102 G. L. SMEAD 



schools ask the old, old question, Of what use will this study or 

 that study be to me? To some it seems a waste of time and 

 effort to pursue a study which has no immediate prospect of a 

 money remuneration, forgetting that it is not altogether knowl- 

 edge that is at a premium in the world. It is not primarily, 

 How much do you know? but what can you do? Knowing and 

 doing should go together, but knowing without doing has little 

 market value in the world. 



It is difficult to find remunerative employment for the 

 blind; so few avenues are open to them, and we can teach so 

 few handicrafts and professions in our institutions. But can 

 not some of the blind, if trained to think and to reach out by 

 effort into the world around them, find some special, unusual 

 means of livelihood, and engage in some business or profession 

 which we can not teach in our schools, but which their quick- 

 ened apprehension finds adapted to their own special ability? 



Music is the specialty of the blind. To it they look for a 

 livelihood, either as teachers or performers, or to its allied 

 industry, piano tuning and repairing. But the divine art 

 should be considered more than a mere commercial conamodity. 

 One of the greatest deprivations of the blind is the lack of 

 appreciation of beauty as it appeals to the eye. The beauty 

 of form and feature, of painting and sculpture, of landscape 

 with its ennobling grandeur of hills and valleys, of mountains 

 which pierce the skies, of the broad expanse of plain and hill 

 and dale as seen from some lofty peak, of the starry heavens, 

 God's marvelous wonders, of the moon shining upon the 

 glistening snow of winter — all these are lost to the person 

 blind from birth. 



Music is the fine art of the blind, the substitute for all that 

 the eye can perceive of beauty; and as a substitute it ought to 

 call out the more refined sentiments of the soul. This higher 

 development of mind is specially needed by the blind to call 

 them out of themselves into the more lofty realm of unselfish 

 feeling and thought up to an enjoyment not found in the lower 

 application of the art to mere commercial value. 



We know that many will fail of this higher attainment, 

 even though creditable performers upon instruments. But 

 many, multitudes of seeing people, fail to perceive the beauty 



