Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/207

* BLIND. 177 BLIND. Roman letter for reading and the point for writ- ing and nuisie. Since the time of Haiiy thoughtful educators have dwelt on the importance of using seeing methods as far as possible for the instruction of the blind. The point is to rescue the sightless from segregation as a class apart, and to give tliem as many interests as possible in common with the rest of the world. Thus, owing to the intluenee of Mr. Gall, the modified Roman letter ■was adopted by the Royal Society of Arts. In 1S51 the Royal Commissioners of the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Xations, held in London, recommended the universal adoption of Dr. Howe's books (the Boston type). In 1S72 the .merican Association of Instructors of the Blind passed a series of resolutions in favor of the adoption as far as practicable of seeing meth- ods. In 1876 the London School Board, after a patient and careful examination of the argu- ments advanced by some of the ablest educators of the blind in England, decided to adopt the methods used by seeing children in ordinary schools. In the reports of the Perkins Institu- tion, Dr. Howe urged constantly the minimizing in every possible way the ditTerence between the blind and the seeing. Dr. Frank Rainey, of the Texas Institution, read before the World's Con- gress of the Educators of the Blind, held in Chi- cago in 1893, an able paper on this subject. He said, among other things: "If we use the ordi- nary methods, the cliild will think and talk like seeing persons, whereas if we use odd or extra- ordinary methods, it will not have the same con- ceptions of concrete things as we do." A great advantage of the Roman letter over the point is that blind children can get their early training from teachers in the public school, or from their parents, under the former system, and they themselves can in turn, after they have grown up, teach seeing children, making fairly good governesses for families. The punctuation of the point system is complicated, and the omis- sion or abrasion of one single point alters the entire letter. "Any system where frequent sub- stitution of its characters is necessary for its perfection is essentially weak in all its parts, and is fearfully defective in that its structure depends upon position, reversion, and substitu- tion." The principal printing establishments in the United States are : ( 1 ) The American Printing House for the Blind at Louisville, Ky. Congress has since 1879 appropriated .$10,000 a year in support of this enterprise, the publications being distributed pro rata among the institutions of this country. ( 2 ) The Howe Memorial Press at the Perkins Institution, Boston, which has an endowment fund of nearly .$1.50,000, raised by private subscription. The first circulating library for the blind in the L'nited States was established at the Perkins Institution in 1882, althougli books had been lent to the blind free of charge before this time. Philadelphia and New York also liave libraries of this sort, and departments for the blind have been instituted in the State Library of Xew York at Albany, and in several of the principal cities of Xew England. Apparatus. Among the early appliances for writing may be mentioned the "string alphabet' invented by Messrs. Milne and Bain, of the Edinburgh Asylum. It consisted of knots tied upon cord. Gall's writing-stamps, which date from 1838. were much used. Saint Clair and Gall invented processes for guiding the pencil in an ingenious but slow and tedious way. Giild- berg, of Copenhagen, also invented a method of pencil-writing. The modem methods employed in the best American institutions are (1) "the ordinary typewriter and (2) tablets for point- writing, according to the Braille and kindred systems. This has the great advantage of being legible by the blind themselves, but is a slow process. It is gradually replaced in advanced work by the Ilall-Braille writer — an adaptation of the principles of the typewriter to the print- ing of point characters, made by ilr. Frank H. Hall, of the Illinois Institution for tlie Blind. The followers of the Xew York point system use a similar macliine called the kaleidograph, the invention of ilr. Wait, of the Xew Y'ork Institu- tion. A third process consi.sts in writing with a pencil on a grooved sheet of cardboard or alumin- ium, thus forming a square handwriting. This method has the advantage of extreme simplicity and cheapness, and has been much used by the blind for many years. For aritlimciic, W. H. Taylor, of Y^ork, Eng- land, invented an octagonal ciphering-board, with cells into which type may be placed in different positions to represent the digits. A modification of this board was made at the Perkins Institu- tion and manufactured by one of its graduates. For the study of natural history, relief repre- sentations of animals are employed, also stuffed specimens of birds and animals. Papier-niachg models, life-size, assist the blind in the study of anatomy, while for botany these are greatly enlarged. The early maps for the blind were made in Europe, on hoards and by hand, the process being tedious and expensive. " Dr. Howe, in 1836, in- vented an atlas which is thought io have been the first book of maps for the blind ever made. At the present time the blind are aided in their study of geography by wooden wall-maps in relief: dissected maps, also of wood, made at the American Printing House for the Blind, Louis- ville, Ky., and at the Perkins Institution in Bos- ton; and embossed maps printed on paper by the British and Foreign Blind Association, London, and by Mr. Kunz, Illzaeh, Alsace. All the l-i)idcrgarte>i occupations, except draw- ing and painting or color work, are used with the blind children. In the kindergarten at Jamaica Plain, Mass., the following changes have been made in the ordinary appliances, to fit them for the use of the blind: The tables are nnrkcd out in inch squares by grooves instead of bv lines. For the use of the gift representing surface, line, and point, frames 2 inches high and the length and breadth of the kindergarten tables have been prepared. These frames are stuffed with horse- hair, and covered with cloth stitched in inch squares with coarse silk. The cushions thus formed are placed on the tables, and the tablet rings and half rings (having been previously drilled, two holes in each) are pinned en to the cushions. Sticks large enough to have holes drilled in them are used in place of the regular kindergarten sticks, and beads one-quarter inch in diameter are used to represent the point. By pinning the forms they make to these cualiions, the children are able to examine their work with their fingers without displacing it, and can thus