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'The Institution at Edinburgh is on the whole the best I saw in Europe, it comes nearer than any other to the attainment of the great object of blind schools, viz., enabling the pupils to support themselves by their own efforts in after life. The establishment is not so showy as that at Paris, nor has it the same means which the latter possesses, and which receives an allowance of 60,000 francs, or $12,000 per annum from Government: nor has it printed books for their use; still they receive most excellent education and learn some most useful trades. The mattress and matmaking business are carried on by the pupils with great skill and success, and many are enabled to earn per diem nearly enough for their subsistence. They are mostly day scholars, and receive a sum of money in proportion to the work they do.

'The mats and mattresses which come out of the Institution, and which are entirely the work of the blind, are certainly better made than others in the city, and command a higher price in the market. The pupils are occupied also with making baskets, which is a clean and pleasant employment, but not altogether so profitable as the others. They display great ingenuity, and finish very fine and difficult pieces of basket work, but it is a branch in which they have less chance of successful competition with seeing persons. Indeed, one great fault in the systems generally followed in Europe, is the attempt to counterbalance the natural infirmity of the pupil by his ingenuity, his patience, and the excessive nicety of his remaining senses, and to enable him to compete with seeing persons in spite of the advantage they have over him. Now this ought not to be the leading principle; on the contrary, taking it for granted that the seeing person ever must have an immense advantage over the blind, in all handicraft works whatsoever, we should seek out for him such employment as least requires the use of the eyes.

'There are some occupations, such as knifing, weaving, &c., which a blind person may perform nearly as well as a seeing one, but in the present age, the introduction of machinery has superseded in a great measure this kind of labor. In matmaking, the blind man can nearly compete with the seeing one, and therefore should it be taught him, as a means of making himself useful and necessary to others; for after all the efforts of charitable men, this unfortunate class will ever be in a precarious situation, until they can become so useful as to command attention: men are charitable by fits and starts only, but self-interest never sleeps; if the blind can appeal to this, they are sure of being heard.

'Many of the pupils in the Edinburgh Institution are, as I observed, day scholars; that is, they reside with their friends, and come in to work and study every day, and an allowance is made to them proportioned to the work they do, if this is adequate to their support.

I would observe, that sufficient attention is not paid to the personal demeanor of the blind, either by their parents or in the public institutions: they contract disagreeable habits, either in posture, or in movement; they swing their hands, or work their heads, or reel their bodies; and seem in this way to occupy those moments of void, which seeing persons pass in listlessly gazing about them.

'They are apt also to be exceedingly awkward and embarrassed in company, and are often very bashful while very vain; all this can be corrected by pursuing the same means as used with seeing children, and by accustoming them to society.

'Blind persons can become as well qualified as seeing persons for many employments which are generally thought beyond their powers, they can teach languages, history, geography, mathematics and many other sciences, perfectly well; I know not why they should not make the first rate councillors, and think it possible that they might fill the pulpit both ably and usefully.

'I have the pleasure of calling my friend, Monsieur Rodenbach, member of the Belgian Congress: a man who possesses great influence, and who often makes that house ring with original and naive speeches; he is an agreeable orator, and an active business man, and a graceful member of society, and yet has been stone-blind from his childhood.

'I hope that the blind will not have to struggle against unfounded prejudices in our country, yet much do I fear that they will, people are so accustomed to consider the blind as helpless dependents on others, that they will not believe them capable of a high and useful part in society; and when they see one of them, who by uncommon talent, struggles and raises his head a little in the world, in spite of the weight by which society would sink him beneath its surface, they regard him as a passing wonder, and draw no inference in favor of his fellows in misfortune. That great mathematician and philosopher, the illustrious Saunderson, Professor at Cambridge, who deserves a niche in the temple of fame between Newton and Laplace, drew one of his atheistical arguments from the false opinion of men concerning his powers; he said to a clergyman on his death bed, "you would fain have me allow the force of your arguments drawn from the wonders of the visible creation; but may it not be, that they only seem to you wonderful, for you and other men, have always been wondering how I could accomplish many things, which seem to me perfectly simple."