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MISS LUCY WRIGHT
Superintendent Department of Registration and Information, Massachusetts Commission for the Blind

Our papers and discussions as a whole, during the convention, seem to me to have pointed to two broad divisions of work for the blind: first, in the field of experiment, to find more and better special resources for the blind, that is, new occupations which may be followed without sight, a universal type, etc.; second, in the field of organization, to make better use of our present resources, and to lay a substantial foundation for future work. The first is a complex problem. The long neglect of the adult blind has resulted in an accumulation of difficulties, which will require a long period of hard and enthusiastic labor to remove; but the necessary experiments in new occupations will, I believe, be more effectively made if at the same time organization, the second division of work, is made of equal concern in any new movement for the blind. Field work and cooperation are, I believe, two of the biggest factors in solving this problem of organization. I shall, first of all, speak of field work as a means of finding out needs of the blind that could not be discovered, Or at least realized, in any other way; speak of one or two general needs suggested by field work in this state; and, finally, outline one way of helping to meet the needs of the blind in any state promptly, effectively, and economically.

Here I wish to say that I think we are using field work in two senses, and that, for the guidance of states newly starting in this work, we ought to distinguish the two forms, either by different names or qualifying adjectives, according to the end they have in view -- for ends differ, as the Irishman in "The Seething Pot" admitted when confronted with two sets of statistics which didn't agree. "Them first statistics," said he, "was compiled for a different purpose." The foundation field work which confronts any state wishing to know the truth about the blind has as an end convincing the seeing persons of the state what they ought to do about the blind. As such, it should be done by seeing persons, and should completely cover a given area within a limited time, in order to present as a foundation for future work, an outline of the situation as a whole. Probably this ought to be called plain "census." I am glad to say that we are through with field work of this kind, and are busy about the kind of field work which needs to be continuous, and may best be done by both seeing and blind persons. It is this ideal kind of field work, not with information as an end, but in itself a means of helping the blind directly, of which Mr. Delfino is going to tell you the detail better than I could dream of doing. Home teaching is also a form of this kind of work.

The thing that field work of either kind makes a living fact to any one engaged in it (I am sure Mr. Delfino and the home teachers will agree) is that the needs of the blind are extremely varied. During the last three years I have had an opportunity to visit a thousand or more homes in which there is a blind member of the family, and have had occasion to know about some hundreds more. It is perplexing even to try to think of the things they most need as a group. Here are three or four thousand blind persons scattered over this state, as they most be in every other, in hill towns miles from the railroad, in congested foreign quarters of our mill cities, in good homes and had homes, on avenues and in alleys -- young and old, blind from birth and blind after long lives of sighted usefulness. There are totally blind men who do not appear blind at all, and partially blind men who appear totally blind; children who are normal and children who are defective; courageous men, eager to do their part, men who will not ask for the help they need, and, now and then, we must confess, men who wish to be picked up and carried. There are homeless people and those who cannot leave their families; illiterate, unskilled persons who could only work in a special shop under supervision; skilled mechanics, and, here and there, highly trained men of literary ability and in command of modern languages. There are those who need everything -- relief, training, and work; those who need only the help of a guide, a market for goods, or, like one gentleman with defective sight who told me this week, "If you want to help me there are just three things I can think of you can do: viz., have the government make the figures on the new ten-dollar bills a larger size: require bells on rubber-tired vehicles; and require railway guides to speak up instead of shaking their heads at the blind." And he is right; those are real needs. It is such things as this that handicap hundreds of people with defective sight struggling to go on about their business without a straw of help from any one. Of all these three or four thousand blind a comparatively small group need any one thing. Obviously the largest single need is employment; but that, it should be said, of the most varied kinds and degrees of skill. A smaller group need schooling; some of them defective, some of them appearing so from lack of opportunity; some from good homes, many from kind homes but without a ghost of a chance for education and physical development. Others need the help of a blind babies' nursery, of home teaching, or a home for the aged. But many of the needs I have mentioned, and some I have yet to mention, could not, I wish to emphasize, be met by any one of our traditional institutions in itself. How are these needs to be continuously discovered and met?

