A book emphasizing the duty of the people to educate the blind was
published in both Italian and French as early as 1646. However, until the education of the deaf had
been proved feasible, efforts in behalf of the blind met with slight encouragement, although
Rousseau and others had endeavored to stimulate interest in the subject. But
in 1784
Valentin Hauy
opened a school for the blind in Paris. In 1791 a
similar school was opened in England. Within a few years Europe had a total of 20, and the results
were both encouraging and astounding.
Among American institutions of this character, the New England Asylum, chartered in 1829 and
opened at Boston in 1832, was the first incorporated.
The New York Institution for the Blind,
chartered in 1831, was the first to open its doors; while a Society of Friends opened the
Philadelphia institution in 1833. It was greatly to the advantage of the New England Asylum that Dr.
Samuel G. Howe, who was chosen director, had already supplemented his medical training,
received at Harvard, by broadening experiences and professional studies in Europe. Moreover,
immediately after his selection for the peculiarly exacting duties of this new field, he had gone again
to Europe for such knowledge as personal inspection alone could give concerning the best of their
institution for the blind.
Like the first American school for the deaf, in Connecticut, this Massachusetts school received
state aid from the first. Like the Connecticut institution also, it
for some time received numerous pupils supported by legislative appropriations of other states.
Under the able direction of Dr. Howe, which continued for 45 years, the New England Asylum, now
long known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind, became the greatest school of its character in
the world. The public exhibitions given by its pupils, and particularly those given before some 17
state Legislatures, did much to stimulate the establishment of similar schools in other
commonwealths; and the successful education of blind deaf-mutes, such as Laura Bridgman and
Helen Keller, by its methods, has given the Institution world-wide fame.
The approximately 70 American state schools of today report about 550 teachers and 5500 pupils.
Their libraries contain some 35,000 printed volumes, for the use of teachers, and more than 80,000
volumes in raised type for their pupils. They control properties valued at about $10,000,000 and
expend more than $1,500,000 per annum.
In general, the American schools aim to give their pupils practically the same literary training as
other children receive in city graded and high schools. Those who show special aptitude are given
greater opportunity in both vocal and instrumental music. A printing establishment maintained by
the Perkins Institution, and another at Louisville Ky., which receive regular appropriations from
Congress, furnish material of many sorts. The American Braille and the New York point systems
are now in very general use, and are perhaps most successful. By these systems, raised points
represent the sounds for which we ordinarily use letters; just as various other symbols serve the
telegrapher and the stenographer, and flashes of light, the operator who sends messages over the
submarine cables of the world. In writing, the student places his sheet of paper on a grooved
surface and makes perforations with a stiletto, working from right to left. When the sheet is turned
over, as one turns the page of a book, the fingers move from left to right along the
line of these perforations, and their position indicates the words just as letters do for us. But these
schools aim not only to give literary training, but especially to overcome such physical weakness
as is most common among the blind, and also to teach such occupations, of one sort and another,
as may safely be depended upon for a livelihood.
In more recent years some of the larger public libraries have begun to include collections of books
for the blind. In some of the states attempts are being made to direct the training in their own
homes of those who have lost their sight after reaching maturity. Typewriters which do the work
commonly required of such machines, and at the same time make for the blind operator a duplicate
written according to the point system, have been perfected. These materially widen the field of
employment for the blind, which even now remains sadly restricted. For years the pianos in the city
schools of Boston have been tuned by students of the Perkins Institution; in many states the blind
have found such work agreeable and reasonably profitable. Instruction in various trades is given in
all schools for the blind, for, whether the students do, or do not, ultimately use these as the means
to a livelihood, they serve both to develop the all-important sense of touch, and to stimulate the
mind to new activities.
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