684 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
in the remaining senses, other resources, neglected by the greater part 
of mankind whom the prodigality of nature renders heedless, but 
precious to those who know how to make them fruitful. They 
ignore or forget the fact that benefactors have invented special proc- 
esses and methods which enable the blind to diminish the gulf 
which blindness has fixed between them and others. The world at 
large regards the blind man as a peculiar being and a stranger to 
ordinary life. Contact with an adroit and distinguished blind person 
sometimes abolishes this abstract image, but it soon returns again 
and triumphs over contradictory experiences. It is perhaps neces- 
sary to be associated with blind people for a long time to be freed 
from it altogether, and, after all, this is natural enough when one 
considers how methods of action among the blind differ from those of 
persons who have their sight. It is difficult to persuade oneself that 
in perpetual obscurity our faculties can develop with perfect freedom. 
If we had to do here merely with an unimportant psychological 
error, even then it would be of interest to note it. But it has grave 
consequences for the majority of the blind—musicians or piano 
tuners and workmen of all kinds, who endeavor to gain their liveli- 
hood by their labor. The distrust of the public paralyzes them. It 
is therefore a duty to denounce it on all occasions. 
I. 
Asa result of seeing blind persons going to and fro, one becomes in 
the end convinced that in many of the acts of everyday life, the 
senses of hearing, touch, and smell, being substituted for that of sight, 
of which they are deprived, permits them to dispense with the aid 
of the latter. There are blind persons in nearly all towns. We know 
that they are able to dress themselves, to go into places which are 
known to them, to look after certain details of housekeeping, to pre- 
pare simple meals, in a word to engage in a great variety of occu- 
pations, of which one would at first believe them incapable. How- 
ever, their dexterity in these affairs of material life varies much from 
individual to individual, and it is always quite limited. From a 
physical point of view, the best endowed blind man can never equal 
one who sees; he need not be entirely dependent on the latter; that is 
all. This is freely granted, but from the point of view of intellect and 
morals the blind man has the highest pretensions. He declares him- 
self the equal of other men. There is little inclination toward belief 
on this point, for various reasons. In the first place, intellectual 
capacity is difficult to measure and can not be judged by mere in- 
spection like physical capacity. Furthermore, since in our age intel- 
lectual culture presupposes very extensive knowledge, it does not 
seem possible that this can be acquired in the obscurity of blindness. 
