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Two or three illustrations will bring out this point, and at the same time show the adaptation of methods of procedure under different circumstances.

An interested friend, himself in the piano business, sent me word late one afternoon that there was a vacancy for a tuner in a piano factory from which he, my friend, was purchasing instruments, and that he had already spoken a good word for a blind tuner. I was at the gentleman's house by eight o'clock the next morning, soliciting further particulars. I took the next train to the factory town and interviewed the superintendent on behalf of an applicant whom I had on my list, and in whom I had considerable confidence. I landed my man without much difficulty in this case, thanks to the paving of the way by my friend, as well as to the fact that in this particular line of occupation the public mind is more credulous to our (the blind's) ability than in some. At the superintendent's request, he being in a rush with his work, I telephoned to my man, who lived only a few miles away, and he was at work in the factory before night of the some day.

I had another application from a young man whose education and intelligence seemed to justify his aspiring to something higher than a routine factory process. Everything within himself seemed favorable for some undertaking, but what it should be was a puzzle. One day, chancing to walk from the station to the office with the manager of a typewriter company, with whom I had a business acquaintance, we were speaking of his machine and the possibility of introducing it more largely for the use of the blind, for whose trade he seemed desirous of catering. I said: "See here, my friend, the thing for you to do is to put a blind salesman on your floor. I have a fellow who will in a short time be able to exhibit the machine both as to work and as to mechanism, and it will be a good thing for you, both among the blind and the seeing." After some conversation he gave me an appointment at which I was to present a candidate. I went with the young man, and before we left the manager's office he was under contract.

But these two fellows were both institution-bred blind men, and knew well the ropes. The problem is greater among adults who are newly blind. Let me tell you something about a bookbinder. This man, over fifty years of age, had been gradually losing his sight for some time, but up to within six months of his first call upon me he had managed to work at his trade as a seeing man with defective sight, which, by the way, let me say, is a very different matter from a blind man with partial sight. Then, reaching the point where this was no longer possible, and it never occurring to him that there was any other possibility, he had voluntarily withdrawn from the concern. He came to me without the slightest thought of this line of work in his mind. He wanted, instead, information regarding embossed musical notation. In conversation with him I found what he had been doing, and asked if he did not think he could still do it. He was inclined to think he could, and as a result of several interviews he finally decided to place the case in my hands. I secured excellent introductions to his old employer, and from the management secured the very cordial permission to visit the works and interview the superintendent. I did so, and also talked with the foreman of the room in which my applicant had been working. The particular process which he had done toward the binding of the book was of the simplest. The instant it was described to me I was satisfied that it was absolutely practical for the blind; but the good men with whom I talked were afraid of this and that difficulty and calamity, much as they would like to see their old friend back with them. They, however, consented to my visiting the room, taking the book in my hand, standing at the bench, manipulating the tools, and performing the process. Under the direction of the foreman, and perhaps before he fairly realized what was being done, I had accomplished this particular part of the work upon the book he handed me, and had done it to his ex-pressed satisfaction. Then I had my chance, and I said, "If I, who was never in a bindery in my life, can in five minutes learn to do this thing, being myself blind, can you question for a moment that your old employee, who for twenty-three years has stood at this bench and done this work, can still do it?" The answer was inevitable, and my applicant went to work the following Monday morning.

But, as I have said, these cases are comparatively rare under present conditions. Let us consider the more common applications. Here is a man whose trade before loss of sight was something which it does not seem possible for him to follow now, because he is too dazed by his calamity, has not sufficient faith in himself, would be at such personal risk in carrying it on that no employer would allow him on the premises without sight, or (what is more rare by far) the thing itself may be out of the question. Let me say, in passing, that I stoutly maintain that there are very few things that a blind man cannot do, at least some part of which he cannot do, if he himself has nothing to handicap him but the mere lack of vision, and if he can get the chance. But those are big "ifs," and while we are struggling to overcome them our applicant remains idle and perhaps gets into a worse state of mind or nerves than before. So in most cases we must meet the problem with some substitute. The easiest thing, obviously, is to put the man in one of the shops for the blind which patronize the agent's bureau, where he merely fills vacancies from a waiting list. But the trouble is that the vacancies seldom occur; the capacity of such shops is generally very limited, and the waiting list is uncomfortably long. When the agent can see no prospect for his man in a shop for a long time, something different most generally be looked for. Or it may be that the man is really best suited for a home industry, or even has domestic elements in his case which make it the only thing possible.