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BLIND, EDUCATION OF THE. 



BLIND, EDUCATION OF THE. 



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remain long in any company of their fellow-men without becoming in 

 some degree wiser. The case of the deaf is the reverse of this ; they 

 are not physically so dependent as the blind : having the advantage of 

 sight, they may apply themselves to and acquire the simpler imitative 

 arts, and thus earn a subsistence, but mentally they are little above 

 brutes ; they can know nothing of the things around them, they feel 

 themselves depressed and degraded among men; the language, the 

 customs, the enjoyments of society, where these rise higher than what 

 seems to exist among the more perfect animals, are to them unknown, 

 and by them unregarded ; and it requires only a small amount of 

 reflection to perceive that an uneducated deaf person is not morally 

 responsible for his conduct. 



These remarks, and the comparison with which we have opened this 

 subject, are not designed to show that the blind are less in need of 

 education than the deaf and dumb ; we are advocates for education in 

 its fullest extent among all classes, but more particularly among 

 persons who labour under impediments so distressing as those we have 

 mentioned. Our advice would be to educate such persons as highly as 

 possible, to improve especially those faculties which they appear to 

 possess hi a superior degree to mankind generally ; but not to waste 

 time and labour in endeavouring to instruct them in arts in which 

 they can never attain to an equality with persons who possess the full 

 enjoyment of their senses* 



In thjp and in other countries, some attention has been paid to 

 alleviate the sufferings and diminish the ignorance of the blind ; the 

 hand of kindness has been extended to lead them into society, and the 

 voice of sympathy has been heard by them in the midst of their 

 darkness. Asylums in several parts of Great Britain have rescued a 

 few from a life of listlessness and anxious care, who have been 

 instructed in various arts with the view of wholly or partially relieving 

 them from dependence on their friends, their parishes, or the temporary 

 bounty of the benevolent. To all who are entrusted with the charge 

 of the pauper blind, and especially to boards of guardians, the words of 

 Dr. Lettsom, the benevolent advocate of the charities for the indigent 

 blind, may be addressed : " He who enables a blind person, without 

 any excess of labour, to earn his own livelihood, does him more real 

 service than if he had pensioned him for life." 



It is invariably found that persons who are deficient in one sense 

 exercise those that are left to them more constantly, and for this 

 reason more accurately ; for the senses are improved or educated by 

 exercise. The exquisite fineness of touch and smell in the blind, the 

 quickness in the eye of the deaf, the accuracy with which a seaman 

 discovers a distant vessel long before it is discernible to the unac- 

 customed eye of a landsman, and the acuteness of sight, hearing, and 

 smelling, in many savage tribes, are all to be referred to the same 

 cause, namely, the constant exercise of those organs. Those persons 

 who are deprived of one or other of their senses will, to a great degree, 

 supply the deficiency by the aid of those which they still retain. 

 Hearing and touch are especially cultivated by the blind ; by the first 

 they recognise speech, and the endless variations and modifications of 

 sound ; by the second they become acquainted with the external form 



of objects. The chief art of the instructor of the blind therefore con- 

 sists in supplying through an indirect medium those ideas of which his 

 pupil cannot obtain a conception through the ordinary channels ; and 

 in doing this he will act wisely to ascertain what ideas on kindred 

 subjects his pupil possesses, whether such are true or false, and by 

 what process he became possessed of them ; to become, in fact, the 

 pupil of his pupil ; to draw forth the stock of knowledge already 

 attained, in order to form a ground-work on which to proceed with his 

 future instructions. 



The mode which would probably first occur to a teacher ill the 

 intellectual education of the blind would be lessons delivered orally, 

 illustrated by such analogies as would enable them to follow their 

 teacher, taken, if necessary, from objects appealing to their senses. At 

 first they would advance by slow degrees in comparison with pupils 

 who see, but this very slowness would be accompanied by a sureness 

 which would amply repay the pains taken to make the lessons under- 

 stood. It is a fault in ordinary schools that the first steps are taken 

 too rapidly, and one advance too quickly follows upon a former. Such 

 schools might derive a useful lesson from the methods used in the 

 instruction of those who are deprived of one or other of their senses. 

 From oral instruction, the transition to a palpable language is natural. 

 Accordingly, we find that the invention of characters in relief was 

 among the earliest measures taken for instructing the blind. [BLIXD, 

 ALPHABETS FOR THE.] 



An ingenious string alphabet was contrived a few years ago, by David 

 Macbeath, a blind teacher in the Edinburgh School, in conjunction 

 with Robert Milne, one of his blind companions. The following is 

 their description of this invention : " The string alphabet is formed 

 by so knotting a cord, that the protuberances made upon it may be 

 qualified, by their shape, size, and situation, for signifying the elements 

 of language. The letters of this alphabet are distributed into seven 

 classes, which are distinguished by certain knots or other marks ; each 

 class comprehends four letters, except the last, which comprehends 

 but two. The first, or A class, is distinguished by a large round knot ; 

 the second, or E class, by a knot projecting from the line ; the third, 

 or I class, by the series of links vulgarly called ' the drummer's plait ;' 

 the fourth, or M class, by a simple noose ; the fifth, or Q class, by a 

 noose with a Hue drawn through it ; the sixth or U class, by a noose 

 with a net-knot cast on it ; and the seventh or Y class, by a twisted 

 noose. The first letter of each class is denoted by the simple charac- 

 teristic of its respective class ; the second, by the characteristic and a 

 common knot close to it; the third, by the characteristic and a 

 common knot half an inch from it ; and the fourth, by the character- 

 istic and a common knot an inch from it.- Thus, A is simply a large 

 round knot ; B is a large round knot with a common knot close to it ; 

 C is a large round knot with a common knot half an inch from it ; and 

 D is a large round knot with a common knot an inch from it, and so 

 on." The alphabet above described is found by experience to answer 

 completely the purpose for which it was invented. In the Glasgow 

 Asylum, the greater part of the Gospel according to St. Mark, the 

 119th Psalm, and other passages of Scripture and history have been 



The String Alphabet. 



executed in this alphabet. The knotted string is wound round a 

 vertical frame, which revolves, and passes from the reader as he 



This alphabet reminds us of the Quipoi, or knot-records of Peru, in 

 which the history of their country was recorded long before the dis- 

 c-overy of America by the Spaniards. Their rjvipnv were formed of the 



intestines of animals, and there is a similar diversity in their symbols 

 with that in the string-alphabet of which we are speaking. An account 

 of these quipos was published in London in 1827. They were pur- 

 chased by Alexander Strong for ten pounds, from a person who bought 

 them at Buenos Ayres. 



In further explanation of the string-alphabet the inventors say, It 



