The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-03-13
Why Money is Needed to Educate
Blind Children.

The International Sunshine So
ciety, membership corporation in
corporated under the laws of the
| State of New York in 1900, began
doing the small things of life with
| the object simply to incite its mem
| bers to the performance of kind and
! helpful deeds. The aim was to do
! the thing that is needed when It is
needed whether the thing is q little
or a large one" This is the very
| fruitage of philanthropy.
Among the hundreds of things
! therefore presented to the society in
after years, came that of taking care
of blind babies.
We we're surprised to learn that
in the whole United States there was
no provision for blind children from
| babyhood up to school age, most all
! the institutions not taking them un-
| til eight years old.
We also discovered another thing
that the children of the very poor
seldom live to be eight years old
without becoming feeble-minded and
| idiotic. Few of the very poor chill
! dren live to be that age at all, for
the light hunger is so much greater
in a blind child than the hunger for
| food, that the little fingers do not
stop at the mouth as in the seeing
! children who suck their thumbs, but
! they pass right by to the eyes and
there they rub and dig, and dig, and
| poke their fingers in up to the
knuckles at times, therefore gener-
ally injuring the eyes and blood pois-
on sets in and the little one dies.
The world, thoughtlessly, says,
| Ill o. -
that it didn't live" never realizing
proper attention it would have liv-
ed and grown up like any other,
| bright and beautiful both physically
and mentally.
Discovering that there were insti-
tutions all over this beautiful coun-
! try for animals of all kinds-for
everything, in fact, in the way of
protection but for the helpless of all
human beings, blind babies, we kept
| the first child brought to us and
gave it into the care of a nurse and
sent out calls for help to open a nur-
sery until we could see what could
! be done.
1t is a long story. We found no
record anywhere of small blind chill
dren-blind babies as we call them.
! In visiting the departments of feeble
minded, and the poor-houses and
the institutions where these little
ones are sent, we discovered the
blind child. In many cases the
nurses did not know they were blind.
Some of them had beautiful eyes,
others were digging their eyes and
mutilating them so that the nurses
simply thought of them as extraor-
dinarily idiotic.
The city officials helped in every
way possible. We borrowed the
children for a while to see if any
thing could be done with them, and
! finally we got bill through at AL
bany permitting the city to pay us a
dollar day for each child committed
to our care. OF course this bill is
not mandatory. The Board of Esti-
mate, not understanding the great
care of these children are and the
need of the best nurses and teachers,
naturally thought that sixty cents a
day a big amount to pay, and We
were glad indeed to get that much
held. Some day we hope to get the
whole dollar.
We took all of these supposedly
blind idiots and put them in charge
of graduate nurses for hospital care,
graduate kindergartners for mental
training and the best trained nurses
and helpers that we could secure.
| This cost lot of money. We have
fought hard and long to prove to the
world that to educate the blind
properly one must begin with them
when babies and not wait until they
are eight years old. When the brains
have been eight years lying unde-
veloped and all parts of their body
left unframed, it is impossible for a
child to overcome the peculiarities
and awkardness that it has fallen in
to during the eight years of its men
tai darkness.
We have already graduated
many of these children from our kim
dergarten to the New York lnstitu-
| tion for the Blind on 34th street,
New York City. Some of them at
the head of their classes. Twenty
( five little ones who had been virtu-
ally thrown away by the world as
not worth saving are now considered
exceptionally bright. Only one little
fellow failed to respond 10 our care.
/ attribute his condition to the fact
that he used to butt his head against
the wall hours at time when in the
idiot department, and being a baby
his head was tender and pliable and
it is now out of shape"
While he is gentle and does some
bright things, we have despaired of
his ever being other than feeble
minded; even the pain that he felt
while pumping his head against the
wall, was pleasure to him and he
would if allowed, content himself
this way for hours because of the
comfort he felt in just doing it. He
beat his heel on the ground until it
was all bruises. The nurse who had
him in charge thought because of his
actions that he was an idiot. His
brain was only trying to live, and the
little soul was simply struggling to
find itself"
We have therefore demonstrated
to our perfect satisfaction that to
educate the blind, they must be sent
as early as possible to an institution
that is a nursery, hospital, kinder
garten and home combined, and the
baby must be cared for from the
/ m inuta nf itG blindnass