Page 36 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

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 teach-
ing deaf mutes to hear, and to speak. I had never heard of such a form of educa-
tion, 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 defi-
nitely the fact that deaf mutism can be corrected to the extent of restoring to
normal life those who suffer with this affliction. It has been done for one; it will
be done for others.

There is no doubt in my mind that Blair would have been a deaf mute all his life,
if his mother and I had not managed to shape his mind as we did. The doctor who
attended at his birth told us, confidentially, the child might never hear or speak.
A few weeks ago, Dr. Irving Voorhees, a noted specialist on such cases, examined
Blair very thoroughly. He was astounded when he learned how well my son now
hears, and speaks, and said his examination indicated that "theoretically, the boy
should not be able to hear at all." But the lad does hear, despite the fact that X-ray
pictures show there is no opening in the skull, whatsoever, from where his ears
should be to the brain.

When I planted in his mind the DESIRE to hear and talk, and live as a normal
person, there went with that impulse some strange influence which caused Na-
ture to become bridge-builder, and span the gulf of silence between his brain and
the outer world, by some means which the keenest medical specialists have not
been able to interpret. It would be sacrilege for me to even conjecture as to how
Nature performed this miracle. It would be unforgivable if I neglected to tell the
world as much as I know of the humble part I assumed in the strange experience.
It is my duty, and a privilege to say I believe, and not without reason, that nothing
is impossible to the person who backs DESIRE with enduring FAITH.

36

NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH