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French Academician's Visit to School Near Tours, Where Work of the American Fund Is Carried On

EUGENE BRIEUX, the well-known playwright and Academician, has written a characteristic description of a visit to the Château de la Tour at Rochecorbon, near Tours, to which the Superior and Industrial School of the Permanent Blind Relief War Fund was temporarily removed last Summer because of the incessant air raids and long-range gun bombardments. Brieux gives an excellent idea of the methods of instruction adopted for the blinded allied soldiers and of the family atmosphere which pervades the institutions of this wholly American fund, with headquarters at 500 Fifth Avenue, New York.

These institutions are conducted in a spirit of cordial fraternity and mutual helpfulness which is as different from the ordinary conception of an "institution" as could well be imagined. The men are made to feel that they are in no sense objects of charity, but that the American supporters of the work and their French official co-operators are acquitting themselves affectionately of a debt of gratitude and of honor toward the men overtaken by disability in fighting for the common cause.

"At the Tours railroad station," writes M. Brieux, "I boarded a street car, which, after skirting the Loire, so historic and so French, brought me to Rochecorbon. At the car stop, on the other side of the road, through the trees of an immense park, one catches glimpses of a white and red château. A discreet sign at the entrance gate bears the words: Permanent Blind Relief War Fund; School for Blind Officers and Soldiers.

"The gateway passed, the château appears in all its modern opulence -- monumental steps, terrace, imposing façade, towers, nothing lacking. But what immediately attracts the attention of the visitor is at the foot of a tree in the centre of a vast lawn a group of men in military or civilian attire, some reclining or sitting on the grass, and one standing, who appear to be conversing, like philosophers in a sacred wood.

"The former are blind soldiers, the latter is their professor, and the ensemble is a class in English. That other group which is walking along the circular path is also a class, and yonder round that garden table shaded by an umbrella are another master and his pupils.

"Against the wall facing each other are two strange beings with heads like helmeted divers. On approaching we see that they are fencers. One is blind. Other blind men await their turn at the foils. It is incredible. Nevertheless it is true.

"Let us continue our tour of the park. Let us cross a little bridge over a clear brook which babbles across the meadow and among the trees and which is guarded by a fence of wires --not barbed. The visit thus mapped out is not methodical, but no matter.

"On our left opens a very large double door, which lets in a flood of air and comforting sunshine. Where are we? Into what manufactory have we been suddenly transported? A swarm of men and women are crowded around queer machines, which are being operated by men thoughtful, calm, engrossed, counting with their lips, multiplying little precise gestures on small levers and handles. It is the knitting school, and these men are blind. The women are their wives, the monitors and the managers of the workshop.

"Blind: Yes, and not only blind. Here are one, two, -- nine, with crippled hands. Of the ten fingers of this one only two remain. And he works! Here is an old grizzled territorial; he has only one finger and half of another left. And he works! And he works gayly, This other one has only two stumps. Both his hands were cut off. And he works, and is the Merry Andrew of the workshop. And all toil with joy, and they work, these blind and crippled blind, because they wanted to, because they demanded that they should be permitted to do so.

"There, let us be silent and salute them, even though they cannot see our salute.

"These women are their wives. The good knitter will need a companion. WE know it. Therefore, during the last month of the blind husband's apprenticeship his wife comes to join him and becomes in turn an apprentice. Chambers are reserved upstairs for these households. And whosoever would know the French wife, the foreigner who doubts the portrait of her that our novels and plays have given him, has only to visit these rooms, which the occupants are aware are merely a temporary lodging, and which are kept exquisitely clean, with a bouquet at the window or a muslin scarf draped about the modest photographs of aged parents or of children from whom the inmates would not be entirely separated.

"But let us stay in the workshop. Let us look around again. A cradle and a pretty baby asleep in it, its fists closed, all rosy and radiant with health.

"Watch for an instant. You will see that blind young fellow working over there at the end of the shop gently leave his place and with prudent steps make his way toward the cradle, feel along the edges of it with cautious fingers, and find and caress, without venturing too much to touch it, the face of his child, a face that he will never see, for his eyes are empty, but which an interior vision represents to him as beautiful as that of a cherub.

"And if you will wait a little longer you will see the young mother, gazing with the same love at the father and the infant, go to the baby, lift it from the cradle and take it aside to nourish it.

