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"The real and practical education of all children begins as soon as they are born. The nursery is a school-room. The cradle is a nest in which to learn to lie and swing. The high chair a desk at which to learn to sit. The toys and playthings are apparatus by which to learn to use the arms and hands. The other rooms are fields of travel to be first explored. Every article of furniture and every ornament is to be examined and studied, and the senses exercised by observing the form, colour, weight, hardness and other qualities of each one. The yard is a field for early journeying; and the premises outside are to be explored by a more venturesome tour.

"The amount of thoughtful care and attention which is bestowed upon teaching the infant and child in these early lessons, will have great influence upon its intelligence and powers of self-direction during all its after-life. Unfortunately, it is only in very rare cases that any care or thought is bestowed upon the matter; the little scholar's schoolroom is without order or discipline, and his spontaneous efforts to get knowledge are as apt to bring upon him cuffs and reproofs as approbation and assistance. All this needs to be changed and improved, and the first schools and first lessons systematized and adapted for all children. How much more is this needed in the case of children whose condition, disposition and requirements are modified by infirmities, such as blindness, deafness, imbecility, and the like!

"The blind child needs especial care and peculiar training. The mother, the sister, the brother, the little companions, can all be very useful to him as teachers, and can give him valuable lessons of various kinds. They can encourage him to leave his couch or rocking-chair, and to have courage and self-reliance. They can encourage him to keep on his feet as soon as he can toddle about; can help him to explore the room, house, and yard; to climb stairs and ladders; to scale fences; to creep through holes; to hunt hens' eggs, and the like. They can give him opportunities to feel of dogs, cats, hens, horses and cattle; and can teach him much of the ways and habits of domestic and other animals.

"Do not be over-anxious about him. Do not watch him too closely. Do not smooth away all difficulties and carpet his walk of life. If he is groping his way across the room, and a stool or other article chance to be in his path, do not scream to warn him, nor hasten to remove it, but let him trip and tumble over it; the pain will be well paid for by the lesson. And so with a hundred little things. He had better pinch his fingers slightly with a pair of nippers, or with the nut-crackers, or in the joints of the tongs; he had better jam them a little with the hammer, or wound them with a screwdriver, than never handle these articles.

"And so with other common articles. Let him use the corkscrew, and drive the common screw, and bore with gimlet and bit, and cut with the hatchet, and split wood with the axe and cut it with the saw, rather than abstain from knowing and using those articles lest he should wound himself. All your anxieties and precautions will not save him from wound and bruise and hurts of various kinds. He must incur and bear them; all children have to do so; so that your alarms do not save him, but probably have the effect of increasing his danger by preventing him from relying upon himself, and so lessen his presence of mind and activity in self-defence, when a sudden difficulty presents itself.

"Do not prevent your blind child from developing, as he grows up, courage, self-reliance, generosity, and manliness of character, by excessive indulgence, by sparing him thought and anxiety and hard work, and by giving him undeserved preference over others. If he lounges in the rocking-chair, or on the sofa-cushions, don't pat him and say, "the poor dear child is tired;" but rout him out and up just as you would do with any boy who was contracting lazy habits. Much may be done for his advantage by judicious firmness, by resolutely insisting that he shall learn to do everything for himself and for those about him which it is possible to do without actually looking at things. You yourself don't hesitate about going into the cellar, if need be, for an armful of wood, or a basket of potatoes, without a lantern, even though it is dark; why should your blind boy be deterred by obstacles which you and the other children meet and overcome?"

The Counsels follow the blind child step by step up to manhood, and end with these words.

"As he approaches manhood, he should assume and perform all the relations and duties attendant upon that age. He should put himself forward and take on all civil rights, and offer to perform all civil duties which do not absolutely require eyesight. He should attend primary parish meetings; seek to fill places on voluntary committees for benevolent purposes; attend caucuses and political meetings, and discuss political questions and the qualifications of candidates for office, from that of hog-reeve to that of governor. In short, forgetting that he is blind, he should associate with his fellow-citizens, and labour with the most intelligent and virtuous of them for the promotion of the public weal."