INTELLECTUAL WORK OF THE BLIND—VILLEY. 691 
This taste for reading, this need of mental diversion, constitutes, if 
I am not mistaken, an intellectual advantage of much importance for 
the blind and favors their development. They are besides often well 
endowed as regards memory, and how great a prize that is everyone 
knows. In truth, it seems to have a tendency to decline among the 
blind from the time when they begin to write with ease, though it 
remains good, nevertheless, on the average. Shall I also take into 
account that their infirmity protects them from the invasion of the 
magazine? ‘The substitution of the magazine for the book, of mis- 
cellaneous facts and patchy articles for the long matured work, seems 
in our age to be one of the obstacles to intellectual progress. The 
periodicals in “ braille” are reviews rather than magazines, and the 
part devoted to miscellaneous news is very much condensed. If the 
blind are not coached by some person with sight who is in their circle, 
and who reads to them every day from a newspaper, they escape the 
contagion. They are able to give to books all the time for reading 
which is at their disposal. As I have done this much toward an 
endeavor to recognize their advantages, I must lay stress on the 
principal one, namely, as I believe, a tendency to reflection, to the 
concentration which is noticeable among so many of them. 
I do not exaggerate at all nor do I, of course, pretend to lay down 
universal rules. We are not concerned at all in determining the 
character of the intelligence of the blind man as if this intelligence 
were a fixed quantity. Among the blind, as among those who can 
see, there are as many forms of intelligence as there are individuals. 
There are some who are dissipated, some who are capricious and 
inconsiderate. Among the best endowed, however, a certain poise 
is often observed. Intellectual culture being equal, there is often, 
I believe, more of equilibrium and judgment among the well-endowed 
blind than among those who see. This is not astonishing, because 
sight, as we have already said, is the sense of distraction. The less 
one is distracted, the less the internal reverie is interrupted by 
accidental happenings without, the more one is concentrated on him- 
self, the more one takes time to mature one’s reflections, to weigh the 
pros and cons of one’s deliberations. 
I have encountered in the world of the blind some of the most 
sympathetic intelligences that I have been privileged to know. I do 
not speak here of eminent scholars, but of men living wisely and 
intelligently, of men who perform feelingly their daily task, what- 
ever it may be, and who constantly, in the practical affairs of life, 
give evidence of good sense and wisdom. Often their intellect has 
great steadiness joined to extreme flexibility. I will not mention 
any living person, but scarcely a month ago a man died who has left 
behind an ineffaceable memory among all those who associated with 
him. M. Bernus was professor of grammar and literature in the 
