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*The World's Work, August, 1907.

The American people have been liberal in their gifts to the blind. Their attitude has been one of sincere interest and kindly expectation of success. There has been generous provision to educate the children and to surround the aged with comfort. Yet the truth forces itself upon those who study the problem that much remains to be done, that there is some important work which has not been even started in many of our States.

To begin at the beginning, we have found that much blindness is unnecessary, that perhaps a third of it is the result of disease which can be averted by timely treatment. Then the instruction of parents and friends in the care of blind children needs to be carried to every corner of the country. We have before us a long campaign of education to teach parents that they must encourage sightless children to romp and play and grow strong as their seeing brothers and sisters do. Failure to understand this, and the natural inclination to shield and pamper defective children impose upon the schools the unnecessary burden of straightening crooked backs and deformed limbs and correcting nervous habits, engendered by lack of intelligent discipline at home. The backward condition of the pupils when they enter the schools for the blind accounts in part for the failure of some of our institutions in the work they are intended to do. The failure is due partly to the inadequacy of the schools themselves. Thus we find need of improvement in training from babyhood to adult life; and finally we discover a large class of adult blind persons for whom, as yet, no provision has been made in most American communities.

The records recently gathered by investigators show that even the educated, industrious blind cannot earn their living without more special assistance than they now receive. They are so severely handicapped throughout life that they cannot shift for themselves. Even after careful training and apprenticeship, they still need help to find their place in the world of workers, a world which often does not believe that they can work. Step by step they must prove their ability. At the present time, thousands of such American men and women are living idle, dependent lives. The cause of their unproductive dependence is the error of not carrying their education far enough, and of not providing them with suitable employment. I can explain the situation by outlining what seems to be the main tendency of the education of the blind in Europe.

The effort there is to give them trades and handicrafts by means of which they can earn their bread, or part of it. The aim of the best European education is to make each individual self-supporting. The blind require special teaching to enable them to use the senses of hearing and touch in the place of sight, to live and toil in the dark.

When philanthropists first approach the problem, they expect that education will develop in the blind extraordinary mental capacities. They reason that blind persons, shut out from everyday distractions, will enjoy great concentration of mind, and as a result will be poets, musicians, and thinkers. Such was the dream of Valentin Haüy in France and Dr. S. G. Howe in Boston, and such to-day is the dream of the good Queen of Roumania. But experience taught Haüy and Howe that the poets, the musicians, and the philosophers were not forthcoming. We have to deal with a miscellaneous class of defective persons who are often not only blind, but weak from the very cause that destroyed their sight. From confinement and want of exercise they are often deficient in vitality and dulled in mind. In such conditions of body and mind genius can hardly flourish. It is true that blind men sometimes have the divine spark in them. They have become distinguished in art, in science, in literature. But whatever eminence they have attained has been in spite of their misfortune, and not because of it. The great exceptions cheer and encourage us; but they remain exceptions. The question is, what shall be done with the uninspired majority?

In Europe it was soon found that the wisest course is not to direct their instruction wholly toward things of the intellect, but provide trades and industries by means of which they can earn a livelihood. The more advanced schools of Europe try to give them an education suited to their common intelligence and their uncommon infirmity, and the work of the schools is supplemented and made practical by societies which help them to put their education to the best use as ordinary, industrious, self-respecting citizens. The vicissitudes of business are so complicated that they easily miss their few chances of sell-support, unless they have special organizations to find positions for them, to advertise their abilities and persuade the community to give the blind musician, or teacher, or broom-maker, or masseur, or whatever he may be, profitable employment. There are such organizations in Europe that use every effort to bring industrial training within the reach of all the blind, and are the channels through which the true end of education and charity for the sightless is achieved.

In America, where the struggle for existence is less severe, and where money is more plentiful, we have been long coming to realize the necessity of fitting each individual for a self-supporting life. Our education has been administered to all children alike, without regard for their capacities or circumstances. Consequently most children leave school unprepared for a trade or industry or profession. This general state of American education has complicated the difficulties of the sightless. Excellent schools for their instruction, established on sound principles, have existed since 1832 when the first institutions for the blind were opened in Boston and New York. But they have laid little or no stress upon industrial training. Their system of education has the same faults as that in the ordinary American schools for the seeing. Besides, our institutions for the blind are intended for children and youths, and have not taken very much interest in the adults. Until recently we have had nothing which corresponds to the societies for the blind in Europe, and the associations which have lately been formed in two or three American states are scarcely beyond the stage of tentative effort.

One great difficulty of the adult blind is, that of the thousands of occupations in which men engage, only a very few will ever be possible for the sightless. The occupations in which they have already succeeded are the manufacture of mattresses, brooms, brushes, mats, baskets, some simple kinds of carpentry and weaving, cobbling, typewriting, piano-tuning, massage, knitting, crocheting, and plain sewing. They have also succeeded to some extent as travelling salesmen and agents. There is opportunity for them in news-stands, tobacco and candy shops and other small businesses. No doubt other occupations and industries will be found for them.

