Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Harriet Martineau

"I could, if you'd tell me where you have been," replied he.

"Well, I will tell you my whole journey, and you shall show my friends here where I have been."

The little fellow did not make a single mistake. Up rivers, over mountains, across boundaries, round cataracts, along lakes, straight up to towns went his delicate fingers, as unerringly as our eyes. This is a triumph. It brings out the love of the blind pupils for geography; and with this, the proof that there are classes of ideas which we are ignorant or heedless of, and which yield a benefit and enjoyment which we can little understand, to those to whom they serve instead of visual ideas. What is our notion of a map and of the study of geography, putting visual ideas out of the question? The inquiry reminds one of Saunderson's reply from his deathbed to the conversation of a clergyman who was plying the blind philosopher with the common arguments in Natural Theology: "You would fain have me allow the force of your arguments, drawn from the wonders of the visible creation; but may it not be that they only seem to you wonderful? for you and other men have always been wondering how I could accomplish many things which seem to me perfectly simple."

The best friends and most experienced teachers of the blind lay down, as their first principle in the education of their charge, that the blind are to be treated in all possible respects like other people; and these respects are far more numerous than the inexperienced would suppose. One of the hardest circumstances in the lot of a blind child is that his spirits are needlessly depressed, and his habits made needlessly dependant. From his birth, or from the period of his loss of sight, he never finds himself addressed in the every-day human voice. He hears words of pity from strangers, uttered in tones of hesitating compassion; and there is a something in the voices of his parents when they speak to him which is different from their tone towards their other children. Everything is done for him. He is dressed, he is fed, he is guided. If he attempts to walk alone, some one removes every impediment which lies in his way. A worse evil than even helplessness arises out of this method of treatment. The spirits and temper are injured. The child is depressed when some one is not amusing him, and sinks into apathy when left to himself. If there is the slightest intermission or abatement of tenderness in the tone in which he is addressed, he is hurt. If he thinks himself neglected for a moment, he broods over the fancied injury, and in his darkness and silence nourishes bad passions. The experienced students of the case of the blind hint at worse consequences still arising from this pernicious indulgence of the blind at home. Unless the mind be fully and independently exercised, and unless the blind be drawn off from the contemplation of himself as an isolated and unfortunate, if not injured being, the animal nature becomes too strong for control, and some species of sensual vice finishes the destruction which ill-judged indulgence began.

In the New-England Institution at Boston, the pupils are treated, from the time of their entrance, like human beings who come to be educated. All there are on an equality, except a very few of the people about the house. The teachers are blind, and so all have to live on together on the same terms. It is a community of persons with four senses. It is here seen at once how inexpressibly absurd it is to be spending time and wasting energy in bemoaning the absence of a fifth power, while there are four existing to made use of. The universe is around them to be studied, and life is before them to be conquered; and here they may be set vigorously on their way. At first the pupils bitterly feel the want of the caressing and pampering they have been used to at home. Some few, who have come in too late, are found to have been irretrievably incapacitated by it; but almost all revive in a surprisingly short time, and experience so much enjoyment from their newly-acquired independence, their sense of safety, their power of occupation, the cessation of all pity and repining, and the novel feeling of equality with those about them, that they declare themselves to have entered upon a new life. Many drop expressions resembling that of one of the pupils, who declared that she never thought before that it was a happy thing to live.

Their zeal about their occupations appears remarkable to those who do not reflect that holyday is no pleasure to the blind, and idleness a real punishment, as it is the one thing of which they have had too much all their lives. They are eager to be busy from morning till night; and the care of their teachers is to change their employments frequently, as there is but little suspension of work. They have a playground, with swings and other means of exercise; but one of the greatest difficulties in the management is to cause these to be made a proper use of. The blind are commonly indisposed to exercise; and in the New-England Institution little is done in this way, though the pupils are shut out into the open air once, and even twice a day in summer, the house doors actually closed against them. They sit down in groups and talk, or bask in some sunny corner of the grounds, hurrying back at the first signal to their books, their music, their mat and basket making, sewing, and travels on the map.

Another great difficulty is to teach them a good carriage and manners. Blind children usually fall into a set of disagreeable habits while other children are learning to look about them. They wag their heads, roll their eyes, twitch their elbows, and keep their bodies in a perpetual seesaw as often as they are left to themselves; and it is surprising how much time and vigilance are required to make them sit, stand, and walk like other people. As all directions to this purpose must appear to them purely arbitrary, their faith in their instructers has to be drawn upon to secure their obedience in these particulars, and the work to be done is to break the habits of a life; so that it really seems easier to them to learn a science or a language than to hold up their heads and sit still on their chairs. The manners of the blind usually show a great bashfulness on the surface of a prodigious vanity. This is chiefly the fault of the seeing with whom they have intercourse. If their compassionate visiters would suppress all tears and sighs, make an effort to forget all about the sense that is absent, and treat them, on the ground of the other four, as they would treat all other pupils in any other school, the demeanour of the blind would nearly cease to be peculiar. Their manners are rectified easily enough by the only method which can ever avail for the cure of bad manners; by cultivating their kindly feelings and their self-respect, and by accustoming them to good society.

The studies at the institution at Boston are appointed according to the principles laid down in the valuable report of the gentleman, Dr. Howe, who studied the case of the blind in Europe, and who is now at the head of the establishment under our notice. Among other principles is this, "that the blind can attain as much excellence in mathematical, geographical, astronomical, and other sciences, as many seeing persons; and that he can become as good a teacher of music, language, mathematics, and other sciences; all this and yet more can he do." The ambition, from the very beginning of the enterprise, was far higher than that of rescuing a few hundreds of blind persons from pauperism and dependant habits; it was proposed to try how noble a company of beings the blind might be made, and thus to do justice to the individuals under treatment, and to lift up the whole class of the sightless out of a state of depression into one of high honour, activity, and cheerfulness. The story, besides being a pleasant one, is a fair illustration of American charity in its principles and in its methods, and I will therefore give it in brief. I do not believe there exists in American literature any work breathing a more exhilarating spirit of hopefulness, a finer tone of meek triumph, than the Reports of the New-England Institution for the Education of the Blind.

It appears to be only about five-and-forty years since the education of the blind was first undertaken; and it is much more recently that any just idea has been formed by anybody of the actual number of the blind. Even now few are aware how numerous they are. The born-blind are far fewer than those who lose their sight in infancy. Taken together, the numbers are now declared to be, in Egypt, one blind to every three hundred; in Middle Europe, one to every eight hundred; in North Europe, one in a thousand. In the United States, the number of blind is supposed to be eight thousand at the very least.

The announcement of this fact caused a great sensation in New-England. The good folks there who had been accustomed to bestow their kindness each on some sightless old man or woman, or some petted blind child in his own village, had not thought of comparing notes to ascertain how many such cases there were, and were quite unaware of the numbers who in towns sit wearing their cheerless lives away by their relations' firesides; no immediate stimulus of want sending them forth into the notice of the rich and the philanthropic.