Library Collections: Document: Full Text


As I Saw It

Creator: Robert Irwin (author)
Date: 1955
Publisher: American Foundation for the Blind
Source: American Printing House for the Blind, Inc., M. C. Migel Library
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 2

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101  

Several scores of persons were tested in this way, and it was found that even in the areas where New York Point was the prevailing system the sheets with characters three dots high were read more rapidly.

102  

Other tests were devised which, it was felt, would test other characteristics of the systems. Unfortunately, as in the case of the committee's predecessor, the members had little opportunity to get together because of the lack of working funds.

103  

At the 1907 meeting of the American Association of Workers for the Blind a report was made which was inconclusive because data had been collected with so few subjects that the findings might conceivably be reversed if a larger number of readers were to be tested. The committee was continued. In 1909 the American Association of Workers for the Blind met in Columbus, Ohio. A report was submitted which, for the same reason, was not convincing to persons having a predisposition toward New York Point. It became known at this meeting that the two New York Point advocates on the committee had become so convinced of the superiority of braille over their former favorite system that they now were advocates of braille, so that the committee then stood four favoring American braille and one favoring British braille. The New York Point advocates who attended the convention were outraged at the betrayal of their favorite type. Dignified superintendents took the platform and denounced the committee, denounced its methods, denounced its motives, and, had congressional investigations then been the order of the day, they would probably have demanded either a congressional investigation of the subject or, at least, that a grand jury be called to search out the culprits.

104  

To calm the turbulent waters, and on the motion of a braille advocate, it was voted that the number on the committee be increased to ten by adding five who favored New York Point. Among the newcomers were two who for several years were destined to play a major role in the settlement of the type question--H. Randolph Latimer, sightless member of the faculty of the Maryland School for the Blind, and Miss L. Pearl Howard, a young graduate of the Iowa State School for the Blind. Mr. Latimer withdrew soon after election, but rejoined the committee again in 1911.

105  

Something of the spirit of the committee may be gathered from a recent interview between the writer and Miss Howard, who said, "When offered the appointment on the committee I asked if I was expected to work for the general adoption of New York Point or for a uniform type, whatever it might be. The reply was that I should work for a uniform type regardless of any predisposition I might have. This was all I wanted to know and I accepted service under those condtions -sic-. This decision may have cost me some of my Iowa friends who were in favor of the New York Point."

106  

Little money, however, was made available to the committee, so that they had to depend for the most part upon their own slender purses to meet the costs of any investigations they might make. In the spring of 1911 the committee felt that it must try out relative legibility tests on more people. Accordingly, in spite of the committee's lack of funds, arrangements were made for Miss Howard and Mr. Elwyn H. Fowler and his seeing wife, Mary, to visit the New York State School for the Blind at Batavia where New York Point was the official embossed type. The purpose of this visit was quite as much to test the validity of some new tests as to assemble convincing data.

107  

The next biennial convention of the American Association of Workers for the Blind was held in June 1911 at Overbrook, Philadelphia in the assembly room of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind. The committee had little to report at that meeting beyond plans for more scientific study if at least $3000.00 could be made available. It offered to raise $1800.00 if those at the convention would show their faith in the committee by pledging $1200.00. The committee's report consisted principally of an effort to impress upon the lay public and upon the seeing superintendents of schools for the blind the nature of the problem in hand, the tragic confusion of the whole affair to the blind, and the shamefulness of wasting money in the duplication of books in the various systems.

108  

The committee selected a seeing man, Charles F. F. Campbell, to expound the report of the committee to the convention because he was known as one of the most ardent advocates of just treatment of the blind who ever lived. Charlie had a flair for presenting in a clear way problems of concern to the blind. It is fortunate that he was chosen for this task. He was more accustomed to public speaking than any of the members of the committee. As a seeing man he could plead that the seeing members of the association and the seeing public, to whom the type question was largely an academic one, give the committee of blind people funds with which to work.

109  

The committee reported that they must have money enough to employ two agents, one blind and one seeing, to travel about the United States from one typical community to another, explaining the methods and objectives of the committee and, through tests, collect data which would eventually enable any fair-minded person approaching the subject dispassionately to decide upon a satisfactory code of embossed type.

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