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Sixteenth Annual Report Of The Trustees Of The Perkins Institution And Massachusetts Asylum For The Blind

Creator: Samuel Gridley Howe (author)
Date: 1848
Source: Perkins School for the Blind


Introduction

Samuel Gridley Howe found the adult Laura Bridgman to be deeply disappointing. He had hoped of using her to showcase the most innovative and humane educational techniques, the virtues of phrenology, and the values of Unitarianism. Instead, she turned to evangelical Christianity and become ever more moralistic.

In response, Howe blamed Bridgman and her impairments, which he argued had damaged her morals and her soul. In the late 1840s, he divided blind people into those blinded by accident (or chance) and those who were born or became blind as a result of poor heredity. He suggested that the latter, larger group was inherently inferior in mind and body. The lack of sight prevented minds and morals from developing properly, Howe contended.


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APPENDIX A.

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INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND,

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Boston, January 5, 1848.

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TO THE TRUSTEES.

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GENTLEMEN, -- There are several subjects connected with the education of the blind, and touching closely their welfare as a class, about which I desire to submit to you my views more fully than I have been able to do in my Monthly Reports. I will, therefore, take the opportunity of doing so at this, the last meeting of your Board. If the subjects touched upon are more numerous, and the remarks more diffuse, than is agreeable, you will bear with them in consideration of their object and intentions. It is the duty of those connected with institutions for the blind to obtain and distribute all the information which they can respecting that interesting class of persons. The public and men of science naturally look to institutions such as ours for correct information, and the more minute this is, the better. Every thing should be done that can be done with fairness to inspire people with some of the interest which we feel in those whom we have selected as objects of care; we may set forth the touching nature of their infirmity, -- the dark and dreary places in which the lines of life have fallen to them; we may show their good qualities, their high capacities, their pressing need of aid and comfort; we may appeal to justice and humanity in their behalf; but we may keep back no truth and no knowledge which will tend to a perfect understanding of the subject. It is natural that individuals and institutions, when they first undertake the care and instruction of a class of unfortunate persons who had been forgotten and neglected, should look upon them with partiality, should disregard all obstacles and difficulties in their path, and think only of final success. Their enthusiasm extends to the public, and the interest in the class of unfortunates increases, until they almost begin to be considered as objects of envy, instead of pity. But the pendulum never swings too far one way without going back about as far the other way.

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The history of the institutions for the blind in this country has been the same in many respects. The blind were considered as necessarily uneducated, helpless, and wretched. People recognized the peculiar and touching nature of their infirmity, and, while they forbade all others to beg in the street, they tolerated the blind man, and dropped an alms into his hat to keep him a little longer out of his last dwelling on earth, -- the almshouse. This was all wrong; -- the pendulum had swung too far one way. Then came along men and showed that the blind could he taught to read and write, and to acquire various kinds of knowledge, and also to work at many trades; and people were greatly interested, and built up schools, and began to think that the sightless scholars in them could learn faster and more thoroughly than seeing children, and that they would become teachers, preachers, musicians, and artisans, and that the beggar's hat was to be changed for a purse of gold. This, too, was wrong; -- the pendulum had swung too far the other way; and it behooves us to counteract, as far as possible, the bad effects which always follow the momentary prevalence of error.

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Within ten years after the organization of this Institution, others were established in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Virginia; the first two almost simultaneously with this. In all of them, the powers and capacities of the blind seem to have been overrated, and fond expectations to have been formed, that the great majority of them would he able to support themselves by filling some desirable and responsible posts in society, and that the rest could do so by manual labor.

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I think that most of those who have had the charge of those institutions will confess that their expectations have been disappointed; that many of the blind will say their hopes have been cruelly dashed to the ground; and that some of them will exclaim, in the bitterness of their hearts, that it would have been better to leave them in ignorance than to enlighten and cultivate their minds, so as to make them more sensible to the stings of poverty and the shame of dependence. This is the natural reaction; let us see how to correct it.

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The institutions for the blind in this country have already done great good; this cannot be denied or gainsaid. On the other hand, they have not fulfilled the expectations and prophecies of their friends; and perhaps one reason of this is, that those expectations were unreasonable, and their very unreasonableness has made the partial success seem even less than it would otherwise have done. I cannot hide from myself, and I would not hide from others, my own disappointment in this respect. My own feelings and views have been so modified by experience, that I see how many things could have been done better than they were done. My wish is to extract from the experience of the past a benefit for the future. I believe that greater good would have followed our efforts for the elevation of the blind to their proper sphere, if they themselves had better understood their powers and capacities, and we had better known their real wants, and their fitness for different stations in life.

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