[nagdu] NFB vs. private activism WAS RE: Fake service dogs newsstory

[Angie Matney]

Hi Tami,

Your account of the children and adults you saw at convention reminded me of 
part of Dr. Jernigan's speech, The Nature of Independence. After explaining 
to a group of students why the canes he used grew loner and loner over the 
years, he said:

I've told you all of this so that you may understand something of my 
background and approach to independence in travel, and independence in 
general. The doctors who established the medical schools a hundred years ago 
were (with notable exceptions) not generally as competent and skilled as the 
doctors they trained, for they did not have the benefit of the kind of 
concentrated teaching they themselves were providing. Obviously they could 
not stand on their own shoulders. Through their students they extended their 
dreams into the future, building possibilities that they themselves had not 
known and could never hope to realize.

So it is with me in relation to you. You are the third generation of our 
mobility trainees, having the benefit of what I have learned and also of 
what Joanne and the other Iowa graduates have learned. Unless you make 
advances over what we have done, you will, in a very real sense, fail to 
keep faith with those who have gone before you and those who will follow. In 
this context I would expect and hope that some of you will become better 
travelers (and, perhaps, better philosophers and teachers) than I, and if 
you do, I will take joy in it.



The whole speech can be found here:

http://bit.ly/1cV4QG

Angie