The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-12

Boks for the blind are most important feature in modern educational movements. Far back Tn the sixteenth century Lucas of Saragossa traced letters In the hol- l low of a wooden block for blind friends In 16iO Moseau of Paris devised characters in relief. In 1771 Valentin Hauy saw the ptiful antics of blind men at a Paris fair and decided to devote his life to putting books in their hands. He began his work with a little street beggar, for whose time he had to pay the par ents, and with this Paris gamin the edu- cation of the blind through books was begun.
 The blind have led the blind. William Moon who lived in the early half of the nineteenth century devoted his life to teaching others like himself and invented the aipiabet which bears his name. San derson, an English scholar constructed the first calculating tables for the blind. Braille of Paris, blind at three, invented the point system of writing in relief, bas- ing his alphabet on the cryptographic sys- tenn of Barbier, an artillery officer. David Miller, a blind man, was one of the founders of the Royal Blind asylum and school in Edinburgh. Dr. Klein, also blind, founded the Vienna institute in 1894, and in 1872 a blind American took abroad the training he had received here and founded the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind In London.
 The blind have also led the seeting. Homer, Milton, Ossian the Celtic bard; Carolan, the Irish lyric poet; Diodotus the stole philosopher and preceptor of Cicero; Auf1dius Bassus, the Roman au- thority on Greek histohy; Didymus of Alexandria, theolog1an and teacher of St. Jerome; Huber, the Swiss naturalist, all were blind America Is proud of Fan ny Crosby, the blind hymn writer; of James Wilson of Virginia, one of her early nineteenth century writers; of Blind Tom, that combination of idiocy and genius. Madeline Wallace, a deaf-blind girl of New York, is the first of her af- fliction to be received into the order of the cloistered nuns of St. Dominic.
 Edward Baxter Perry has for twenty years played before American audiences, learning before music was printed for the blind Kate MeGirr, a girl of the west, learned all the seven systems of raised print before she was 21. 1nomas Stringer, a pupil at the Perkins institute, has done some excellent mechanical and electrical work Linnie Haguewood of Iowa used the Braille writing machine the first time 1t was placed before her, and at recent exhibit of arts and crafts work of the blind i'm Cleveland
 
 lie exhibition of rug weaving in colors As piano tuners, the blind have long been successful. In Boston they have tuned the school pianos for twenty-five years Two men in Berkeley, Cal, recently built themselves bungalow, unaided.
 The Wisconsin workshop for the blind at Milwaukee is the only one of it's kind in the country. Excellent baskets are made there, and 1t is not charitable institution. It is a purely business enter prise where the blind work, and make so much a week, supporting not only them, selves but in many instances, others as well.
 In 1879 Congress passed an tact to pro- mote the education of the blind" by which the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville receives $lv,000 a year for printing literature in point type. The Howe Memorial Press of the Per kins institute, endowed with $150,000 by private subscription, is the other large printing house for the blind in this coun- try. A few years ago Rev. Joseph M. Staddlcman of New York printed a free Catholic magazine for the use of the blind One of the greatest helps of the age to Zieger Magazines for the Blind, a free publication that Is financed by Mrs. Will liam Ziegler of New York and edited by Walter G. Holmes. This publication Is in Braille type and carries @ particularly high class of literature into the homes of all who ask it.