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THOUSANDS of miles away from Amiens and Verdun, on the other side of a great ocean, we study a war map, and with varying feelings of apprehension and hope we watch the shifting of the battle line. That line represents for us the ebb and flow of the tide of war -- the War for Democracy. It also means miles of trenches, thousands of cannon, millions of men. It is difficult for us to visualize the single soldier, the sentient human being who holds his infinitesimal place in this great frontier of liberty, fearing, suffering, perhaps dying. When our own boys begin to come home, maimed and broken, we shall understand. But up to this time, who of us that has not been there has been able to put himself in the place of the individual Tommy or poilu, to think as he thinks and feel as he feels, to suffer with him, and to look out upon the future thru his eyes? Eyes, did I say? Sometimes there are no eyes.

Try to picture a French peasant or clerk, mechanic or shopkeeper, a young man full of hope and ambition, betrothed to a village maid, with all of life glowing bright before him. The Hun breaks loose; the War has come. He kisses his sweetheart goodby and goes forth to face the danger, to stand long hours of vigil in the trench mud, to bend his back to the spade -- heartbreaking work for the saving of France.

There comes a day when a shrapnel shell bursts above his head and the world goes black. He is borne to a hospital, and when at last consciousness returns -- pitiless consciousness! he learns that his eyes are gone, and perhaps an arm as well. The glory of combat is over for him. Gone, too, are all his life's hopes. He is a helpless, worthless wretch. Independence is henceforth impossible for him; he must not hold his fiancée to vows granted to a whole man; life holds nothing for him. Suicide is too often his refuge.

In Paris, at 14 rue Daru, there is a typical French mansion of three stories including the mansard roof, in which there dwells a company of these French soldiers blinded in battle -- les aveugles de la guerre -- who are laboriously, patiently and cheerfully learning to live without eyes. Already there have gone forth from its walls hundreds of men with hope reborn within them and with hands trained to earn a livelihood without the assistance of eyes. What the Hun has stolen from them the house on the rue Dam, so far as is humanly possible, has given back. And all because an American woman was vouchsafed her vision.

Last winter la Gardienne, as she is affectionately known among her pupils, wrote a letter home which gave a vivid glimpse of the life at 14 rue Daru. It told of the entertainment which the blind soldiers got up on Christmas Eve in honor of their patrons, and it overflows with the spirit of their gratitude and their rekindled hope.

The blind men refitted an old stage in the historic music room on the top floor and trimmed a Christmas tree. Programs of the entertainment were printed by the blind men on their own press in ordinary type and ink and also in Braille, the raised lettering of the blind. A young soldier, his sightless eyes bound, wearing his hard-earned decorations -- the Medaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre -- came forward and sang a ballad in a sweet tenor voice -- "Si j'ai pleure pour vous." Then a blind Samson, who had already gone forth to earn his living as a stenographer, sang with great earnestness the Christmas hymn, "Long lay the world in sin and darkness pining," and there was no doubt that he felt to the uttermost the meaning of the words. Another played the violin. There followed a riotous debate on "la femme" by two irrepressible blind conferenciers, and more singing and vaudeville.

Many readers are familiar with the name of Miss Winifred Holt and with the work of her Lighthouse at 111 East Fifty-ninth street, New York. This woman had already found her work and when the great call came she was ready. Miss Holt was an authoress and sculptress of distinction who gave up a brilliant career for one even more honorable. Some years ago, while in Italy with her sister, Miss Edith Holt, now Mrs. Bloodgood Baltimore, she became interested in the discovery that the Italian Government had arranged "blind seats" at the opera, at concerts, and at some plays. Upon their return home the sisters endeavored to persuade American managers to provide similar facilities for the blind, assuring them that the blind guests would be neat, that they would wear darkened glasses to conceal their infirmity, that they would be accompanied by a sighted guide, and that they would be content with the undesirable seats that did not command a view of the stage.

Miss Holt's efforts to arrange these details brought her into contact with the home conditions of the blind and led at length to the formation of what is now the New York Association of the Blind, which recently issued its eleventh annual report. Miss Holt was instrumental in securing openings in 1912 and 1913 of the Emma L. Cornwall-on-Hudson Hardy Memorial Home at Cornwall-on-Hudson, the well equipt Bourne workshop for blind men on Thirty-fourth Street, New York, and the Lighthouse on Fifty-ninth Street, the headquarters of the association. Here hundreds of blind persons have been educated and made self-supporting.

Miss Holt has gone to Europe a number of times in the interests of blind welfare work. She was in England in 1914 when the war broke out, and before she left, studied the British methods of reeducating men blinded in battle. After a brief return to New York, June, 1915, found her in France at Bordeaux, where she helped to reorganize the Travailleurs du Sud-Ouest, and assisted in its becoming the Phare de Bordeaux, the first college for the war blind on the Continent.

