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In any change now, it seems to this investigator that the home teacher should become more of a figure, with added social service responsibilities, directly reporting to the General Superintendent, and supported and assisted in the case work by the field agent and staff. In no other way can cooperation with local agencies be so effectively secured as by making the home teacher a general local representative of all work for the blind, the State's man in the community, adviser and helper to the local organization, as well as the local organization's means of reaching its own blind problem. The home teacher must know how to secure such cooperation and be something of a social worker, interested in prevention of blindness, too -- in fact, the Commission's local representative for all its various interests.

It is an opportune moment for a review of the accomplishments of home teaching. To these teachers, as to all teachers, encouragement will come when they learn of the results of their efforts. Pupils receive instruction and then pass out of the teacher's ken. What use has been made of this instruction? How have the blind pupils benefited? A review of this sort is not only desirable but wholly possible with the admirable system of records maintained by the Commission.

3. Work in Competition with the Sighted in factories becomes more and more difficult to secure. That blind workers often do well has been asserted and proved so many times by the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind that it is now a truism. But the application of the Workmen's Compensation Law deters employers, and work for the blind in factories is only likely to be a success when the law of supply and demand forces employers to accept handicapped workmen when the unhandicapped are not to be had.

On the other hand, the man or woman in his own home, workshop, greenhouse, or wherever he may labor, may compete successfully with the sighted when subsidized, and this is as wholly desirable a form of subsidy as that of the subsidized shop.

This Commission has tried every conceivable means to secure opportunities for the blind to work in factories, with varying success, of course, but with such pertinacity and enthusiasm, such ingenuity and inventive ness, as to arouse the investigator's admiration.

4. A Salesroom for Home Products has been maintained, furnishing opportunities of employment to some who would probably otherwise be idle. Purchases of material are made and work on the material by blind operatives is paid for at fair rates; some make their own purchases and send their product to the salesroom on consignment. On work ordered by the Commission, transportation charges to and from the home of the worker are paid by the Commission. The blind worker at home receives the full selling price of an article, less cost of raw material. Consignors ship their consignments to the salesroom at their own expense.

This department is wholly justified, in the opinion of the investigator, though its turnover is small, and a judicious expansion of this business would be advisable.

A suggestion was made in the course of my investigation that purchases of materials to supply to workers in their homes, heretofore and at present made by home teachers as a friendly act on the part of these teachers and not officially a duty, might be made at a saving through a central purchasing agency. On inquiry it appeared that the total purchases in a year are between $300 and $400; so small a business would hardly justify the machinery of a central purchasing agency, and the establishment of such an agency is not recommended.

5. Local centers in aid of the blind in a community are desirable cooperating agencies. One such center (at New Bedford) has reported its satisfaction in rendering help to the blind of its neighborhood, and urges the formation of bands of philanthropically inclined persons for similar activity elsewhere. The benefits of such service are for the giver as much as for the recipient.

In conclusion, let me say that two questions immediately project themselves into any consideration of this organization's effectiveness. They are: What have been the results of the Commission's work in benefiting the State? What in serving the blind? I conceive that both the blind and the State are to be considered, not the blind alone.

As respects the blind in the community, the topic under consideration, I have answered these two questions under the several sub-topics, but this general statement may be accepted as the all-inclusive answer: Before all things else, the Commission has offered an improved viewpoint. By this the public have been helped to see the problem of the blind as their own problem. They have been taught to find the blind, to look upon their assistance and encouragement as a local problem; that the blind are not a class to be congregated, not to be shelved and neglected, but to be given a chance. And the blind in the community have been helped to find themselves and their place of greatest usefulness.