Alas! if there could be only a seat of learning for the blind, with all its lessons oral or in the form of lectures, as at most of the German Universities, what could we not achieve?
But, as it is, enough renowned have arisen from our ranks to prove that, while blindness fetters the hands and the feet, it verily adds wings to thought. Indeed, the world has but one Homer, who sits forever shrouded in darkness, the veiled god and father of song; and but one Milton, who gave to the world its "Paradise Lost" and its "Paradise Regained," while he bequeathed to the blind of all ages the glory and the beacon light of his name.
EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.
A brief description of the methods employed in their literary, artistic and industrial education.
I should not consider this work finished without a chapter on the mode of educating those who have been so unfortunate as to be deprived of the readiest medium through which education is imparted—the sight. The systems, although some of them are in use in nearly every State in the Union, are very little understood, and are always inquired into with every evidence of interest by visitors to the institutions, where they often express quite as much surprise as gratification at what they see. I have therefore, in the following, endeavored to give as full a description as possible of the various methods and appliances employed to convey through the sense of feeling, information to which our eyes are closed.
On entering the schools the children are generally wholly uneducated, and have first to be taught the form and value of letters. To effect this the letters are raised, and the pupil learns their form by passing the fingers over them till their forms, names and their use are fully understood. With some this is a long and tedious task, but others master it in a short time. I mastered the alphabet in one day, but I was not a child and had a mind sharpened by experience. By constant exercise the sense of feeling becomes so acute that very slight differences of form are readily detected, and reading by the touch becomes an easily mastered art. Having thus the key of knowledge the subsequent progress of the student is in his own hands, and, to the credit of the afflicted, it must be said it is generally very rapid, one reason for which is that loss of sight shuts off one fruitful source of distraction, and the mind is more easily concentrated. Another reason is that the necessity for education is generally appreciated, and the student is eager to acquire it.
The form and use of figures is taught in a similar manner, but the teaching of arithmetic is largely mental, on account of the difficulty of producing raised figures with sufficient rapidity, and the study of higher mathematics is pursued even more strictly from oral teaching.
The art of writing, which, to those not acquainted with the educating of the blind, is considered the most difficult task, becomes comparatively easy. It is a two-fold art, including the art of writing for blind readers and the ordinary Roman script. Of the "blind writing" there are several systems, but in this I shall be content to describe but two—the pin type and the "New York Point System." The first consists of movable types, the letters on which are formed of pin points, and with which the writer impresses the paper one letter at a time, producing the letter raised on the opposite side of the paper, which, on being reversed, may be read with eye or fingers. The point system is the arrangement and combination of six dots on two lines. Those on the upper line are numbered 1, 3 and 5, and those on the lower 2, 4 and 6. These are made within spaces about three-sixteenths of an inch square each, by a styles which resembles a small, dull awl or centre punch. To prevent the dots being confused the writer uses a writing board, to which the paper is clamped by a metallic guide-rule perforated with two or more rows of these squares. The pupils make these punctured letters with great precision and rapidity, and frequently conduct their correspondence with their friends by that means, giving them the alphabet and key by which to learn to read them.
The writing of ordinary script is performed with more difficulty. A grooved pasteboard is used for the purpose, the grooves being of the width of the smaller letters. The letters extending above or below the line are gauged by the ridge. The right hand is followed close by the left, which guards the written lines from a second tracing of the pencil, and marks the spaces. By these methods correspondence is maintained between the blind and their distant friends, and it is even possible for a blind merchant to keep his own books if necessary.