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BLIND, ALPHABETS FOR THE. 



BLIND, ALPHABETS FOR THE. 



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young, which however are undoubtedly deposited on the plants by the 

 parent insect. 



BLIND, ALPHABETS FOR THE. The early instructors of the 

 blind felt the irksomeness of oral instruction, and the dependent con- 

 dition of their pupils. Without being aware what results might follow 

 they early made the first step towards tangible printing, by the inven- 

 tion of letters in relief, by which the alphabet might be taught 

 letters put together to form words, and these arranged in sentences. 

 fn the first attempt thus made, the letters chosen were those of the 

 Illyrian or Sclavonian alphabet modified. [ALPHABET]. This alphabet 

 was doubtless preferred on account of the square form of the letters, 

 which it was thought would make them more obvious to the touch than 

 ours. (' Essai sur 1'Instruction des Aveugles,' &c., par le Docteur Guillie, 

 p. 134, 2nde edition.) The principle of square or angular letters was 

 afterwards abandoned, as " not offering greater advantages than com- 

 mon character?." Moveable letters were next invented, which were 

 placed on small tablets of wood, and were made to slide in grooves, on 

 a similar plan to some of the toys which are used for the purpose of 

 inducing children to learn their letters, spelling. &c. It was with 

 similar letters that Usher, archbishop of Armagh, was taught by his 

 two aunts who were both blind; but this process was found defective 

 for teaching blind persons. Moveable leaden characters were after- 

 wards cast for the use of the blind, by Pierre Moreau, a notary of Paris ; 

 but the work was attended with difficulties and expenses which he was 

 not prepared to encounter. Large pin-cushions were also brought into 

 use lor the blind, on which the characters were figured with ' inverted 

 needles.' The relief caused by the heads of pins would have been 

 more eligible. Various other attempts were made in wood and metal 

 till the time of Haiiy, who invented the art of printing in relief for 

 the blind, and thus devised a plan by which the blind man might 

 acqxiire knowledge, and derive amusement during his solitary hours 

 independent of a teacher or an attendant. The invention of printing 

 in relief is said to have arisen from the sight and feeling of a proof of 

 common printing fresh from the press. 



Previous to the time of M. Haiiy no success had been obtained in 

 the art of printing for the blind, though it had been attempted in a 

 variety of ways, and by different persons. Letters were engraved in 

 wood, not cut in relief, but in the ordinary manner of wood-cutting. 

 The configurations of the letters were found to be difficult to trace, 

 possessing none of the advantages which letters in relief afford. Hatty's 

 was a bolder invention than any other offered to the public. Not only 

 never been superseded, but from it have arisen all the modern 

 efforts to teach the blind reading by means of relief characters. 



Various attempts were made in our own country to produce tangible 

 alphabets, and embossed books for the blind. An impetus was given 

 > them in 1832, in consequence of the Society of Arts in Scotland 

 I'tferiiig then- gold medal, value twenty sovereigns, for the best alphabet 

 and method of printing for the use of the blind. Twenty-one alpha- 

 . ..-re submitted to the committee appointed on this occasion, four- 

 t ''en for competition and seven for non-competition. Of all these, four 

 i inly, with or without modification, have survived, while two additional 

 "ystems have come into use. All these will be presently examined. 

 The character which the French schools had adopted was an upright 

 ript, widened, as was falsely thought, to render it more obvious to 

 the touch. Two alphabets were also employed, one of capitals and 

 another of small letters. To these two errors in the outset may be 

 attributed the failure of the attempts in France to make the blind 

 readers, and to furnish them with books. The wide and complicated 

 forms of script letters detained the finger in tracing then- shape. The 

 .'cquisition of fifty-two letters instead of a single alphabet doubled the 

 .mount of time required to become familiar with them, to say nothing 

 of the complicated mental operations to be at the same time carried on 

 1>y the readers. For two or three years previous to the wise and 

 liberal offer of the Edinburgh Society of Arts, James Gall of Edinburgh 

 was the sole labourer in the cause of printing for the blind. He 

 adopted a modification of the Roman alphabet, in which he excluded 

 curves and circles, and substituted straight lines and angles. He also 

 abolished the capital letters, and thus reduced the number of characters 

 to be acquired to twenty-six. He succeeded in producing beautiful 

 and enduring workmanship on good paper. He printed several pre- 

 paratory books which the blind read with ease; and he offered to 

 print the whole of the Gospel of St. John as soon as a sufficient 



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number of subscribers should be obtained, at a guinea a copy. The 

 immense cost of a single gospel acted as a great discouragement to his 

 plans, and before he could remedy it other labourers were in the field, 

 ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. IL 



and his market was in the possession of other producers. Great merit 

 is however due to Gall, and he must be looked upon as the forerunner 

 of that success which has followed the labours of others. He had 

 removed some difficulties. The works of the French were bulky and 

 expensive; by Gall's angular alphabet much economy in space was 

 gained, and experience proved that it possessed merits of tangibility 

 not to be found in the French alphabets. 



