of future self-maintenance. A kindergarten department was opened in 1881. In July 1896 Queen’s Scholarship examinations were held at the Royal Normal College, for the first time, for blind students, and the institution recognized by the Education Department as a training college for blind school-teachers.
From the first day a pupil enters school until he finishes his course of training, care must be taken to implant business habits. Blind children are allowed to be idle and helpless at home; they do not learn to appreciate the value of time, and in after years this is one of the most difficult Educational needs.lessons to inculcate. Having drifted through childhood, they are content to drift through life. The important habits of punctuality, regularity and precision should be cultivated in all the arrangements and requirements. A great effort should be made to lift the blind from pauperism. As soon as pupils enter a school, all semblance of pauper origin should be removed. They must be inspired with a desire for independence and a belief in its possibility. In the public mind blindness has been so long and closely associated with dependence and pauperism that schools for the blind, even the most progressive, have been regarded hitherto as asylums rather than educational establishments. A sad mistake in the training of the blind is the lack of an earnest effort to improve their social condition. The fact that their education has been left to charity has helped to keep them in the ranks of dependents.
The question of day-classes versus boarding-schools has been much discussed. It is claimed by some that a blind child gains more independence if kept at home and educated in a school with the seeing. This theory is not verified by practical experience. At home its blindness makes the child an exception, and often it takes little or no part in the active duties of everyday life. Again, in a class of seeing children the blind member is treated as an exception. The memory is cultivated at the expense of the other faculties, and the facility with which it recites in certain subjects causes it to make a false estimate of its attainments. The fundamental principles in different branches are imperfectly understood, from the failure to follow the illustrations of the teacher. In the playgrounds, a few irrepressibles join in active games, but most of the blind children prefer a quiet corner.
For the sake of economy, schools for deaf-mutes and the blind are sometimes united. As the requirements of the two classes are entirely separate and distinct, the union is undesirable, whether for general education or industrial training. The plan was tried in America, but has been given up in most of the states. To meet the difficulty of proper classification with small numbers, blind boys and girls are taught in the same classes. The acquaintances then made lead to intimacy in later years and foster intermarriage among the blind. Intermarriage among the blind is a calamity, both for them and for their children; some who might have been successful business men are to-day begging in the streets in consequence of intermarriage.
In every school or class there will be a certain number of young blind children who, from neglect, want of food, or other causes, are feeble in body and defective in intellect; such children are a great burden in any class or school, and require special treatment and instruction. Educational authorities should unite and have one or two schools in a healthful locality for mentally defective blind children.
More and more, in educational work for the seeing, there is a tendency to specialize, and thus enable each student to have the best possible instruction in the subjects that bear most directly on his future calling. To prepare the blind for self-maintenance, there should be an equally careful study of the ability of each child.
A scheme of education which has for its object to make the blind a self-sustaining class should include: kindergarten schools for children from 5 to 8 years of age; preparatory schools from 8 to 11; intermediate schools from 11 to 14. At 14 an intelligent opinion can be formed in regard to the future career of the pupils. They will fall naturally into the following categories:—(a) A certain number will succeed better in handicraft than in any other calling, and should be drafted into a suitable mechanical school. (b) A few will have special gifts for general business, and should be educated accordingly. (c) A few will have the ability and ambition to prepare for the university, and the special college should afford them the most thorough preparation for the university examinations. (d) Some will have the necessary talent, combined with the requisite character and industry, to succeed in the musical profession; in addition to a liberal education, these should have musical instruction, equal to that given to the seeing, in the best schools of music. (e) Some may achieve excellent success as pianoforte-tuners, and in a pianoforte-tuning school strict business habits should be cultivated, and the same attention to work required as is demanded of seeing workmen in well-regulated pianoforte factories.
The United Kingdom stands almost alone in allowing the education of the blind to depend upon charity. In the United States, each state government not only makes liberal provision for the education and training of the blind, but most of them provide grounds, buildings and a complete equipment in all departments. Although it costs much more per capita, from £40 to £60 per annum, the blind are as amply provided with the means of education as the seeing. The government of the United States appropriates $10,000 per annum for printing embossed books for the blind. Most of the European countries and the English colonies provide by taxation for the education of the blind.
Types
The earliest authentic records of tangible letters for the blind describe a plan of engraving the letters upon blocks of wood, the invention of Francesco Lucas, a Spaniard, who dedicated it to Philip II. of Spain in the 16th century. In 1640 Pierre Moreau, a writing-master in Paris, cast a movable leaden type for the use of the blind, but being without means to carry out his plan, abandoned it. Pins inserted in cushions were next tried, and large wooden letters. After these came a contrivance of Du Puiseaux, a blind man, who had metal letters cast and set them in a small frame with a handle. Whilst these experiments were going on in France, attempts had also been made in Germany. R. Weissembourg (a resident of Mannheim), who lost his sight when about seven years of age, made use of letters cut in cardboard, and afterwards pricked maps in the same material. By this method he taught Mlle Paradis, the talented blind musician and the friend of Valentin Haüy.
To Haüy belongs the honour of being the first to emboss paper as a means of reading for the blind; his books were embossed in large and small italics, from movable type set by his pupils. The following is an account of the origin of his discovery. Haüy’s first pupil was François Lesueur, a blind boy whom he found begging at the porch door of St Germain des Prés. While Lesueur was sorting the papers on his teacher’s desk, he came across a card strongly indented by the types in the press. The blind lad showed his master he could decipher several letters on the card. Immediately Haüy traced with the handle of his pen some signs on paper. The boy read them, and the result was printing in relief, the greatest of Haüy’s discoveries. In 1821 Lady Elizabeth Lowther brought embossed books and types from Paris, and with the types her son, Sir Charles Lowther, Bart., printed for his own use the Gospel of St Matthew. The work of Haüy was taken up by Mr Gall of Edinburgh, Mr Alston of Glasgow, Dr Howe of Boston, Mr Friedlander of Philadelphia, and others. In 1827 James Gall of Edinburgh embossed some elementary works, and published the Gospel of St John in 1834. His plan was to use the common English letter and replace curves by angles.
In 1832 the Edinburgh Society of Arts offered a gold medal for the best method of printing for the blind, and it was awarded to Dr Edmond Fry of London, whose alphabet consisted of ordinary capital letters without their small strokes. In 1836 the Rev. W. Taylor of York and John Alston in Glasgow began to print with Fry’s type. Mr Alston’s appeal for a printing fund met with a hearty response, and a grant of £400 was made by the treasury;
