694 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
eye—in particular, the horrible ophthalmia of infants. In the gen- 
erations of blind persons who will rise to the intellectual life doubt- 
less a larger and larger proportion of unfortunates will be found 
whose sight will be obscured by some one of those deep-seated mala- 
dies which affect the brain and the nervous system. Far be it from us 
to complain of this intellectual decline, if such be the cause. With all 
our hearts we long for the time (alas, far off) when the oculists will 
permit only idiots to lose their sight. If that time should ever come 
it would be necessary to understand that it is not blindness which 
produces imbecility, but that imbecility and blindness both pro- 
ceed from a deeper cause. To-day it is important not to forget this 
and if one meets a blind man of low mentality to resist the temptation 
of judging others by him. 
Without doubt one great difficulty exists, and as we have pointed 
out the advantages which the blind, perhaps, enjoy, it is necessary 
to mention it in turn. Documentation is always much more difh- 
cult for the blind man than for the person who sees, and it is always 
* lable to be rather deficient. Books are to a less degree at his disposal. 
They invite him less to reading. Many are inaccessible except by the 
intervention of a person who can see. Formerly this difficulty was 
less evident, because it was much less necessary to read than it is to- 
day. The transmission of knowledge was effected to a larger extent 
by means of speech. At present in most cases this inferiority does 
not appear to me to be of very great moment. The musicians trained 
by the Institution of Paris are certainly not inferior, from an intel- 
lectual point of view, to those with whom they associate, and the 
workmen are in general superior as to culture to the workmen who 
see. In average conditions, the evil is not a great one, although, of 
course, it becomes a much more serious obstacle to those who have pre- — 
tensions to a great intellectual development. Provided, however, 
that the conditions are favorable, there is no doubt that the methods 
which for a century have been at the disposal of the blind, joined to 
those which they could command previously, enable them to triumph. 
Even for the advanced intellects there is nothing that is isur- 
mountable. 
‘BE 
In an article in which he spoke very graciously of my books on 
Montaigne, M. Victor Giraud remarked“ that it would be interesting 
to know the methods of work which a blind person employs when 
engaged in the minute inquiries which such works presuppose. . I am 
very glad to respond to his suggestion, and the more so because it will 
enable me to show the marvelous services which we can derive from 
the method invented by Louis Braille, and its adaptability for our 
«See the Revue des Denx Mondes for February 10, 1909, p. 628. 