The character which found the greatest favour with the committee 

 appointed to award the gold medal of the society, was the Roman 

 letter of Dr. Fry, to which the prize was finally awarded. But the 

 committee, before deciding, called in the aid of several experienced 

 men to assist them in coming to a right judgment; among others, 

 the Rev. W. Taylor, a gentleman who had been practically engaged in 

 inventions for, and in the instruction of the blind for many years. 

 He was an honorary member of their society, and at the time when 

 bis opinion was sought, he was at the head of the recently established 

 School for the Blind at York. Better aid the society could not have 

 procured. To him all the alphabets and communications were sub- 

 mitted, and upon them he made a very copious and able report. Mr. 

 Taylor sets out with saying there does not appear to him. " sufficient 

 reason for departing from the common Roman letter." He then 

 mentions a few modifications which he would introduce in Dr. Fry's 

 sans-serif Roman capital, and speaks decidedly against any merely 

 arbitrary character. It is unnecessary to go into Mr. Taylor's report 

 in all its details. The practical part of the subject was taken up by 

 the late Mr. Alston, then the Treasurer of the Asylum for the Blind 

 in Glasgow ; he found the letters of Dr. Fry too broad in the relief, 

 and increased their tangibility by having them made sharper ; some 

 other slight alterations were also introduced by his skill and experience. 

 The encouraging approval of his efforts by many of the schools for the 

 blind, together with the pecuniary aid they and the various Bible 

 Societies afforded by the purchase of his books, enabled hiui to print 

 the entire Scriptures in the course of a few years, as well as some 

 elementary books, and others of more general interest. The Society of 

 Arts for Scotland did not leave his efforts unrewarded, but gratified 

 him and encouraged him to persevere by presenting him with the 

 silver medal of the society in 1838, for his Fables with wood-cut 

 illustrations, printed in relief, and subsequently with three honorary 

 medals for his continued exertions on behalf of the blind. 



The decision of the committee of the Society of Arts in 1837, is 

 worthy of being recorded. For five years the subject had been under 

 consideration, and the aid of the most intelligent and practical teachers 

 in the kingdom had been obtained. It appeared to that committee : 

 " 1. That although an arbitrary character might possess in itself 

 superior advantages in simplicity and tangibility, yet there would be 

 great, and in many cases insuperable obstacles to the blind generally 

 acquiring a knowledge of any character not familiar to those possessed 

 of sight, and consequently, such an alphabet would not be generally 

 adopted throughout Europe and America. 2. That the same objection 

 applies, although perhaps in a less degree, to Mr. G ill's angular modi- 

 fication of the Roman alphabet ; and while the want of capitals and 

 the difficulty of tracing the lines are said to be also serious objections 

 to the use of his character, it does not in other respects seem to offer 

 sufficient reasons for its adoption in preference to the Roman alphabet 

 slightly modified. 3. That, from being almost universally known both 

 in Europe and America, and taking all other circumstances into con- 

 sideration, the common Roman capital alphabet, as represented by the 

 late Dr. Fry, * * * seems not only the best adapted for teaching the 

 blind to read, but also as a medium of written correspondence. Hence, 

 there is every reason to believe, that it would be sooner brought into 

 general use than any of the other characters in competition that 

 books printed with it would be more in demand and, consequently, 

 that their expense would be greatly diminished." The committee 

 guard themselves against the one or two inherent defects in Dr. Fry's 

 alphabet by further stating, that in proposing his communication as 

 best entitled to the society's premium, they "do not wish it to be 

 understood that they consider his modification of the Roman alphabet 

 as now in every respect the best adapted for teaching the blind, but 

 only that it was superior to any of the others given in to the society 

 for competition, and remitted to the committee for consideration," and 

 they then allude to the improvements on it since proposed and partly 

 carried into effect by the Rev. Mr. Taylor, Mr. Anderson, of York, and 

 Mr. Alston, of Glasgow. 



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One of the alphabets submitted for competition, was of stenographic 

 characters, the invention of Mr. T. M. Lucas, of ^ Bristol. _ As this 

 alphabet has many adherents it claims respectful notice, premising that 



