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The Adult Blind of Massachusetts

A Call to a Pressing Duty

BY FRANCIS H. ROWLEY, D.D.

WHEN we have visited the Perkins Institution and noted what is being done for sightless children in that noble school, we have seen only one side of the picture, and that the brightest, the fairest. We have not thought of the thousands of sad-hearted, silent men and women sitting in the dreary solitude of conscious isolation; some in lonely homes where all that can he done for them is to provide food and raiment and shelter; and some dragging out the weary years as objects of public charity in almshouses. This is the blindness that appals (sic) one when he broods over it.

By the very purpose and clearly defined terms of its charter, the Perkins Institution must restrict its activities almost entirely to the educating and training of sightless boys and girls who are not yet nineteen years old. To ask it to give attention to the problem of assisting and industrially instructing the adult blind of Massachusetts is to ask it to turn aside from the one specific task it has set itself, and for the accomplishment of which it has made itself so thoroughly efficient.

Others must take up this latter work, than which there is no other demanding at the present hour more imperatively our thoughtful consideration as citizens interested in the unfortunate of the State. The census of Massachusetts for 1895, the last that was available for our use, gives the number of blind as 3933: 2267 males and 1716 females; 231 are classed among paupers, eighteen among the insane. Out of this 3983 there were but 333 under the age of fifteen, and 213 were under twenty and over fifteen; these last have now joined the appalling list of the adult blind, and, making allowances for deaths, swell its total to the neighborhood of 3800. Of these there are some who make no appeal. Blessed with an income sufficient for their support, or cared for by friends able to provide them with such instruction or pastimes as they desire, they are ready to aid the less favored blind, rather than ask anything. for themselves. Others, profiting by the training received at the Perkins Institution or elsewhere, are self-supporting. Dr. Anagnos tells me that about sixty per cent of the graduates of his school are earning their own living in whole or in part. But the vast majority are among the poor, dependent upon others than themselves or their immediate family for the means of subsistence. Even where not compelled to receive aid from strangers, the lot of hundreds of these is one of irrepressible loneliness and weariness, because, unable to read or write, and uninstructed in any form of useful employment, they are doomed to sit in idleness both of mind and body.

After the first shock that comes to those, suddenly losing their sight there develops in the lives of no small proportion of them the ambition to overcome the disadvantage that illness or accident has brought about, and to outwit misfortune by a skillful training of the senses that are left. The achievements in this direction seem often too wonderful to be true. When one thinks of the builder of the great American yachts, that have kept on this side the Atlantic, the cup England has wanted so long; of Prescott, and all he accomplished after losing his sight; of Mr. Fawcett, post-master general under Gladstone; of Huber, the celebrated naturalist; of William E. Cramer, the journalist; of George Mathison, the blind preacher of Edinburgh, whose published works are among the finest literary and religious productions of the age -- when one thinks of what these men have attained there seems to be almost nothing that lies beyond the reach of the patience and persistency of those deprived of sight. We are doing a most serious wrong to the blind by the limitations we put upon them in our thinking of them as willingly the, objects of charity. There are thousands of them who are by nature as loath as you or I to accept of charity. Help to help themselves that is what they long for.

Now what is being done in Massachusetts for it 3800 adult blind?

1. Of the Charlotte Harris bequest of $80,000, that by the decision of the court was adjudged in 1878 as primarily intended for the Perkins Institution, and which therefore, passed into the control of the institution's trustees, one-third, or strictly speaking, the income from one-third of this fund -- has been used by the institution to assist in the maintenance of blind persons of adult age. Though by reason of a lower rate of interest this income has been somewhat lessened, up to the present time the amount given the beneficiaries has not been reduced.

2. In connection with the Perkins Institution, though really independent of it, there has been carried on a small mattress factory and chair-caning establishment, giving employment, at present, to fifteen man and four women, besides furnishing, at times, the opportunity to four or five apprentices, of learning the trades of matress-making and chair-caning. More than $40,000, however, was put into this undertaking before it seems to have shown a profit instead of a loss.

3. In connection, also, with the same institution a room is open on Boylston street, where the handiwork of between thirty and forty blind women of New England is kept for sale. By the disposal of such articles as they can make in their hornet, these women are in a measure able to contribute to their own support.

4. The graduates of Perkins Institution have been, in a quiet and unostentatious way, doing what they could for some of the adult blind by visiting them, giving their services as teachers and helpers, and relieving suffering when possible.

5. The State is now appropriating $5000 a year to pay the expenses and salaries of four teachers who travel throughout the Commonwealth, giving instruction to the adult blind In reading and writing, and such simple forms of industry as circumstances permit. Grateful as we may be for this beginning of what is known as "Home Teaching," when we think of the multitudes these four teachers are expected to serve, we say with Andrew of old, as he looked at the five barley loaves and two small fishes, "What are these among no many?" In the city of London, with a blind population smaller than that of our State, there are seven or eight home teaching societies, one of which employs twelve teachers whose salaries average from three to five hundred dollars a year.

