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In order that this pitiable condition be not allowed to continue, two things should be done at once. A campaign of education should be inaugurated and every expectant mother should be made acquainted with the peril which may threaten her child so that she may insist that it be protected; and then the State should freely and gratuitously place in the hands of every accoucheur an aseptic silver solution that carries with it the assurance on the part of the highest medical authority as to its necessity, its purity, and its safety.

There is but one reason why this great movement should not quickly and effectively succeed in abolishing infantile ophthalmia as a cause of blindness, and that is general apathy. In order that the necessary and uniform legislation be secured in every State, efforts must be made. The mothers in every State must demand it. In every class of society the women should know of the cause and dangers of this disease.

If the mothers of America could be made to realize that their babies are in danger of losing their sight, and that the dread calamity can be warded off by applying a simple, precautionary remedy at the right time, they would be quick to demand of those in authority that the symptoms of the disease shall be known by those whose duty it is to know them, and that for safety the remedy shall be at hand before the symptoms appear.

A careful examination of the children of the New York School for the Blind for several years showed that among city children ophthalmia neonatorum causes one case of blindness in three. In the country the relative number of cases resulting from infantile ophthalmia is greater than in the cities. The reason for this is that, though the disease is widespread, a physician in a small community may never have seen a case. He may not recognize the disease if it appears. If he knows about the nitrate of silver treatment he may fail to use it because he wrongly fears that it may injure the delicate eyes of the child. He may not see the child again for several days; then the disease has got beyond his control. The cornea is destroyed and the infant's sight irrecoverably lost! The safe rule for physicians is to regard with suspicion the slightest inflammation in the eyes of an infant, and it is the rule for mothers, too; for the mother who is watchful and informed will know how to make the right demand upon her physician.

The mother thinks with joy and pride that her child will grow in God's light to be a strong man, able to do a man's work. Suddenly she is plunged into the cruelest anguish by the discovery that her child's beautiful eyes are put out forever. Not till then does she realize how terrible is the foe that has lurked by his cradle. Imagine her feelings if afterward she learns that this disaster was needless, that it could have been avoided by prompt, efficient measures. Her grief is embittered by indignation against the physician in whose hand she had placed the safety of her child. Whatever may be done to soften the misfortune of the child, her heart will never be whole again.

Blindness in infancy is worse in some ways than blindness in late childhood, or even in adult life. It arrests development. The plight of the blind baby is indeed heartrending. He loses much of the physical activity and incentive and the various intellectual experiences of the normal child. Even in the best of homes it is not often possible to give him the special, constant care, teaching and encouragement that he requires. He is not admitted to the kindergarten for the blind, if there be one, until he is five years old. In the meantime he grows weak and deformed in body and mind, and acquires nervous habits which it is extremely hard to break when his education begins. Your heart aches as you look at him, feeble, pitiful, enervated, beside his strong, merry comrades who have lost their sight at a later period, and who can go forward with firm steps where he halts and stumbles. Even if he is successfully taught, and develops capabilities, even if he is not doomed in his mature years, as are so many of the blind, to idleness and dependence, his loss of sight is irreparable. A blind person, however well instructed, however carefully equipped, can never be so free, so self-reliant as if he had his eyes. In this country, until very recently, little has been done to enable the grown-up blind to work for a livelihood, to earn their limited share of independence and self-support. They are for the most part poor, and if no relative or friend cares for them they become objects of charity, a burden to the State. Such is the lot of thousands of men and women who a generation ago needlessly lost their sight. Such is the fate that threatens our little ones to-day.

It is true that we are preparing to take better and better care of the blind. Intelligent work is going forward all over the country to lighten the burden of blindness. But, however merry our blind children, however brave and self- reliant our blind men, I say, could the utmost dreams of education for the sightless be realized, the dark is still the dark, and blindness an irremediable calamity.