The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1869-01-02
HOW THE BLIND SEE.

HOW THE BLIND SEE.
A recent number of the London
QUARTERLY REVIEW hos an exceedingly
interesting article on the training of the
blind, from which we take few Incl
dents:
In the year 17l2, in room at Cam
bridge University, were three learned
and famous men. Two of them were
antiquarics as we'll as scholars, and
We're discussing some Roman coins
which Law before them on a table. One
of these had been purchased as rare
and matchless gem by the elder of the
two collectors, and both were agreed as
to its extreme value, and differed only
as to its exact date. "Thcir friend by
the fire took no part in the discussion,
but at last, when the coin was handed
him for examination and Judgment, his
answer was prompt and decided enough.
Strange to say, he did not glance at the
medal, but having felt it over very
carefully with the tips of his fingers,
he next applied it to his tongue. This
done he quietly laid the headless Au-
gustus down on the table, saying as he
did so: so Be, or SO AID; the thing
isn't worth a shilling; l doubt very
much its being gold, and Pm sure it
isn't Roman; and the next day proved
that he was in the right. The thing
that had been shown to him and de-
tcctcd, was a clever counterfeit, got up
for the occasion of an antiquarian sale.
Yet this keen judge was blind man,
and had never set eyes on coin, good,
bad or Indifferent having lost not only
his cycsight, but even his very eye
balls, by the small poX in 1852, when
but a twelve month old. He was now
Lucasian professor of Mathematics in
the first university of the world, friend
of Wilton, HALEY, and Sir Isaac New
ton, whose Principle formed the chief
subject of his public lectures"
His whole life had been one of strik-
ing interest. At the Free School in
Pcnnistone, in Yorkshire, and, with the
help of q reader and few books, he
managed to acquire such a knowledge
of the masters in their original Greek
and Latin, as to have become, at the
age of twenty-five, famous teacher in
Cambridge.
The blind man must acquire all his
knowledge by the touch and hearing,
and it is instructive to observe how ac-
,curatcly, in the institutions for training
the blind these senses may be cultivated
to supply the place of others. In a
month all the plain-sailing is fairly
mastered He can find his way from
the. dining-room to the basket-shop, and
down that shop, one hundred and fifty
wards long, just to the very site of his
own box on which he sits to split the
withes for baskct-work. He knows his
own box, too, from Smiths and Browns
on either side of him. In year he
will know, probably, his own tools from
theirs by some little flaw or feature not
patent to the eye of looker-on. His
.senses of touch and hearing are being
SILENTLY and surely educated; as theil
education progresses they become kcenel
hearing as sharp and Watchful sen
tincl, guide, and spy; touch is his ser
want of all work and detective. To the
seeing touch is an auxiliary, but to the
blind boy it is the primary sense of all
Bv it he knows his own clothes, and
almost all the property that he possesses
his tools, box bed, hat, fiddle, cup
board, scat in chapel, school-room, and
workshop; by it he reads his chapter
in St. John, or in Robinson Crusoe; he
pia@s chess or dominocs; works sun
in long division, or writes letter
home to his mother, which she
can read with ier eyes and he with
his fnners BY the help Of touch he
wcavcs a RUG OF coIored WOODS, eapbrac
ing every variety Ct scroll work. OF o
those peculiar flowers and fruits which
grow only on carpet land, or fringes
with delicate green and red, door-ma
for lady's boudoir."
The hearing of the blind II no less
trusting than the sight. The deserip
ton of the basket-shop of the institu
ton in st. Georges Fields, is full o
interest. 1t is large and lofty room
some twenty feet wide by one hundred
and twenty feet long, and in it are a
work about fifty boys and men. ether
is generally a teacher, with sight, a
either end of the room; but oatt IL BOY
inst going to fetch some osiers fror
another part of the building. Gu
friend, little Trottcr, is at work half wa
down the room, bat has met with som
'a;ug difficulty n9t to hp solved Will
I'LL -~haF's help. Fhc ffty boy
out his te'- ''~sst oil talking as the
and men are a. --rui6g q tnne, {
work, or perhaps hu- s.~ IL iron
beating their work with
and some are crossing the rOohl
search of tools, help, or advice so that
altogether the scene is full of nols..
life, and is unlike shop full of blin'
people as may well be imagined. Blu
lin the midst of all the noise, Trotte
sits quietly waiting; he knows that tn
master went out of the room five mir
utes a 20 Che will tell you he saw hll
co., and though several persons hav
since come in at that door, he know
that his teacher is not one of the few
All at once he starts up, as the doc
shuts with bang, and the pupil walk
quickly up the room, in direct line, q
if he saw the table at which his teache
now sits"