The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1911-02-05

miserably when applied to the case of
the blind baby
Until the International Sunshine society
established the Home for Blind Babies"
such infants took their chances with spe-
cial attendants always unscientific and
often unsympathetic, if the parents were
more than well-to-do people, or in middle
| class homes were fed and washed and
pitied by affectionate mothers whose
ideas of drawing out the mind were
primitive and impossible; or in the wage
earning class they were left long hours
each day, locked in rooms or even tied
up, to guard against accident. while the
mother earned a living: or. If foundlings
they were picked up and classed as idiots
and made to become idiots by institu-
| tional surroundings.
| For example, Randall's island, which
takes all children of New York city who
are direct dependents on public charity
| took blind babies with the rest 1t had
neither the needed appropriation nor the
| space, nor the trained assistance requisite
| especially to care for the blind. 1t had
no place to put them save with the other
detectives, and 1t put them there. In
| all the United States there was and is
| now, so far as have been able to dis
cover, no institution for blind babies,
outside of The International Sunshine So
ciety's activities. The city institution
here takes children over years The
state institution at Batavia takes them at
s years. if they are bright and normal
outside of their blindness and have been
taught to care for themselves in a meas
| ure. The age limit at six schools In the
| United Statets is 5 years, at one 1t is IL.
| Help toward mental unfolding and nor
NAL physical development is what the
! bind baby needs, rather than pity; and
| pity Is even a disadvantage in that 1t
saps the self-respect of any human being
| to be pitied. Mother love- in the home
too often shields the blind child from
| what is best for it. The little legs are
unemployed for fear of fall downstairs
| or some other injury. The child is fed on
| liquids because 1t Is afraid of solids in The
mouth, even of sugar Jumps, instead Of
being encouraged to chew and digest what
10 strengthening and what the stomach
and the whole system needs. The picking
at the eyes, common to all blind chill
dren--a perilous phase of the sight-lust,
probably producing a sensation like the
| seeing of stars from fall-goes on
without check in the home. The mother
| does not know that 1t means real idiocy or
death II not restrained.
In the Dyker Heights home the little
| body is nourished, oiled, massaged, while
of SO cases only one has been given up
as helpless. But often 1t was months be-
fore any sign of mind appeared In that
of one little girl 1t took two years to teach
her that her hand could grasp an OBJ
| ject and lay 1t down at will. Now she
walks and talks, and shows much inteli-
j gence Another little girl was years
old when five years ago we took her
from the Randall's Island Idiot depart
ment," where she was thought to be I'M
trainable, hopelessy ,feeble-minded. She
! Is now in the fifth reader. New York
point. The other day she said to gentle
man who called at the home. "Oh. l am
taking the literary course at the city
school,"
i These children are often hampered not
| only by blindness, but by having beer
i partly crippled by non-use Of limbs. The
workers at the Dyker Heights Home have
trained 50 children and graduated 81
many of whom have entered the New
York School for the Blind, at Thirty.
! fourth street and Ninth avenue, where
the required age is 3 wears end here
they are all doing we'll. Dyker Heights
| Home is a demonstration OF what II
needed, and an illustration of the way
the need can best be met
When the New Jersey Home for Blind
Babies was first projected there was 9