The next most obvious condition among the blind is the needless delay, partly because of their geographical distribution, and largely because it is no one's particular duty to inform them, in securing the help of resources already organized for the blind of the state; equally true of medical resources, nursery, school, shop, and home. We have spoken at another meeting of delays in securing medical help which result in blindness. The next striking delay is in the beginning of education of those becoming blind. In the case of those becoming blind in childhood, we find delays ranging from a few years to fifteen and thirty years. I can never forget the instance, of which I have spoken before, of a man past thirty, of sound mind and body, who had, because of his blindness, been treated by his family as an invalid, and had his first chance to learn to read and write at thirty-two, when the home teachers found him. I think of him now because the Commission has just voted, despite the difficulties in the way, to give him the fullest opportunity in their power to learn to use his hands. Week before last I visited in one of our cities a tiny summer school made possible by the cooperation of the trustees of Perkins School, a local committee on the blind, and the Commission. Three blind children, aged eleven, twelve, and fourteen, sat with two or three little seeing guides about a table weaving paper and making baskets; one, a little Portuguese child, born in this state and blind from early infancy, wholly uneducated until discovered by the field work of the former Commission two years ago; two little French Canadian girls, one delicate and in need of physical training; and one, an eager, robust child, who took up reading and clay modeling with delightful zeal. They are four, five, and seven years late in beginning their education, which we should consider a very serious item in the case of the same children with sight. How much more in theirs! The consequences of delay in the case of persons becoming blind later in life are familiar to all workers among the blind. When blindness comes to the breadwinner between thirty and forty years of age, for example, there is a good chance for wrecking the home life -- the mother going to work, the father, idle and alone at home, easily losing courage, physical strength, even sanity. Prompt, substantial encouragement to learn how to be blind is absolutely essential at the start. It becomes "too late" in the case of persons becoming blind after twenty with even a more terrible certainty than with children. How is this condition to be met?

One more general need is that of practical interest in his own community for the blind workman, provided he gets the needed training and equipment, and of real understanding by each community of its own blind problem. After all is said and done, the welfare of the blind child who leaves the school, of the workman who returns home with his training and his tools, and, in fact, of all the blind, truly depends upon his own family and his own community. Institutions at their best can only contribute a share. It is within the power of the community to make the life of an active blind person happy or unhappy, to give him a chance for recognized usefulness or not.

Now all of this and a great deal more may, to my mind, be described as a general need of "socializing" all work for the blind. I have borrowed the word from another connection, and I might have named my paper, "Socializing Work for the Blind." By "socializing" work for the blind I mean treating each individual problem, whether of nursery, school, shop, or Home, in relation to personal capacity and local resources. All forms of field work are signs of the demand to know the real truth about the needs of the blind. Field work discloses the needs of which I have spoken, and from it will follow the taking up of the individual problem from the point of view of his social situation, rather than from the point of view of the institution, and if he goes to the institution making the connection with his family and community close at both ends, when he enters and when he leaves. I am convinced that the real reason no little of this has been done is partly that persons in charge of work for the blind have had too much to do to develop this side of their work, and partly that the need has not been sufficiently recognized for time, money, and workers to be set apart to keep up this end. It is field work which has convinced me and will, I am sure, convince others of the true situation.

The outward and visible signs of the attempt to meet this situation are: a central office and workers who know, or at least want to know, the real needs of the blind; who have at their command knowledge of the resources of the state, both of cities and towns, which may be in any way used to meet the needs of the blind; and have, last but not least, a continuous method for finding the blind at the time of their greatest need. This may be called a department of registration and information, if you like; but it ought to be said, don't have a mistaken idea about the register part of it, which is only a practical means of aiding memory by noting the results of field work; for what applications are made; names of those in this line of business or that; those who want to use the salesroom; who are successful men and women; who have found new occupations, etc. The register itself is a dull but very necessary matter of office technique.