But even a few occupations are sufficient for them all, if the trade and the man are fitted one to the other, and both are properly advanced in the hurrying market-place of life. The practical failure of many graduates of our schools for the blind is rooted in the entire problem of education. But in addition to these there is a class whose problem is not strictly educational -- those who have lost their sight immature years.

The lot of an idle graduate of a school who has learned how to be blind is hard enough. He leaves school flushed with hope and courage. He thinks he can brave the world and conquer it. Perhaps he hears of a position as teacher and makes the necessary application. His application is refused because he cannot see. He learns of another position and applies for it in person, passes all the tests and examinations successfully, and is praised for his ability. Still his services are not accepted because it is not thought possible for him to teach even music as well as a seeing man. Yet he has been fitted to teach music. He has even studied under masters.

If a young blind man, educated and trained in the dark, loses courage after repeated failure, what must be the feelings of one who is suddenly stricken blind in mine or factory? Blighted ambitions, sorrow, bitterness, and despair. "What will become of me? Who will feed and clothe my little ones? Must I live useless always, an object of charity?" These are the questions that rack him. He may try to be cheerful; but happy he cannot be, unless he finds occupation. His unused faculties will rust. The light of intelligence fades from his countenance. His hands grope for the tool that accident has snatched away.

What shall we do to alter this condition of the blind in America? First of all, it is necessary to awaken public interest in matters concerning the sightless. An enlightened public sentiment is the only power in a democracy that can bring about and maintain the betterment of my class. When the public understands the blind man, his needs and capacities, there will be an end to the more special causes which we find partly responsible for present conditions in this country -- lack of enthusiasm, intelligence, and coöperation on the part of those who have charge of the institutions for the blind.

The superintendents of these institutions, dependent on boards of trustees who know almost nothing about the needs of these institutions and the difficulties of the blind, trusted by a public which is not informed, are often men of indifferent attainment, wedded to petty theories, and unprogressive. They are generally kind, and believe that they have the best interests of their charges at heart. But the existing condition of the sightless throughout the country affords sufficient evidence of their incompetence.

An obvious illustration of their incompetency and the absence of coöperation between the schools is the confusion in the prints for the blind. One would think that the advantages of having a common print would not require argument. Yet every effort to decide which print is best has failed. The Perkins Institution for the Blind, with a large printing fund, clings to Line Letter -- embossed characters, shaped like Roman letters, (1) in spite of the fact that most of the blind prefer a point system. The Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind offers its readers American Braille, a print in which the letters are composed of raised dots. This is a modification of the system which was perfected by Louis Braille three quarters of a century ago and is still the system used throughout Europe. The New York Institution invented, controls, and advocates New York Point, another species of Braille. The money appropriated by the national government to emboss books for the blind is used for all the types. The new periodical, the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind, the boon for which we have waited many years, is printed in American Braille and New York Point. The same book, expensive to print once, has to be duplicated in the various systems for the different institutions. Other prints are yet to come. They are still in the crucible of meditation. A plague upon all these prints! Let us have one system, whether it is an ideal one, or not. For my part, I wish nothing had been invented except European Braille. There was already a considerable library in this system when the American fever for invention plunged us into this Babel of prints which is typical of the many confusions from which the blind suffer throughout the United States.

We Americans spend more money on the education of defectives than any other country. But we do not always find the shortest, easiest, and most economical way of accomplishing the end we have in view. We desire to bring the greatest happiness to the largest number. We give generously as earnest of our desire, and then we do not see that our bounty is wisely spent.

Three or four years ago, in New York, two cultivated women became interested in the blind. They observed how much pleasure some blind persons derived from a musical entertainment, and they thought how many hours the sightless must spend without diversion. They set to work to establish a bureau for the distribution to the blind of tickets for the theatre, the opera, and other entertainments. This brought them into contact with the blind, and they soon perceived that their efforts to entertain them were but to gild a sepulchre. The blind said to them: "You are very kind to give us pleasure. But it is work we need, something to do with our hands. It is terrible to sit idle all day long. Give us that wondrous thing, interest in life. Work wedded to interest gives dignity, sweetness, and strength even to our kind of life."

The two noble women determined to see what could be done. They went for information to the New York Institution for the Blind. They asked why the blind were unemployed. They received courteous assurances that everything possible was being done for the blind, that their hard lot was the inevitable result of circumstances. The fact that they were idle was deplored, but there was no help for it. In a world of machinery, specialized industry, and keen competition the blind man could not expect to find profitable occupation. He must, it was urged, ever remain a public charge to be treated kindly, and the young women were heartily commended for their efforts to supply them with entertainment. Indeed, it was argued, it would be cruel to add to the burden of infirmity the burden of labour. It would be quite as cruel to expect them to earn their living as to compel a disabled horse to earn his oats. (The same kind of specious argument was being disseminated in Massachusetts and other States.) But the ladies were too intelligent and too earnest to be convinced. Their visit was the beginning of a new movement in New York toward the betterment of the sightless.

