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When it is stated that prior to 1830 the blind of America were to be found "moping in hidden corners or degraded by the wayside, or vegetating in almshouses," it is the adult blind that is meant. Still blind children were occasionally found in these places, though it could scarcely be said that they were vegetating, as could be said of the untrained deaf children.

The British census of 1851 first showed the world that over 80 per cent of the blind are adults. American schools for the blind were started, first, because of the widespread interest in the results of educating the young deaf and dumb, which furnished inspiration for new fields of educational endeavor; secondly, because the country was coming to the conviction that all the children of the state should receive education both as a matter of public policy and as a private right; and thirdly, because reports of what had been accomplished abroad in schools for the blind were being promulgated in our land. By 1830 the more progressive States of the east were ready to give their blind children school training. In that year the government first included in the national census the deaf and dumb and the blind. The work of the blind was to begin with scientific foreknowledge as to their number. In 1829 certain gentlemen in Boston obtained the incorporation of the "New England Asylum for the Blind." By a most fortunate circumstance, the interest and services were obtained of a graduate of Brown University, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who, after finishing his medical studies, had chivalrously gone to the aid of the Greeks. Dr. Howe went at once to Europe to study methods of instruction. Upon his return, in 1832, the school was opened with six pupils. In New York the act of incorporation of the New York Institution for the Blind was passed in 1831; but funds were needed and no one went abroad to study methods. This school opened in March 1832, antedating by a few months the school at Boston. In the very same year a German teacher of the blind, a Mr. Friedlander, most opportunely came to Philadelphia, in the hope of starting a school for the blind there. Having trained certain blind children he exhibited their accomplishments, first, to a few influential people, secondly, before a large audience among whom he distributed a leaflet, "Observations on the instruction of blind persons." A meeting of public-spirited citizens followed, funds were liberally contributed, fairs held and the success of the cause was assured. The Pennsylvania institution for the instruction of the blind was opened in 1833, fully 10 months before an act of incorporation was obtained. The three schools at Boston, New York and Philadelphia are called the pioneer schools. All sprang from private effort and private funds. All were incorporated as private institutions, and remain so to this day. Three similar institutions for the blind have arisen in this country, at Baltimore, at Pittsburgh and at Hartford. As recently as 1912 an institution for the deaf with a department for the blind was opened with private funds supplemented by an appropriation from the legislature, in Brattleboro, Vt. This department was discontinued in 1917.

Schools. -- The origin of the State schools differs from that of the type above given only in that classes of trained pupils from the earlier schools were exhibited before the State legislatures as well as before the people. State appropriations followed and the institutions were inaugurated as State institutions. The new schools sprang into being with astonishing rapidity. There were, in 1917, 44 residential schools for the blind in the United States. (For an account of the day schools of 13 cities, opened between 1900 and 1917 see below). Every State in the Union makes provision for its blind of school age either in its own school or in that of a neighboring State. In our sparsely-settled country, especially west of the Alleghanies and south of Maryland, great efforts had to be made to find the children and still greater efforts to persuade the parents to send them to school. In certain States where the amount of the public fund seemed to preclude a special grant for the blind, pupils of this class were brought together in connection with a school for the deaf and dumb, forming "dual schools," as they are called. These institutions could not help being unfair to their blind contingent; for in nearly every such case the blind came to a school already established as a school for the deaf, and under the superintendence of a man especially interested in the education of the deaf; moreover, the number of the deaf pupils usually far exceeded that of the blind. There are still a few of these dual schools, but wherever possible they have been divided into two distinct institutions. In Northern schools the colored blind are educated with the white; in Southern schools it is best for the colored to have schools of their own. Both the whites and they prefer this arrangement. The first school for the colored blind was opened in North Carolina in 1869.