[NFBofSC] Too Young?

[Steve Cook]

Too Young?

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The public-school teachers of Gibson County, Tennessee could not believe it. The new Gibson County Superintendent of Public Schools for 1891 was not a teacher, parent, or involved in education. He was a blind man! Joseph Baker, only 24, a farmer, won by just two votes on the seventh ballot. 

 

Joe’s father died about 1885 and left him to care for his mother and three younger siblings. What he did know was the value of a good education, one that prepared him for success in life. 

 

>From day one, Joe got to know the teachers, how long they worked in education, their specialty, and their students. He asked questions and listened to the concerns, suggestions and demands from them. He talked to parents and sympathized with their needs. Then he set to work to make improvements that he felt benefited everyone.

 

He organized the Teachers Circulating Library for the county that provided books and periodicals, and instructional materials to enhance the teacher’s education. By asking for community donations of books and funds, he began the library with 200 volumes of history, pedagogy, psychology, and general literature.

 

Joe re-organized and made permanent the county teachers’ organization. Soon the teachers were working together, across the county, in harmony. The teachers met every month at pre-determined and advertised locations. Other county officials began to take a direct interest in the education of children. 

 

Report cards, if an instructor used them, were inconsistent from one teacher to the next. Joe executed the system of grading schools as recommended by the Tennessee State Superintendent. He showed teachers and parents the advantages of interchangeable curriculum and grading. He gave the teachers efficient instruction in the use of the new systems. 

 

For the next two, two-year terms, Joe worked hard to build up the public schools of Gibson County. In 1895, he lost the election by just a few votes. 

 

Another Superintendent looked back at Joe’s career and remarked, “It is not he Who can do most with his own hands, but he who can best direct the laborers of others, which makes the best superintendent.”

 

How did Joe become so skilled with people and understand the need for a quality education for all? 

 

Joseph Murray Baker was born April 6, 1867, in Moscow, Kentucky. As a child, Joe Murray, as the family called him, had limited vision from the age of two. Because of his eyes, he did not attend school. What education he had was through family and their studies. Granulated eyelids, as was diagnosed, caused him pain. When he was 16, he lost all of his sight. For Joe Murray, this was a relief. The pain was gone. 

 

In a letter he wrote years later describing that summer. he said, “The sixteenth summer found me mentally and physically blind, full of ambition, without hope. Soon, however, through my friend, Dr. Fullerton, I learned of the Tennessee School for the Blind. Then hope returned to cheer ambition. I entered the Tennessee School for the Blind September 12, 1883.”

 

Upon his arrival, he found the school was going through man physical and academic changes. Until 1881, the school was lax in its enrollment and did not provide certificates for graduation. There were no standards for the education of the blind in Tennessee. Academic study was almost non-existent. Many blind children were sent to the school to be cared for by the state. Blind adults with nowhere else to go came to the school. Some learned broom making while others hung out until something better came along. 

 

Two new wings were added to the mansion at 86 Herington Ave. to accommodate the exploding student body. A new boiler, bathrooms, and a fresh coat of paint everywhere. Buildings for lives stock, carriages, and ground equipment were located just outside the school building.

 

A watchman was added during his first two years because of the mysterious fires set inside the school building. Someone set numerous fires for almost a year during the night. The arsonist was never caught. But it made staff and students uneasy for months after the last fire. 

 

Joe was among the first students to be sorted into grades and subjects in line with the public-school curriculum necessary for a diploma. As an older student, he took an interest in the structure of the school and classes as well as the subject matter. Students were expected to be in school at the beginning of each term and stay till the end of each term, unlike other “asylums” of the state. Regular examinations at the end of each week, month, and end of each term were added. The directors and increasing staff worked diligently to demonstrate to the families, students, and the state that the school truly was a place of learning and training for independent employment and worthy of financial support. 

 

Colored blind children were admitted, although segregated from the white students. They were taught a trade before leaving. Their curriculum was not academically based, nor did the Colored kids participate in extra curricular activities such as music classes or allowed to attend the theater with the white students when tickets were donated to the school.

 

The same year Joe came as a student, the school acquired an organ that cost more than $2,000 at the time. Classes in organ began, not just to learn a few songs for church services at the school on a Sunday, but to prepare the boys for a career as a church organist or music director for a large congregation. One of his classmates got a paying job as an organist during his time at school, inspiring Joe, and others to work harder.

 

When students left the school grounds, they often rode in the school’s horse drawn open carriage down the dirt drive and roads. The boys could leave campus after the age of 13, without a teacher or school official. Girls however could not leave campus without a school official no matter their age. 

 

As an older student, Joe had to play catch up. First he had to learn to read and write in braille. New subjects were added to the curriculum about 1885 that included Spelling, Reading, Language Lessons, Grammar, Etymology, Rhetoric, Literature, Mental Arithmetic, Practical Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Geography, History, Latin, Physiology, Psychology, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Civil Government, Philosophy, and Object Class.

 

Lectures from men, prominent in blindness education spoke of blind men and women from the northern states, succeeding in varied careers, supporting themselves. Businessmen from Nashville came to the school to talk about their occupations while learning how skilled the students at the school were at different professions. Too often he and other students felt as though they were always under a microscope.

 

Joe worked in the school’s workshop and took piano tuning. He learned how to cane chairs, make mattresses, brushes, and brooms. At the time, broom making was a business that several graduates made a good living at. The school received funding during his time to purchase new pianos. Many of the early pianos were donated and in very poor condition. The new pianos went to the music classrooms. The old pianos went to the tuning rooms for the boys to work on and for the school to sell when the students completed their restoration. Any projects he completed and sold, Joe received a portion to help pay for his clothes and incidentals. 

 

Joe graduated with honors and received his diploma in 1889. He went back to the family farm to help his widowed mother with the farm and supporting his three siblings. Sadly, his mother died soon after he returned home. By 1891, he was earning more than $400 a year that allowed him to provide a higher education for his younger sister.

 

The exposure to all the changes at the school for the blind prepared him with an understanding of how a good education can lead to self-support. Thanks to the workshop, he knew how to use tools and make necessary repairs on the farm. He managed the finances, kept an inventory in his head, and ordered seed, livestock, and supplies. 

 

After he lost the election, Joe went into broom-making on a large scale with two blind men he knew from his school days. They formed the Shanghai Broom Company. He was the business manager and eventually bought out both of his partners, hiring sighted men to manufacture and sell the brooms.

 

He married a blind woman with a child. The two of them had seven children of their own. Over the next thirty years, he continued to farm and sell books, tune pianos and organs, teach music, and sell newspapers on the streets. 

 

Do NOT reprint or repost without permission from the author.

 

Peggy Chong is the 2023 Jacob Bolotin Award Winner.

 

To schedule The Blind History Lady for a presentation for your business, church or community group, email;  <mailto:theblindhistorylady at gmail.com> theblindhistorylady at gmail.com

 

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