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CHARLES W. HOLMES
Deputy Superintendent Industrial Department Massachusetts Commission for the Blind

Mr. CAMPBELL has spoken particularly of some of the varied and unique occupations which some blind persons have followed successfully. These cases are extremely interesting, suggestive, and inspiring. I firmly believe that the blind man who can take his place side by side with his seeing brother, in a profession or in an office, at a desk or bench, as his individual capacity may dictate, is fulfilling the greatest possibility that is conceivable for him in the way of occupation. The doing of the ordinary thing in the ordinary tray, in spite of blindness, is the pride of every blind person, and the nearer and the oftener we can approximate it, the better. Speaking from the standpoint of one who has been attempting to do Employment Bureau work among the blind, I am unwillingly forced to admit, however, that such results as have been cited are, under present conditions of life, not yet attainable in a great many cases. If we are to keep the blind occupied, we shall in most cases have to pursue special methods, select suitable trades, furnish necessary training, discover practical adaptations of methods or implements, and in many ways provide so that the elements in their blindness which they have not yet been able to rise above may be removed from the list of vital obstacles to their success. The Employment Bureau agent's work, therefore, is not so simple as that of the agent of an ordinary bureau, where it is mainly a case of fitting supply to demand. Here the agent has to a large extent to create the demand, while he selects and cultivates the supply. From the seeing employer he meets incredulity where he needs faith, mournful sympathy where he wants practical cooperation, offers of charity or pension when he asks for a chance to fill a position. Perhaps hardest of all to bear, he is met with makeshift excuses by those who have neither the willingness to let him prove his point nor the moral courage to give hint a fiat refusal. Among the blind themselves he has various problems. Some are anxious to work, but their minds are an utter blank as to what can be done, and he has to think for them; sonic believe that they could do things which the agent finds himself utterly helpless to deal with, and will listen to nothing else; many, particularly among those recently blind, need training in every conceivable way before they are fit to take up any line, for they do not even know how to be blind -- how to use their hands and ears instead of eyes, how to navigate or even care for themselves. Finally (and, thank heaven, this comes more from the seeing friends than from the blind themselves) he has to contend with the unwillingness to do anything, to even stir about, and the conviction that everything is over for the poor, afflicted soul but the funeral services. It is evident, therefore, that the agent's problems are many and strenuous, and his efforts must be correspondingly vigorous and wisely adapted. Verily, he is one of those who is called upon to "be all things to all men."

But now let us follow him through a few of his practical experiences.

The possibilities of employment for the blind seem to divide themselves into three general classes, as already indicated by the last speaker. First, work among the seeing under conditions which are as nearly as possible those of his brethren. Second, work in groups of other blind persons, where the difficulties which stand in the way of his following the first line are understood and provided for in a helpful way, instead of becoming the inevitable cause of early dismissal. Third, home industry, which I would not limit to the practice of a trade which can be carried on under the man's own roof, but would interpret broadly enough to cover anything which he is able to carry on in a modest fashion, with no other direct assistance than that furnished by members of the family. There is a chance to consider some individual undertakings as belonging to a fourth division, but by liberal interpretation of the first and third, perhaps we need not go further for the present.

When a new application for employment is received, the agent should always consider first the chance there may be of fitting the applicant under the first group. The qualifications which make him feel there is good prospect of success are: that the man should have confidence in himself, not horn of conceit, ignorance, or bravado, but of conviction and determination; that he should be able to get about, after reasonable opportunity is given for familiarizing himself with his surroundings, with ease and certainty, and, if possible, with some grace -- not so much for his own sake (for the blind man may be willing to take chances and put up with hard knocks) as to make it possible to advance convincing arguments to the prospective employer; some previous training or natural aptitude for the specific occupation under consideration; some special ray of hope for success in placing the candidate, as a result of the interest of a former employer or personal effort on the part of an interested and influential friend, etc.

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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.

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Let us pass to a case which it has been decided is ready for home industry. What shall it be? One of the few trades which are now available for the blind? Then which of these? Local condition again: the market, nature of business and trade in the community, etc. For example, I have such an application from a man of foreign birth who lives in a town noted for the manufacture of chairs, where seats are put out to be caned from the factory at prices which I would be ashamed to quote; where every woman and child of the laboring classes not employed in the factories themselves canes at home. Caning for such a man would be absurd; but as he has a strong association in his town of those of his own nation, and as a cobbler of that nationality has only this summer closed a shop and left town, I have a most encouraging outlook for him as a cobbler, with the hearty support of his community. So the trade must be carefully selected, then the necessary training furnished, and afterwards perhaps help given in securing equipment and establishment. Here local interest and cooperation must be secured, as in these days of sharp competition and cut prices the newly trained and untried blind workman may sit at an empty bench.

But, again, the conditions may be such that it is better to open a small business or take up an agency for some profitable line of goods. If the man has a little sight, or by any other means is able to get about conveniently, the latter becomes possible; and if to that be added the fact that he has no home or friends, nothing to give him a starting point, it is often the most promising. Here still a different set of efforts must be exerted. Instead of training in an industrial school the man must have sound business advice; instead of tools he requires stock; the interest of the community in his undertaking is about the only element that remains the same.

And so he who undertakes to wrestle with the problem of employment for the blind, and to study over and decide upon the multitude of little problems which grow out of this large one, has no path of roses to tread, but must make up his mind to give of the best there is in him of mental energy, spiritual force, kindly patience, wise diplomacy, painstaking judgment, and endless effort of an unclassifiable nature. But if he be successful, what of all that? What satisfaction can equal the knowledge that one has been the means of helping an unfortunate brother who is down from force of circumstances which he cannot control, largely because he does not know how or lacks the force and executive ability to grapple with them. If the result of the agent's efforts, putting it on the lowest basis, is that a few more dollars a week are coming to a poor family, or, going higher in the scale, if it means that he found an idler employment and a new purpose in life, or if, perhaps higher still, he enables the man who has been a useful citizen and the respected head of his family, and now since blindness came upon him has been obliged to sit by in a corner while the world moves on and his children and he stand in reversed relations -- if he helps such a man again to resume the dignity and privileges of his manhood and again hold up his head in his community as master of himself and his situation, is it not the Master's work?