The Committee for Men Blinded in Battle was organized in this country -- the first organization in America established to aid the war blind of the Allies -- with the late Hon. Joseph H. Choate as president, and Miss Holt, ex-President William H. Taft and former Justice Charles E. Hughes as vice-presidents. The offer of their services was accepted by President Poincaré in behalf of the French Government, and later by General W. C. Gorgas in behalf of the United States.

Les Travailleurs de Sud-Ouest was an organization for the blind established in Bordeaux by Abbé Moreau, who, with the cooperation of Miss Holt, reconstructed it for war work and purchased the Château de Lescure. Fifty pupils were at first accommodated, and simple occupations were taught, such as brush making, chair caning, basketry, as well as reading, writing, typewriting and music. Teaching and relief work were also conducted in the hospitals.

This establishment became the Phare de Bordeaux in 1915. In July of that year the Comité Franco-Américain pour les Aveugles de In Guerre was formed with Miss Holt as president and Mrs. Cooper Hewitt as vice-president. In March, 1916, work was begun at the Phare de France, the Lighthouse in the rue Daru, Paris, and in August it was formally opened by the President of France and the American Ambassador. A broad course of studies was adopted, ranging from the trades to higher mathematics. Basketry, weaving, knitting by machine, massage, modeling, pottery, stenography, bookkeeping, languages and music were taught, as well as gymnastics, fencing, swimming, skating, and games. The blind soldiers in the government hospitals were also taught and assisted by the staff.

A Braille library and printing plant were established at the Phare de France. Two hundred copies of the house organ, La Lumière, were first published in December, 1018. Four blind men were regularly employed in the printing shop, and books and Braille music were published.

Miss Holt returned to America for a lecture tour, and then, in October, 1917, again went to France. On January 13, 1918, the third Lighthouse was opened at the ancient château of the Marquise de Pompadour at Sèvres. The Phare de Sèvres accommodates twenty regular pupils. Pottery is taught in the famous porcelain factories near by, and poultry raising and agriculture on neighboring farms.

The Phare de Bordeaux and the Phare de France each accommodates about fifty resident pupils besides a number of day pupils. Manual labor is largely the specialty of the former, while at the latter blinded soldiers are thoroly reeducated for trades and professions. Over 3500 have been assisted in this way, including blinded soldiers of French, Italian, Belgian, Scotch, Canadian, Polish, Russian, Arabian, Swedish and other nationalities. Soon the French Lighthouses may be extending their succor to Americans. The totally blind, the temporarily blind, and those suffering from incapacitating head wounds have been helped and taught. The regular pupils have numbered more than 300.

The Phare de France assists about 150 men a day, either at the Lighthouse or in the hospitals. Over 130 blinded men have been reeducated in that institution alone. During 1917, 10,000 gifts were presented to the families of the blinded, including food, fuel, bedding, clothing, medicine, seeds, etc. Thirty hospitals were served.

No less important than the teaching is the follow-up work. Men who have been graduated obtain work, thru the efforts of the Lighthouses, as dictaphone stenographers, telephone operators, weavers and knitters.

One blinded adjutant, who had also lost his right hand, learned to use the knitting machine and now earns a good living. Another soldier who arrived at the Phare suffering from mental shock as well as blindness, recovered a normal viewpoint before his year of reëducation was over. He learned knitting and now receives so many orders that he passes some of them on to his friends.

One Lighthouse pupil is now masseur in a large hospital in Paris, and others have taken up this profession. A clever mechanic who has been reeducated is now at work in an electric school in Paris. Several are doing well at farming and poultry raising. One graduate is a Government inspector connected with the Academy and the office of the Public Prosecutor. Another has resumed his former business as a furrier and has prospered so well that he has been forced to move to larger quarters. Several are telephone operators. Others are continuing their studies in music and in languages.

An intelligent and cultured pupil of a normal school was much discouraged when he first entered the Lighthouse. Having lost his sight, he thought that his career was over, but little by little hope was brought back to him and he was persuaded to resume his studies. With Braille, stenography and dactylography to help him, he is now working enthusiastically at higher mathematics. He has the advantage of youth, and he again dreams of a happy and successful future. In his spare time he studies the violin. He is reconstructing his library in Braille, copying even scientific works with their complicated mathematical characters.

Statistics are interesting when they denote progress, and one must have them in annual reports, but after all it is the personal, human side of this work that interests Miss Holt and her helpers. These men are very grateful for the new hope and courage that have been painfully born within them.