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In 1906, anticipating that the original forty-year bonds would soon mature, Congress changed the authorization by continuing an annual appropriation of $10,000. In 1919 an additional appropriation of $40,000 was authorized. In 1927 this appropriation was raised to $65,000 and in 1937 to $115,000. Money derived from these government grants was used for the manufacture of books and tangible apparatus which is distributed annually among the schools for the blind in proportion to the ratio which enrollment of any one school bears to the total blind child enrollment for all schools in the country. For example, if $50,000 was available for the manufacture of books and tangible apparatus and if there were 5,000 pupils in the schools for the blind, each school was entitled to draw from the Printing House for books and other educational paraphernalia to the amount of $10 per child. The quota of the schools is calculated every year from the enrollment that is sent in to Louisville in January. A school may either buy books and apparatus already in stock at the Printing House or it may use its quota in meeting the cost of producing entirely new books or apparatus so long as the bulk of the manufacturing process is done at the Printing House. It cannot, however, buy with its allotment books, braille-writers, or other equipment manufactured outside of the Printing House.

When the original law was passed establishing the American Printing House, "public institutions for the education of the blind" consisted solely of residential schools. Following the establishment of the first day school classes in city public schools in 1900, a need for a broader interpretation of the Act became apparent. On January 30, 1912, an opinion was handed down by the Department of the Treasury (under which Department the Act was then administered), in response to a request from the public day schools for the blind of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, stating that these classes were entitled to share in the free distribution of materials under the Act. This ruling was extended to cover the classes for the blind in public schools throughout the country, and the superintendent of each school system conducting such classes for the blind is an ex officio trustee of the American Printing House for the Blind.

With the advent of the Talking Book the Printing House turned its attention to the manufacure -sic- of this new appliance and by 1936 it was equipped to produce such books for distribution to the schools. Many of the Talking Books purchased by the Library of Congress are suitable for school use and many others are suitable for use by school pupils for supplementary reading. The Printing House, therefore, obtained substantial orders from the Library of Congress so that it could keep its Talking Book department operating at capacity and at the same time build up masters from which records could be pressed for distribution to the schools on their government quotas.

In order to benefit from the economies of quantity production the Printing House has manufactured other books and apparatus on contract for other private and public agencies. As early as 1887 it embossed the Bible for the American Bible Society and since 1883, other religious literature for the Society for Providing Evangelical Religious Literature for the Blind. Gradually, it took on the publication of magazines on a contract basis until today it produces over fifty braille and three Talking Book magazines.

The first decade of the century witnessed a general awakening in the schools for the blind to the importance of physical education. Dr. Howe of Perkins Institution several decades earlier had given a great deal of attention to the physical development of his pupils. He stressed its importance in his annual reports, but most of the schools for the blind attached little significance to that aspect of a blind child's education.

In about 1899 Edward E. Allen of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind was able to get his school moved from the cramped quarters on Race Street in Philadelphia to a roomy campus in Overbrook, a suburb of Philadelphia. Mr. Allen had served for several years as a teacher of physical education and other subjects at the Royal Normal College in London. Sir Francis Campbell, the superintendent, was a great believer in the moral and health values of developing to the uttermost the physiques of his blind students. Mr. Allen introduced many of his methods at Overbrook and gave them great publicity, especially among the schools for the blind of the United States.

An athletic team was developed in the school which competed successfully against many of the schools for seeing children in Philadelphia and vicinity. His interest found kindred spirits in the schools for the blind in Kentucky, New Mexico, Western Pennsylvania, and in other places. Athletic teams were developed whose prowess won local recognition. It was extremely difficult to bring these teams together in order to compete directly with one another but a plan was devised for holding an athletic match in several different schools on the same day. The records made by the athletes in these different schools were wired to the other schools and in this way a national track meet with each pupil competing on his own athletic field many hundreds of miles away was carried on. This stimulated a great interest in physical education. Later, track teams of blind athletes from Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York City, Batavia, Pittsburgh and other schools met and actually competed on the same athletic field. Plans for new school buildings provided for special gymnasiums adapted for the use of blind children and today the physical appearance of the pupils in the schools for the blind is far superior to that of a half century ago.