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Another girl of eight years of age could read more rapidly. She read passages of Scripture taken promiscuously, and also from a volume, consisting of extracts from various English authors.

She answered with perfect correctness many questions in geography, and seemed to have a clear idea of the nature and object of that study. Upon the map she would readily indicate different countries, give the boundaries, their latitude and longitude, put her fingers upon any capital town, whose name was mentioned to her and, indeed, would answer any questions proposed to her, appertaining to that subject, with as much readiness and accuracy, as children of her age usually exhibit.

Most of the pupils had made such progress in arithmetic as to be able to solve questions in the four fundamental rules. Their sums are wrought by fixing types in a board, tilled with holes, so that they discover the value of the figures by the relative position of the types, and can add, subtract, multiply, or divide, with facility. In mathematical studies at least, the Blind seem capable of making quite as much proficiency as seeing persons.

Besides the studies already mentioned, considerable attention appears to have been given to music, the pupils being able to sing and to play on different musical instruments with some skill and taste; and your Committee cannot doubt that most of them may be qualified to become organists in churches and teachers of music.

Finally, as the result of a careful investigation, your Committee would express their firm conviction of the practicability of imparting to the blind the benefits of a mechanical, intellectual and moral education, by means of an Institution, like the one whose petition has been referred to their consideration, provided they are furnished with the necessary apparatus, and supplied with the pecuniary means of obtaining competent instructors. It becomes then, in their opinion, the imperative duty of the Legislature, acting in their paternal character, to ameliorate the condition of this unfortunate and hitherto neglected class of the community.

The State of Massachusetts has ever distinguished herself by her efforts to place within the reach of all her children the means of education; acting upon the only sound and reciprocal principle, that if the duties of a good citizen are to be required of the man, a good education should be first given to the child. Not less than half a million is raised in the Commonwealth annually, by taxation, for the education of her youth. In this bountiful appropriation neither the Blind nor the Deaf and Dumb can at all participate. The latter class, however, have been most liberally provided for. There is, at the present time, a standing appropriation of $6,500. to be expended out of the State for the purpose of their education. They have been thus provided with the means of supplying, in some degree, the deprivation of their senses. It is now ascertained that there is another class of our fellow beings, equally unfortunate, and it is believed equally numerous, who are as capable of being taught, and who have still stronger claims upon the humane regards of the Commonwealth. Your Committee repeat, that in their opinion the claims of the Blind are stronger than those of the Deaf and Dumb, because the latter can learn a trade with more facility, and obtain a livelihood without any peculiar method of Instruction, or any Institution established for that express purpose; while the Blind, if abandoned to their fate, must inevitably become a burden to their friends or to the community.

Your Committee would not be understood to question for a moment the propriety of all former appropriations for the education of the Deaf and Dumb. On the contrary, they would refer lo the liberal allowances made in their behalf, as among the beneficent acts, which every generous friend must strive to imitate, and which, even her enemies cannot but applaud.

As a further consideration, pertaining to this subject, your Committee would stale, that the Blind are generally the children of poor parents, because the poor are more exposed than the rich to the accidents occasioning the loss of sight, and because they are more likely to postpone such medical advice, as can be useful only in the early stages of diseases of the eye. Blindness, too, being often hereditary, tends to reduce to poverty, the family upon which it is entailed. The same causes may perhaps be adduced to explain the fact of the greater prevalence of blindness in the country than in the city. In Boston there are but two blind persons of a suitable age for education, while in many towns in the State, containing a population of not more than two or three thousand inhabitants, there are three, four, or five young blind persons.

Were the subject to be regarded, then, only in an economical point of view, it becomes a matter of State policy to educate the blind, since nine out of ten of this class of persons, if left to themselves, would, in some way, burden the community with their support; while every one who is educated and thereby enabled to provide for himself, is a citizen rescued from the almshouse and made a happy and useful member of society.