Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-25
Help The Blino. "
The Real Way Which This Should Be Done and is Being
Done in Various Staes-Taught to Work in the Dark

Written Cor The Star
The heather In his blindness bows down
to wo and stone. It's easy to criticese
the heather. But what does civilization
give the blind man to do? Is a wheezy
hand organ a berth I'm almshouse,
after all, so far in advance?
Investigations have recently been made
by special state commissions in Massa-
chusetts and New York. and their findings
raise the question whether seeing people
have not been binder in looking upon the
problem OF the sightless than the blind peo-
pie themselves.
Since the days of DIR. Howe. schools for
teaching the young blind have been started
and maintained by nearly every state In
the Union, but these Investigations show
that as per cent of those twenty. the
usual age limit of admission to the existing
schools, lose their sight in adult life. ana
that these men and women to a very
great extent have as yet no opportunity
for Industrial training. What is true In
Massachusetts and New York-and a sim
liar private investigation being carried on
by the Pennsylvania Institution for the
Blind tends to CONFIRM It's probably true
In every other state in the Union.
1t is an appreciation OF this situation
which has led to a movement to meet the
needs of this neglected citizenship. The
movement is just started. New ground is
being broken. In Massachusetts Helen
Keller is taking a hand in 1t, and so Is
Charles f. F. Campbell, the son of a blind
Kentucklan. who has astOunded the English
public with the marvellous things he has
worked out head of the Royal College of
Music in London. In New York a state
association has Just been formed which Is
about to held a public mass meeting. at
which Jacob II. Choate, Mark Twain and
others Will speak. The February magazine
number of Charities and the Commons is
given up to the question
x
These things may be said to be slgnif-
cant of the present phase of the movement.
The first step is demand for facts-to find
out who the blind are. their age, the age
when they became blind; therefore the
work of these state commissions and the
advocacy OF permanent registries of the
blind. The second step is demand that
the scholastic institutions dealing with
blind youths shall prepare them more con-
cretely for after life. To train a blind boy
to read embossed letters, to appreciate lit
erature and music. to do some simple task,
does not necessarily mean that he can earn
his salt when he is turned loose on the
community. The third step is a demand
that agencies be devised to train indus
trially those who become blind after ma
turfty-not In most cases, as permanent in
dustrial backwater groups, where the in
efficient may be cared for because of their
sightlessness-but way stations through
WHICH the trained Dilnu may gain q foot
Ing In the economic life of their general ton.
These ends are aimed In bills now before
the New York and Massachusetts, Iegisla-
lures.
connecticut was the pioneer state to pro-
VIDE by a legislative enactment for the in
struction of adult blind. Mrs Foster OF
Hartford stumbled over a blind Italian
boy In dark passage of a tenement in
1888. She became interested In him and
in short time discovered more than fifty
blind people in Hartford. Almost before
she herself was aware of the fact her
heart, time and purse were enlisted in the
work. Through her efforts F. E. CIeave-
land lawyer, blind from early manhood
became interested and In 1893 the state
board of education for the blind was Gre
ated and the present Connecticut State
Institute for the Blind is the result There
over one hundred blind persons have re-
ceived Industrial instruction to render
them self-supporting. In Brooklyn the
Industrial Home for the Blind has be-
come factory where broom making mat
tress-maklng, cane-seating and net and
hammock weaving give steady employ
ment to group of blind workers living in
the community.
Whenever you see a basket or a piece