I can only take the time to tell you briefly two or three practical things that have been done in Massachusetts during the last three years through field work and cooperation for bringing together the blind at the time of their need and the agencies for helping them. First of all, we had the help of the state census, secured through Dr. Hartwell's bill (and I ought to say here that this is not the same as the 1900 census of which Miss Holt was speaking this morning. It is the Massachusetts State Census, with additions and corrections). This 1905 census material is the most substantial basis possible for our work. The census welcomed additions from 'us for completing their work, but they gave us first a big block of material that stands for live, human people who need our help. Here I ought to say, too, no one wants to find any person who does not need or want to be known. There are those who look us up to see what we are doing and can do for them; but where there is a handicap of a foreign language, and of ignorance and superstition, the blind must be found by some such method as a census. Then, too, it is to be said that many a skilled person becoming blind still supposes that there is no form of activity open to him, and only through such a means could we discover and connect him with the existing possibilities for the blind.

For the second contribution to this same end we are indebted to the cooperation begun by the Massachusetts Association for Promoting the Interests of the Blind and the Eye and Ear Infirmary and continued with the Commission. By this arrangement the Eye and Ear Infirmary reports to the Commission those of its patients who are blind, partly blind, or likely to become blind. Children are in the Nursery for Blind Babies, in the Perkins School, and persons have been helped in a greater variety of ways than I can describe tonight by this cooperation; persons who otherwise might not have known for some years, if at all, of resources for the blind.

The third agency is the local committee on the blind, which consists of from one interested person in a community to a highly organized committee. There are at present in a number of our cities and towns such committees in various stages of activity, according to the needs of their blind, who stand ready to cooperate with the Commission, calling needs to their attention and taking up the local end of the problem. In the development of this relation lies, I believe, one of the most valuable ways of helping the blind; and as the committees develop, and the number of resources develop, we shall together straighten out individual problems and, I trust, contribute new discoveries to the cause. I wish there were time to tell you who these committees are, where they are, and what they are doing.

I don't for a minute wish to convey the idea that at this moment I think any need of any blind person can be met. Far from it; a complete compendium of universal knowledge with an appendix could not give a recipe for that. But these things have been done, and there are two or three more things I should like to see done at once, towards making work for the blind line up with other social movements in the matter of constructive cooperation. One is that the annual school census should be asked to cooperate by reporting cases of all children permanently out of school, or seriously delayed in their progress on account of defective eyesight. Mr. Green tells me that this is already done in Missouri, and Mr. Fraser tells me that he has secured a similar plan in Canada in his province. The second plan would apply to the problem of the homeless, aged, and infirm. I used to think there should be no homes for the blind as such, and I still incline to the view that there would better not be, but I do see a place for small cottage homes for those who want them. However, I believe the way to manage the whole matter is to have the central foundation of a fund under wise administration, which may be used in various ways; that the cases should be taken up one by one, according to individual needs and recommendation made, upon careful investigation, for help from this fund for either admission fee to a home for the blind, or (better, I believe) a home for the seeing, or for board in a private family, whichever would make that individual situation happiest and best. We must face the fact, too, that time and an experienced and sympathetic person must be allowed for carrying out this plan. I should call this "socializing" the work of care of the aged and infirm blind. There are other things to be said, but these must serve as illustrations and suggestions. One thing more should be remembered, that in every state there are more resources for the blind than those especially designated for them, and these should be used first and to the utmost. I believe that the position of the blind in the community is bettered more when a blind man is admitted to the same work bench with the seeing; when an aged blind person is admitted to a home for the aged on the same terms as a seeing person; when a blind student is received at the university or college on the same scholarship that would be given a seeing man, than by double the number of special agencies for the blind.

To sum up, what I believe is true is this: that just as definitely as special schools arc needed, just as clearly as industrial opportunity was the opening note of this present movement for the blind, and prevention the highest note yet struck, so I believe that the characteristic method of the movement is going to be the socializing of all work for the blind, new and old. Everything we have heard so far at this convention convinces us that the need is being slowly recognized, and the method more or less employed in the most progressive bits of work under way. One of the greatest values of this method of organization is that it gives an equal hearing to the man who can pay his way and the one who cannot; to the laborer and the college graduate; to every one, from the old lady who wants self-threading needles, and the man who wants his artificial limb repaired, to the man who wishes to go to college. And I believe that it is only by working together under some such "flexible system" as I have outlined, for continuous years -- a system which correlates all the forces for the blind, from the time of occurrence of blindness, brings together promptly demand and supply, and looks for new developments in the light of conditions found in field work -- that we can demonstrate the possible degree of happiness and usefulness to be reached by the blind as a whole.