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Instructing The Adult Blind At State Cost

Creator: n/a
Date: March 21, 1903
Publication: Springfield Republican
Source: Perkins School for the Blind

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As to instructing the adult blind at state cost, there are points to be considered that practical experts know, and philanthropic sympathizers with the blind do not, generally. There are few occupations, comparatively, which the blind can profitably follow, and there are very grave objections to bringing them together, at an adult age, in large numbers, in a workshop or home, especially if both sexes are to be received therein. Helen Keller is a brilliant and interesting young woman; but what does she really know of the practical oversight of blind persons in large numbers? What do most of the advocates of a new state commission know about it, of their own knowledge? Dr Howe was very strong in his feeling on this point, and if any person was more unselfishly devoted than he to the best good of the blind, or had a more profound and exact knowledge, gained by sore experience, of what could and could not be done for them, where is he or she? If such exist, they will be found, I think, very skeptical about this new project. Something can be done; but not in the way suggested, nor with the results that enthusiasts, or sanguine persons, predict. And the whole matter should be put under the board of charities, for it will turn out to be essentially a charitable and not an educational affair.