In the old days the poor blind were educated as beggars, and the more intelligent of the indigent blind were appropriately nicknamed by Theodore Hook the indignant blind. Dr. Campbell does not mind where his pupils come from. Whatever they may be when they are admitted to the College, there is only one thing to be said of nearly every one of those who leave it--they are ladies and gentlemen in education and deportment, equally able to earn their own living and to grace the society in which they may find themselves. Such a result has been accomplished by terribly hard work. Like Milton, Dr. Campbell "steers right onward." He is a sort of Napier, and only expects others to do what he does not shrink from himself. He is the most kindly of martinets. Blindness with him is no reason for non-punctuality, and if a boy is late in getting out of bed, he orders him to retire at night half an hour earlier, so that he may have the sleep he seems to need. Such punishment is, we may be sure, felt all the more keenly, because the doctor himself sets the example of what is right. For instance, every boy is supposed to be ready for a swim in the splendid bath of the College at a certain hour, and he cannot excuse himself, even to his own mind, for being absent or late on the score that the Doctor enforces rules he does not carry out, for every morning Dr. Campbell takes his plunge with his scholars. He is determined that in everything possible his boys and girls shall go forth into the world unsurpassed by their more fortunate brothers and sisters. His efforts to rob the blind of any sense of dependence on others, which they find so humiliating--efforts which Dr. Armitage fostered with such lavish generosity--and to make them useful citizens instead of the helpless recipients of local doles, are deserving of a support which has hardly been accorded to them. The Royal Normal College for the Blind is a wondrous illustration of the adage that even the darkest cloud has its silver lining. Here, at least, we find the drawbacks consequent on one of the most appalling of human infirmities reduced to a minimum. God alone can restore the light of day to the brain from which it is now excluded, but that He has delegated to man the power to do almost all else, let the College we have now described so fully bear witness. [Illustration] _Out of a Pioneer's Trunk._ BY BRET HARTE. It was a slightly cynical, but fairly good-humoured crowd that had gathered before a warehouse on Long Wharf in San Francisco, one afternoon in the summer of '51. Although the occasion was an auction, the bidders' chances more than usually hazardous, and the season and locality famous for reckless speculation, there was scarcely any excitement among the bystanders, and a lazy, half-humorous curiosity seemed to have taken the place of any zeal for gain. [Illustration: "IT WAS AN AUCTION OF UNCLAIMED TRUNKS AND BOXES."]