BLIND TOM

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 287, 28 November 1908, Page 3

BLIND TOM

HOW AX IMBECILE BUXO XECKO RJAXIST AMAZED SCIENTISTS OVLI MUSICUXS TIIK WOiiLU

Wind Tom, the marvel of his lay, died in Hoboken, Xew York, U.S.A., on June IS. Since his case will doubtless be reterred to by psychologists and physicians for many years to come, we present the following facts, which are taken 111 part from the Philadelphia Xorth American. Blind Tom had many imitators, but there can be no doubt that the man who died recently was the eal Blind Tom. The fact that he was

a negro and was also blind added picturesqueness to his career, but the main point of scientific interest was that lie was unquestionably ait imbecile who possessed the most remarkable memory of its kiud on record.

Without belittling' his astonishing achievements, it is evident that the power to niiuiie' which is possessed by monkeys and some birds to an taiusual degree does not indicate general intelligence. The writer witnessed a performance given by a world-famous Herman pianist, who, notwithstanding the tact that he was in a state of bestial intoxication at the time, was able to play with great accuracy some of the most difficult compositions ever written. The reproduction of musical compositions is, therefore, due to something quite different from high conscious intelligence. It would seem that this was a gift that few people possess. Some scientists explain it as a reilex action. That is, the lingers that have travelled so many times over the same pianistic pathways at last become automatic and do their work apparently without conscious thought. There is another valuable lesson from Blind Tom's life that teachers should appreciate. The teacher who encourages the pupil to imitate rather than to resort to original thinking is not developing the child's higher musical intelligence. Blind Tom could memorise music at a rate that would baffle the ordinary musician. Moreover, his powers of retention were so great that anything he once learned he rarely forgot. After all, he was nothing but t human phono- I graph, a freak of nature, quite as wonderful as the Katnral Bridge, the Mammoth Cave, or the Grand Canyon.

He was blind Tom to nearly all the world. But few knew that he derived from his mother the name of Thomas Wiggins. It is said that when the late General Bethnne,. of Columbus, Ga., bought his mother in the slave mart of his town, Blind Tom was a little blind piccaninny bugged close lo the breast that had nurtured twenty other offspring. The small bundle of black pulp was" blind and frail, and the auctioneer, in offering the mother for sale, stilted that the piccaninny would he " thrown in." lie was thru regarded as valueless even as a human chattel.

General Bethnne had a large house and several daughters who were very musical. Whenever they began to play upon the piano the little blind black boy would feel his way to the veranda of the house anil hide under some rosebushes. It was noticed that he became greatly excited when he heard the music and he emitted a peculiar hissing sound that, through all his life, was his manner of expressing delight.

When he was four years old. the -.■l'iie age at which the infant Mozart wu discovered, at the piano during the nitrht. little Tom was heard one day at tl(e piano, picking out with his chubby lingers the notes of the melodies ]k had heard on the piano.

■fieneial Bethune soon recognised the talent of the child, and gave instructions to the household that the black boy should be permitted to play on the piano all he liked. From that time he spent all his waking hours at the instrument. His marvellous powers of mimicry enabled him to repeat on the piano Anything lie heard played that was within the reach of his fingers. Tsy the time he was eight years old lie had grown so large that his hand would span an octave on the keyboard, and then, at the request of friends. General Bethune began to lake him away from home to piny the piano for the entertainment of parties. This practice was followed by concert tours through Ihe South. Tom's mirvellous genius for mimicry was by no Means confined to the piano.

I but took in almost even-thing within | the range of sound. Tn addition to the instinct that enabled him to strike the right kevs with bis fingers and to reprodiiee anything he heard played upon the piano, he was endowed with a remark- ' able throat that enabled him to imitate the singing of men and women. His ' voice was naturally a guttural bass, and bis favourite song' was "Rocked in theCradle of the Deep," which he frequently sanf to his own accompaniment. And yet he could imitate, somewhat crudely, a soprano, and his tenor was surprisingly good. ITc had absolutely no ideas whatever about music as a mathematical science. He did not know that one note has always an exact and inichangeable relative value to all other notes, and that all combinations of tones or half tones may be computed mathematically. With him music was not science, it was nature. Henry Wattcrson lolls of ' a meetiiK' with Blind Tom at YVashing--1 ton in fsf>o. The negro bad lipen - bron«ht as far north as Louisville by " Oenoral Bethune. and William Henry • Palmer, who was known to the public " as Robert Heller, the magician, heard 1 him and induced his master to take him 1 to the national capital. Tom heard *' some of the great statesmen of the *■ period speak, and ever afterwards he a was able to repeat their speeches with p the exact language, intonation, the pecup liarities of speech of the originals. But he never had the slightest idea what (l any of the words that he repeated y meant. He was simply a human phono,r "rapli, and as such was undoubtedly the most wonderful human instrument the world has known.