as he could, and his wife was industrious and devoted to her four children.