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In 1919 the Commission on Uniform Type asked the American Printing House for the Blind to employ a competent man to make decisions regarding the various phases of work involved in printing for the blind, the standardization of printing, etc., use of types, etc., said man to be thoroughly conversant with the technical and educational problems involved in printing embossed books and the manufacture of apparatus for the blind. This man was supposed to act on all technical and educational questions in conjunction with a joint committee to be appointed respectively by the trustees of the American Printing House for the Blind and the Commission on Uniform Type for the Blind. The failure of the trustees of the American Printing House for the Blind to pass favorably upon this request made it incumbent upon the chairman of the commission to appoint various subcommittees to carry on the work contemplated.

One of these subcommittees was concerned with international unity. One more attempt was made to win British cooperation. Mr. Burritt and Mr. Latimer wrote a joint letter in behalf of the commission to the British authorities reporting that a new subcommittee had been appointed to act with the British as an international subcommittee on uniform type. Nothing came of this beyond an invitation to come to England to study their braille reproducing processes which, according to Sir Arthur, had then reached a "state bordering on perfection."

The American blind were tired, however, of changes. Many still living had first learned linetype, then New York Point, then American braille, then Revised braille grade 1 1/2. The rank and file of finger readers had a good deal of sympathy with a speaker at one of the national conventions who in a burst of oratory said, "If anyone invents a new system of printing for the blind, shoot him on the spot." It was deemed wise therefore to let the discussion of complete uniformity between the United States and Great Britain lie dormant for awhile.

In 1922 the Commission on Uniform Type gave its report to the American Association of Instructors of the Blind and recommended that it be discontinued and that its powers be delegated to the newly organized American Foundation for the Blind. The same recommendation was made by the Commission on Uniform Type to the American Association of Workers for the Blind at its convention in Janesville in 1923. The recommendation was adopted and the Foundation accepted the responsibility. It, however, exercised its powers with great reserve because it felt that the instructors' association whose members controlled most of the braille printing in the United States had not acted entirely favorably upon the delegation of authority. It was natural that the printing houses and the men who controlled them should be conservative about making any more changes in the braille system. The abandonment of New York Point and American braille had been a costly action as it meant the scrapping of a supply of tens of thousands of braille plates which had been manufactured at so much expense over so many years.

The American Printing House, in the meantime, went forward with the publication of a new set of textbooks and supplementary reading matter in braille grade 1 1/2. Most current magazines adopted grade 1 1/2 and practically all the books of any kind published for the blind in the United States between 1917 and 1932 were in this grade of braille. The matter was left dormant until the late 1920's when the American Foundation for the Blind began to study the relative merits of grade 1 1/2 and grade 2 from a somewhat new standpoint.

Investigation showed that grade 2 occupied some twelve per cent to fourteen per cent less space than grade 1 1/2 and could be written with the use of a substantial percentage of fewer dots. Furthermore, the advantages of interchanging books with Great Britain, where large numbers of interesting titles were being produced each year, could not further be ignored. While the British readers looked longingly at the rapidly growing selection of titles in grade 1 1/2, they claimed that they could not read it as rapidly as grade 2. At first the Americans felt that the contention that grade 1 1/2 could not be read as rapidly as grade 2 by experienced grade 2 readers was just an illustration of British obstinacy. However, there was a psychological basis for this British contention. Rapid finger-readers, like visual readers, do not spell out words character by character; they come to recognize many common words, especially short ones, by their word form. Many words as written in grade 2 have an entirely different word form than the same word in grade 1 1/2. For example, "nation" in grade 2 using an "n" followed by the two cell contractions for "ation" contains only three braille characters, whereas "nation" written in grade 1 1/2 contains six characters.

As a result of this psychological objection, aggravated probably by a certain amount of prejudices, few grade 1 1/2 books were used in England except by students and other avid readers who were willing to tolerate the annoyances of grade 1 1/2 for the sake of being able to read certain titles not available in grade 2.