"The explanation is simply that she had given birth to her baby just as her husband was finishing his apprenticeship, that she could not bear to be away from him and contemplated with terror either having to be separated from him or having to wean the little one, and that we concluded that this would be cruel and had the baby brought here, contrary to the rules of all military hospitals, which do not usually accept conscripts of that age.

"And that old, old, woman you see working there, aged by misery, suffering and sorrow; she is the mother of our joyous friend sans hands, and the first time she had smiled in many years was the other day when her son brought her between his two stumps a shawl he had just finished. She smiled, and then she began to cry, saying she was very happy.

"Each one is working at his machine -- a machine which he will take away with him, which he loves already, which he caresses and keeps in good order, which he knows and which will enable him to earn his living.

"And there our ideal is realized.

"The blind man will work in his own home, master of his time and his labor, as a free man -- with the co-operation of his wife. And around him children will grow, happy, under the eyes of their mother and the endearments of their glorious father and increase the number of those of the future, of those who will not experience the horrors through which we have passed, because our soldiers have paid with their eyes the sacrifice that had to be made in order to strangle the beast, to kill war.

"Let us continue our walk. There is still a wing of the structure we have not seen.

"A large stable from which the horses are absent. In their stead big bales wrapped in sacking from which escape whisps of couch grass, tampico, and piazzava. Neatly stacked on tables against the wall are strange objects, pieces of wood cut into queer shapes, pierced with small holes at regular intervals, and above each kind are labels which set one to thinking: Violins, crawfish, washerwomen, casks, &c.

"By the door, in a little corner which the large opening onto the sunlit garden renders more shadowy, is a small table loaded with tally sheets, papers of various kinds, and delivery books.

"From here are sent every day hundreds of kilos of couch grass and thousands of pieces of shaped wood for brushes, carefully packed, which go to the four corners of France, to humble dwellings, furnishing to blinded soldiers returned home after re-education the materials they could not procure themselves, at wholesale prices and with a credit that they could not obtain elsewhere.

"While I am on the subject of credit I cannot resist the pleasure of relating a detail which will give to those who do not know our French peasants an idea of their probity.

"Our losses from unpaid bills are less than 3 per cent. And we never refuse a first delivery on credit -- nor other deliveries either.

"Nothing is more touching. I assure you, than to receive the money order that a blind man sends. Sometimes turn and turn in my hands, with emotion, this money order for 100 francs, for 200 francs occasionally, which comes from some out-of-the-way village and is the proof of such great energy and honesty. I gaze at it with respect.

"Now, we will return to the Superior School, of which we have seen only the outside.

"We ascend a large stone stairway, a copy of that of some historic chateau of Touraine, and we reach first a terrace where more open air classes are being held, then penetrate into an interior where reigns the tac-tac of typewriting machines, where commercial orders find a clearing house and where secretaries bent over books keep our accounts. Let us enter this room.

"A visitor is discussing business animatedly with another gentleman. Both are in military uniform, but this no longer occasions surprise. We have happened upon a dealer who is receiving offers of service from the representative of a food products concern. Each defends his interests keenly. The salesman gives his prices, lauds his merchandise, enlivens the interview with an anecdote, solicits, urges, persuades. His firm is certainly the best in France and his products the cheapest possible. He replies to a complaint from the dealer about a delayed order. It is the fault of the railroad. The damage will be made good. It won't occur again. The dealer gives an order. The offer of a small discount and facility of payment cause him to double it. The salesman makes a note of it, but instead of writing it down with a pencil in a notebook he makes holes rapidly with a punch in a sheet of paper stretched upon a tablet of aluminium.

"The salesman is a blind soldier who is writing in Braille; the dealer is a professor of commercial law and it is at a practical lesson that we have been assisting. In another room a blind man at a typewriter is taking down words from a talking machine into which the employer in the morning had dictated his correspondence.

"And here is a whole office, a large place with several seats and many pigeonholes. It constitutes a fictitious commercial establishment where blind soldiers exchange among themselves, and by letter, offers of service, orders, bills, delivery notices, complaints, demands for payments overdue, &c.

"We have the good fortune to have as head master a graduate of the Paris Normal School who was wounded in the war."