Library Collections: Document: Full Text

"A person of sound constitution and well-developed powers may lose his sight by accident, and yet, in an institution for the blind, may be forced to take such exercise as will keep his physical energies unimpaired. A young man, thus circumstanced, though his mind should lack its wonted elasticity, might even excel the seeing. This is confirmed by my own observation. Such cases are exceptions, however.

"If the accidental loss of sight occurs in manhood, or at a more advanced age, the mind will seldom be roused to much action, and the capacity for receiving instruction will be small indeed.

"Those who have been accidentally deprived of sight while very young, especially if left to the injudicious kindness of their parents, suffer from want of suitable exercise and training, and the lack of mental energy is proportionate to the physical deficiency.

"An institution for the instruction of the blind, one of the great benevolent enterprises of the nineteenth century, has a claim on the public never again to be overlooked. But in providing instruction for the blind, only a small part of our duty is done. Humanity and justice call upon the seeing to give their blind brethren a 'home,' where those who are capable may find a field for their industry, and where all may contribute to the enjoyments, and share in the comforts, of a fireside peculiarly their own."

Thus we see that the blind, as a class, do not labor under the disadvantage of want of sight alone, but that, as compared with others, they have less bodily health and vigor, and less mental power and energy; consequently, their great infirmity is more grievous to them, and is a more serious burden to society, than it would otherwise be.

The knowledge of this truth, instead of making the blind less interesting, makes them more so. They have a right, not only to more sympathy, but to more aid and assistance. They are our brethren by their birthright; their infirmity is no fault of their own; and they may claim at the hands of society, not only education, but the means and opportunity of useful and honorable occupation.

I shall show, in speaking of the Work Department, that the infirmity of blindness prevents men from entering into fair competition with others in the mechanic arts, and how this disadvantage may be compensated for by special provisions. In the mean time, let us inquire briefly into the causes of blindness, and of the inferiority of the blind in bodily health and vigor, in the humble hope that the inquiry may tend to lessen the evil.

In doing this we shall not transcend our office, because public charitable institutions have other duties besides the care and culture of their immediate inmates, and among those duties is the gathering of knowledge upon all subjects closely or remotely connected with the infirmity under which those inmates labor. The discharge of our duty to our pupils does not discharge the wider duty to humanity; much less does it call upon us to keep out of sight any facts which may tend to make those pupils less interesting, at first blush, to those who take a false view of things.

In the first place, let us distinguish between those born blind, and those who become blind by accident in early life; as for those who become blind from old age, they form a class apart.

Upon superficial inquiry, it would seem that very few persons are born blind. Parents dislike to suppose their offspring are imperfect in any way. The mother refuses to admit that her child is deaf and dumb, and fondly clings to the hope that he will yet speak, though he has been silent for two, or even three or four years, among his younger companions, who prattle around him. When, at last, the sad conviction forces itself upon her mind, that she can never hear him lisp her name, she tries to think that some accident after his birth brought on the infirmity. So it is in the case of a sightless child; unless the eyeballs are absolutely wanting (which is very rarely the case), the mother refuses to believe that her offspring is blind. If its eyes are in a state of violent inflammation, necessarily followed by destruction, or if they are opaque with humors which are reproduced as fast as removed, and she is at last forced to admit his blindness, she throws the whole blame on the luckless physician, for not undertaking the hopeless task of curing an incurable disease; or, if he did undertake it, for not using the right medicine. Some unfortunate poultice or powder is ever after regarded by her as the peccant cause of an infirmity which she herself entailed upon her offspring.

But I would include among the class of "born blind," many who lose their sight long after birth; that is, those in whom the original texture of the eye was so loose, and so predisposed to disease, that the slightest inflammation or accident would destroy the sight. Such persons, if not born blind, were certainly born to become blind. Now in these cases the blindness is prima facie evidence of an infirmity, -- a bodily infirmity, which, other things being equal, will lessen the sufferer's chance of healthy and vigorous mental growth. But there is a deeper consideration behind this. In most of these cases, the blindness is only a symptom or local manifestation of some general cause which vitiates, or affects unfavorably, the whole bodily organization. Call it weakness, or scrofula, or what we will, there it is, and it generally involves the brain and nervous system; they lack the natural tone and vigor, and consequently the sufferer cannot put forth the natural degree of mental and moral power; he is as weak and irresolute in thought and purpose, as he is feeble and flabby in fibre.