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Now to come nearer home. In 1867 the first industrial institution for blind women in America was started in Philadelphia where at present some sixty find employment, in 1874 one was opened for blind men. This latter now furnishes the opportunity to from 140 to 160, who, through its assistance are able to earn their livelihood. California comes next, having made very generous provision for its adult blind in this direction by action taken in 1886, Iowa in 1889, Ohio in 1890 and Illinois in the same year. In 1893 the Legislature of Illinois made an appropriation of $100,000 for an industrial home for the blind in the city of Chicago. In 1893 the little State of Connecticut, finding, by careful investigation, that she had within her borders something like seven hundred blind, began her work for them through an industrial home where she teaches them a trade and if they give evidence of such proficiency as warrants it, aids them to the extent of $200 each to start in business; this in addition to her kindergarten work for blind children, for which she spent in 1900 a trifle less than $10,000. Kansas and Michigan are now working toward industrial homes under State auspices; the blind of the former State publish a magazine called The Problem in which they discuss the various questions so vital to the sixty thousand blind of the United States, two-thirds of whom lose their eye-sight after the age of twenty-one.

These brief references to what is being done for the adult blind elsewhere than in Massachusetts are sufficient I think to show us that with all our hardship in so many branches of philanthropic activity we are in this particular far from meeting our obligations.

I am sure that we are agreed that something ought to be done. With even the many facts before an that I have presented we have argument always to stir us to action. Let me add two letters that have recently come to me. One writes: "I was partly educated In Boston, but was taught no industry, and my people being poor I was obliged to sit in an almshouse and brood over my troubles. Such was my life for twenty years, and most of the time all the companions I had were crazy or feeble-minded people. Now I cane chairs and enjoy the work, am in perfect health and always busy." Another taken from a Massachusetts almshouse and sent to the Hartford. Conn., Institution, writes: "The Massachusetts blind cannot have a life home here in Hartford. Where shall we go? God forbid that we have to return to the almshouse. May our own State supply a home for its adult blind! We do not want to be paupers; we want work, not idleness, but the honest, sweet bread gained by our willing hands and brains. Many of us will call down all the blessings of God upon those who labor to bring light and joy into our lives."

Were the money at hand with which to open industrial homes, we should have to face the fact that in all probability it would be impossible to make them self-supporting. Generous gifts from the State, or from private sources, or from both, would be necessary to make it possible for them to pay the workers even a modest wage for their labors. It is said that not a single industrial home or workshop in England sustains itself, and that where on the Continent one is found it is because some local condition creates a demand for such work as the blind can do. For example, basket making in Italy, transferred to the United States where wooden boxes are used for nearly all the purposes for which there they use baskets, would prove unprofitable. The great broom trust in our own country absolutely prohibits the success of the blind in competing with it. Where an industrial institution of this sort does meet its expenses it is because of some specially favoring circumstance or because of the assistance of seeing workmen, or because of other features of the business not directly connected with the work of the blind. But large gifts by the. State or by individuals for this purpose -- why should we not expect them? What cause can present a stronger plea? In all I have said I have had in mind, not individual blind people, not those qualified by training for professional life, or moved by extraordinary ambitions to win their way in spite of all obstacles, but the blind as a class, in the majority of cases men and women much like the rest of us ordinary mortals, or as the most of us would be were we both poor and blind.

Allow me to make two suggestions in the line of what seems, in the judgment of those most experienced in the work, practicable and possible.

1. There should be a board of education for the blind. In our own State where such advantages exist as are provided in the Perkins Institution, this board should have under its care those who are beyond the age that entitles them to admission to this celebrated school. At their dispose there should be a fund sufficient to enable them to maintain a body of teachers large enough to visit at very frequent intervals all the adult blind of the Commonwealth in the places where they have their homes, teaching them there how to read and write, and giving instruction in such branches of industry as the conditions warrant. The four teachers at present employed represent the first step that the State has take in this direction. It seems to be the opinion of those most familiar with this work that it is far better to teach the dependent adult blind, individually, in the various localities where they have their residence, than to gather them in large numbers under a single roof. Just so far as money can be secured from the public treasury, or from private gifts, let the number of teachers be multiplied till not one sightless man or woman in the State is left unreached by the kindly ministries of this board.