Now leave out the four kinds of service rendered in connection with the Perkins Institution to the adult blind, all independent really of its distinctive work, and at the best reaching probably not more than a hundred people, and for the remaining 3700 you have an appropriation of $5000 expended in furnishing four home teachers. This is what Massachusetts is doing for the adult blind. And yet as far back as 1849 that great-hearted philanthropist, whom we still delight to honor, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, pleaded for this work. In the report of the Institution for that year he says:

It is found by experience that often sufferers present themselves and ask earnestly for help and solace, and work, for whose case the institution was not originally intended, but who are totally unprovided for elsewhere, and whose appeal is so touching as to be irresistible; we mean those who are suddenly struck blind in early manhood, by accident or by disease. The condition of such persons is more deplorable than that of those born blind, who know not what darkness is, because they never knew what light is. But to the man who has lived in an atmosphere of light, whose existence has been, as it were, enlarged and multiplied by the vast range of visible objects which the sense of sight seems to give its for his own, to incorporate, as it were with his very being, until light and life become one and the same -- to him there is something real, sensible and terrible in the darkness which suddenly covers him like a pall when his eyes are blasted. He is at first like one buried alive. All his thoughts, all his efforts, all his prayers are for deliverance from this thick gloom -- far some means of struggling out of it and back into light again. Little by little he becomes resigned; he even recovers his cheerfulness and his interest in life is reawakened: but soon his sky is clouded again by the discovery of his helplessness, and his dependence. The interest and the sympathy of others, so warmly excited at first by his terrible misfortune, gradually grow less, and if he has no parents to support him, he begins to be considered a burden. He has then before him the dreary prospect of a life of dependence upon relatives and friends, to be dragged on until they are weary of well-doing, or are dead; and beyond that lies the cheerless scene of an old age and a death-bed in the almshouse. Besides this, the rust of idleness soon begins to eat into his soul. He finds that it is not life merely to be alive and unemployed, and begins to pine for an occupation as much as he ever pined for recovery of his sight. He is not young enough to enter a school for the blind, and go through a course of study with the boys, but he is not too old to learn a trade and earn his own livelihood.

It is for the relief of such cases as the one thus described that further provision is necessary; and we recommend to the board the suggestions of the director respecting it.

It seems almost incredible, does it not, that the people of his State should to long have allowed the plea of this friend of all the blind to go practically unanswered.

In Russia there are thirty hospitals under Government patronage, established for the treatment of diseases of the eye, and more than that number of skilled oculists are employed to visit every hamlet of the empire to give such advice and treatment as may be demanded, even by the humblest. If an operation promises relief the patient is sent to the nearest hospital, all his expenses and those of his attendant being paid, if his own means are not sufficient. In Austro-Hungary a large educational and industrial school is supported directly by the State, while opposite this school is a home where several hundred blind people are cared for by the Government, and such work given them to do as they are competent to perform. In Germany nearly every town and city has its school for the blind. Its workshops and its home teaching societies. Belgium. Holland and Sweden have publishing houses where books for the blind are printed, both in Moon and Braille. type, and schools are maintained. In Saxony a system was adopted, still known the Saxon system, in which industrial schools are established, where the blind are taught many trades, and, having become proficient in some one, the sightless, individual is assisted to start some occupation in or near his or her native place and assisted as long as help is needed, and the unfortunate one does what he can for self-support. In England there are thirty-three industrial homes for the blind, and twenty-seven Government schools which have workshops attached. In addition, there is the Royal Normal College, which, while working chiefly for younger pupils, admits frequently those who have reached the age of twenty-five and even twenty-eight. One school fixes the age of admission at fifty-five, another at forty-five, but the most of them have no restrictions save such as would shut out those who are mentally or physically unfitted to profit by the instruction. Industrial as well as literary education is given in the majority of these schools. Then there is the Gardner Trust for tile blind, supported by the income from $1,500,000, part of the proceeds being paid.in pensions to indigent blind; part in furnishing books and literature to schools. and part in assisting worthy pupils to secure an education, either in school or college. There are also forty pension societies for the blind, which save a large number from the necessity of seeking the workhouse as their only refuge. One of these organizations has on its list of beneficiaries over eleven hundred names, and annually distributes more than $115,000. Besides all this, there are the eighty and more home teaching societies, forty-five of which were established by Dr. Moon and the Publishing Society, founded by him and still conducted by his daughter.

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.

2. Let there be a modest beginning made in opening an industrial home where the able-bodied, and those who have no friends to give them shelter, can be given the chance to contribute to their support by their own labor. Every such institution, if it lives, and if it ought to live, must be a growth. It would encounter many a difficulty in its development and could deal with these much more effectively when operating on a small scale than on a large one. While it might seem almost cruel at the start to offer its assistance to only a few out of great number equally deserving, in the east, by the wisdom learned from experience, it would prove that the greatest good of the greatest number had been subserved.