Soon afterward an association was formed. Meetings were held. Men of ability and eloquence spoke in behalf of the work and drove the truth home to the people that the heaviest burden upon the blind is not blindness, but idleness. The Institution raised its head in protest and self-justification, and tried to prejudice the blind against the association. It opposed an adequate census of the sightless. The association appealed to the Legislature for an appropriation to carry on the census. The Legislature made the appropriation and established a commission. The commission appointed one of the two ladies Director of the Census, with the result that a complete registry of the blind of New York State will soon be available. This census will not be like the United States census figures, which are vague and incomplete, but will tell how many blind there are, where each live, and in what circumstances, what occupation he has, what trade he has learned in school, how old he is, how long he has been blind, and from what cause he lost his sight. The New York census and the Massachusetts census will tell with scientific definiteness what has been left undone, and will enable us to deal more intelligently with the problems of the sightless.

The Massachusetts Commission for the Blind grew out of a volunteer organization which carried on investigations and experiments. At the experiment station a few blind persons learned to weave rugs, fabrics suitable for curtains, table covers, and sofa pillows, and other things useful and beautiful. At this station industries and processes were tested with a view to increase the number of lucrative occupations in which the blind, especially women, might engage. After it had demonstrated to the State that they are capable of higher efficiency than they have generally reached, the association asked the Legislature for an appropriation to extend the work. The appropriation was granted, and a commission was appointed by the Governor to be responsible for the welfare of all the blind in Massachusetts.

The commission took over all the work of the association, proceeded with the census, enlarged the experiment plant, opened an attractive shop in a fashionable shopping district of Boston, and will open industrial shops in other parts of the State as seems advisable. The commission furnishes blind home-workers with raw materials. It starts trustworthy blind men and women in business, with the understanding that if they succeed, they will pay back the amount the State has lent them. The commission gives information to sightless persons who seek positions. Above all things, it urges upon each community its responsibility for the care and employment of the blind within its precincts. State institutions can train the blind man: but his fellow-citizens must furnish the market for his products, and see to it that he gets his fair share of patronage.

In Massachusetts, happily, opposition between the old order and the new has ceased. The Perkins Institution for the Blind and the commission are working together. The shop where the commission puts on sale the work of the sightless is under the same roof with the salesroom of the Perkins Institution. The school in changing its attitude has set an example which other institutions cannot afford to disregard. For the new movement in behalf of the blind will not cease until every sightless person in our land has the chance to earn at least part of his support.

Philanthropists and public-spirited people all over the country have taken up the work. Business men are advocating it. Great men like Mark Twain and Mr. Choate have approved it. Governors and legislatures have given it public sanction. Its complete success now depends on three classes of responsible persons: First, the directors of the institutions and other educators; second, the trustees of the institutions and the State Boards; third, and ultimately, the public, of which the blind man is one.

We ask that the directors be cultivated men, sincerely interested in the whole problem; that if they have not the initiative to lead the way to progress, they will accept and carry out intelligent suggestions. We ask that the trustees of our institutions for the blind be chosen for the highest interest of the sightless, for their competency, and not merely for name, family or social eminence. We ask that they be men who can afford a little time to study the problems of the blind. We ask that the trustees be so qualified that no director or teacher or any other person can impose upon them as to the condition, work or efficiency of the school, or the accomplishments of its graduates. We ask that the trustees build schools for the blind on land suited to the peculiar needs of the sightless.

The blind need to be placed where they can have plenty of room for playgrounds and learn a little of farming and gardening. Willow-work is one of the well-known industries for the blind in Europe; but it has not been introduced here, except in Wisconsin, because of the lack of willow. Why not plant willow on land near the institutions, and employ blind people to trim and care for the willow groves? Why not let the blind raise poultry? It has proved a profitable industry for them in England. If these suggestions do not prove practical, the fact remains that the sightless need large playgrounds -- out-of-door life. Their inactivity and often the disease which caused their blindness keep them undeveloped and anemic. If they are to become strong, healthy men and women, they must have a great deal of unrestrained exercise in the open air. In the old days there was at least an excuse for putting the institution in the cities; but now, when the trolley makes the country accessible, every consideration of economy and well-being for the sightless cries out against a school for the blind in a crowded city.

We ask the public to take all these matters to heart and understand the needs of the sightless. The strangest ignorance exists in the minds of people as to what the blind can do. They are amazed when they hear that a blind person can write on the typewriter, dress himself without assistance, go up and down stairs alone, eat with a fork, and know when the sun is shining. But they are ready to believe that we have a special stock of senses to replace those which we have lost! They believe unquestioningly, for instance, that I can play the piano, distinguish colours and write sonnets in two or three languages. Yet they doubt that I can write this article, or arrive at the simple facts and deductions it contains.

The public must learn that the blind man is neither a genius nor a freak nor an idiot. He has a mind which can be educated, a hand which can be trained, ambitions which it is right for him to strive to realize, and it is the duty of the public to help him to make the best of himself, so that he can win light through work.