| Victoria | 1082 | Tasmania | 173 |
| New South Wales | 884 | New Zealand | 274 (1891) |
| South Australia | 315 | Natal | 68 |
| Queensland | 209 | Cape Colony | 2802 (1904) |
| West Australia | 121 | Canada | 3279 |
In Australia there are institutions for the blind at Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Brighton, Brisbane and Maylands near Perth. In New Zealand the institution is at Auckland.
In Cape Colony between 1875 and 1891, there was an extraordinary increase in blindness, but between 1891 and 1904 the rate per 10,000 has decreased 23.78%. There is an institution at Worcester for deaf-mutes and blind, founded in 1881. It is supported by a government grant, fees and subscription.
Schools for the blind were established by the Dominion government at Brantford, Ontario (1871), and Halifax, Nova Scotia (1867).
In Montreal there are two private institutions, the M‘Kay Institute for Protestant Deaf-Mutes and Blind, and a school for Roman Catholic children under the charge of the Sisters of Charity.
In the United States the education of the blind is not regarded as a charity, but forms part of the educational system of the country, and is carried on at the public expense. According to the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education United States. for 1908, there were 40 state schools, with 4340 pupils. The value of apparatus, grounds and buildings was $9,201,161. For salaries and other expenditure, the aggregate was $1,460,732. The United States government appropriates $10,000 annually for printing embossed books, which are distributed among the different state schools for the blind. Beside these state schools, there are workshops for the blind subsidized by the state government or the municipality. Commissions composed of able men have recently been appointed in several of the states to take charge of the affairs of the blind from infancy to old age. The exhaustive summary of the 12th census enables these commissions to communicate with every blind person in their respective states.
At the 12th census a change was made in the plan for securing the returns, and the work of the enumerators was restricted to a brief preliminary return, showing only the name, sex, age, post office address, and nature of the existing defects in all persons alleged to be blind or deaf. Dr Alexander Graham Bell, of Washington, D.C., was appointed expert special agent of the census office for the preparation of a report on the deaf and blind. He was empowered to conduct in his own name a correspondence relating to this branch of the census inquiry. A circular containing eighteen questions was addressed to every blind person given in the census, and from the data contained in the replies the following tables (I., II., III., IV.) have been compiled.
Table I.—The Blind, by Degree of Blindness and Sex.
| Sex. | The Blind. | The Totally Blind. | The Partially Blind. |
| Number— | |||
| Total | 64,763 | 35,645 | 29,118 |
| Male | 37,054 | 20,144 | 16,190 |
| Female | 27,709 | 15,501 | 12,208 |
| Per cent distribution— | |||
| Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| Male | 57.2 | 56.5 | 58.1 |
| Female | 42.8 | 43.5 | 41.9 |
| Number per 1,000,000 population of same sex— | |||
| Both sexes | 852 | 469 | 383 |
| Male | 955 | 519 | 436 |
| Female | 745 | 417 | 328 |
The enumerators reported a total of 101,123 persons alleged to be blind as defined in the instructions contained in the schedules, but this number was greatly reduced as a result of the correspondence directly with the individuals, 8842 reporting that the alleged defect did not exist, and 6544 that they were blind only in one eye but were able to see with the other, and hence did not come within the scope of the inquiry. No replies were received in 19,884 cases in which personal schedules were sent, although repeated inquiries were made; consequently these cases were dropped. In 380 cases the personal schedules returned were too incomplete for use, and in 75 cases duplication was discovered. The number of cases remaining for statistical treatment, after making the eliminations and corrections, was 64,763, representing 35,645 totally blind, and 29,118 partially blind. This number, however, can be considered only as the minimum, as an unknown proportion of the blind were not located by the enumerators, and doubtless a considerable proportion of the 19,884 persons who failed to return the personal schedules should be included in the total.