g6 G. L. SMEAD 



his education such extra faciUties as will make up to him in 

 some measure what he lacks. We have our five or six senses 

 given us to meet the conditions of this earthly life. What 

 other special senses might have been given us, or will be given 

 us in a higher state of existence, we do not know. Certain it is 

 that there are some qualities of matter, of force and of mind 

 which we have no special sense to perceive. We see as through 

 a glass darkly in respect to many things that attract our curi- 

 osity. But with our present senses we know, perhaps, as 

 many of the properties of matter, of force, and of mind as we 

 are capable of using. 



Each of the senses has its special function. They help 

 each other, but each is confined to its own province. One 

 sense gone, its special function is a blank in the experience of 

 the person so lacking. But the other senses, each acting in its 

 own sphere, may make up imperfectly for this want. Sight 

 gone, and all qualities of matter that light gives are gone ; color, 

 form and feature, the ink printed page, beauty of pictures, of 

 landscape, of the starry heavens, none of these can minister 

 to the sightless person with their refining influence. Then, too, 

 there is the difficulty, in these days of machinery, of following 

 any profitable handicraft for a livelihood, so much depends 

 upon sight in the use of tools and machines. 



The sight is the educational sense. The student uses it 

 in all departments of his course from kindergarten to high 

 school and college. The printed page, methods and processes, 

 scientific instruments, all, in our courses of study are adapted 

 to sight. Hence special methods and apparatus adapted to 

 the blind must be devised and employed in our schools, to 

 meet their peculiar needs. 



In all our methods and appliances we must remember 

 that the blind can not see. A truism, you say; but do we see- 

 ing people fully take in the meaning of these commonplace 

 words? Strangers to the blind do not always comprehend the 

 physical fact, what are the possibilities of it, and what are the 

 deprivations of the condition. To many, a blind child is a 

 helpless curiosity, and they are surprised that any thing can be 

 expected of such a person, and they wonder at the most com- 

 monplace things that the blind can do, and then fail to under- 



