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BLIND, EDUCATION OF THE. 



BLIND, EDUCATION OF THE. 



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who have no such deficiency. If a seeing person would cultivate his 

 sense of feeling to the same extent as the blind, his perceptions of touch 

 would be as delicate as those of the blind man. It is not probable that 

 so refined a cultivation will ever be tested by experience, as it would 

 require a greater degree of philosophical curiosity than we ever wit- 

 nessed or heard of, and be attended with a longer and more painful 

 effort than we think any one would voluntarily undergo for the sake of 

 making the experiment. 



The Bristol Asylum for the Blind owed its origin to the benevolent 

 exertions of two members of the Society of Friends, Messrs. Bath and 

 Fox. It was opened in 1793, in a disused Baptist meeting-house. After 

 attempting several of the trades, basket-making was commenced, and 

 although other occupations are followed, fine and coarse baskets have 

 beeu the staple manufacture of this asylum to the present time. In 

 1803 its funds were so greatly increased that the committee of manage- 

 ment were enabled to spend 1800/. on the purchase of premises in Lower 

 Magdalen Lane, and its operations were there carried on till its removal 

 in 1838 to the present eligible situation at the top of Park Street, 

 where a building was erected in the early English style, with a chapel 

 in architecture of a later character, and became a prominent ornament 

 to the city. This building provides workshops for 100 pupils, and 

 bedrooms for 70. At a subsequent date, rooms were added for washing, 

 baths, and shower-baths, and a more recent purchase of land in Tyndall's 

 Park gives ample room for exercise and amusement. If the utility of 

 the asylum may be deduced from the progressive increment of the sales 

 the conclusion will be satisfactory, as in 1794, its second year, their 

 amount was 1SI. 8. 6rf., and in the year ending 1857 there was re- 

 ceived " for baskets, table-mats, flower-stands, hearth-rugs, door-mats, 

 and knitting, 1088J. 2. 2d." 



The distribution of time in mental occupation and manual labour is 

 as follows : The pupils rise at 6 a.m., and work or take exercise till 

 breakfast at 8 o'clock ; at half-past 8 prayers are read by the master ; the 

 school-room is then occupied from 9 to 6, the classes being changed every 

 hour. By this arrangement each pupil receives two hours' instruction 

 daily. One hour in the day is allotted to musical practice, two hours' 

 instruction being given to each pupil every week ; the remaining time 

 till 6 o'clock is occupied in manual labour, and, as occasion offers, the 

 master or matron reads to the pupils while at work ; but three days in 

 the week they read collectively. On two evenings the pupils assemble 

 for practice with the music-master, and the remaining evening they 

 attend the chaplain for religious instruction. Supper is served at half- 

 past 7 ; immediately after prayers are read by the matron, and the 

 household retires to rest about 10. 



Instruction in the Bristol Asylum is conducted by a chaplain ; by 

 the master, who teaches reading, arithmetic, geography, and history, 

 and who has a blind assistant of either sex ; by a music-master, with 

 similar aid ; by a basket-maker for the men, who has also two blind 

 assistants ; and by a female basket-maker, with one assistant possessed 

 of sight and one who is blind. Great advantage is thought to be 

 obtained by this employment of blind teachers, especially in the 

 initiation of new pupils. The system of printing preferred in this 

 asylum is that in the Roman character, by the late Mr. Alston of 

 Glasgow. The books published by that gentleman were introduced in 

 1837, and have continued in daily use to the present time. A ' Life of 

 James Watt,' an ' Elementary Geography,' ' Our Lord's Sermon on the 

 Mount," and a ' First Reading Book,' have been published at this 

 institution in Roman capitals and lower case. 



The report of the chaplain on the scriptural instruction of the pupils 

 is very satisfactory. The report from which we quote states that nine 

 of the younger ones had received confirmation, five of whom had 

 become communicants. The master's report to the committee on their 

 secular instruction is equally satisfactory : biography, history, arith- 

 metic, grammar, and geography are the subjects of his statement ; 

 while the music-master considers the progress of some and the pro- 

 ficiency of others in music and singing as deserving commendation. 

 AH who are engaged in the management speak of the pupils as 

 intelligent and well-disposed, and as manifesting a spirit of cheerful 

 obedience. The welfare and conduct of the former pupils is not over- 

 looked in the report of the committee : special instances are recorded 

 of some of the advantages the asylum has conferred on individuals, and 

 it is also stated that satisfactory accounts continue to be received from 

 others, who, from the trades they learned and the industrial habits 

 they acquired while at the asylum, are now earning a living in such a 

 manner as not only to reflect credit upon themselves, but also on the 

 institution. There are in the Bristol Asylum 66 pupils : males, 42 ; 

 females, 24 ; upwards of 40 of them are under 20 years of age. 



The School for the Indigent Blind in London was established in 

 1799 by four gentlemen of the metropolis, Messrs. Ware, Bosanquet, 

 Boddington, and Houlston. At first the pupils were few, and it did 

 not attract any extraordinary share of public attention. About eleven 

 years after its formation, the patronage of the public enabled the 

 managers to take on lease a plot of freehold ground in St. George's 

 Fields, opposite to the end of Great Surrey Street, where suitable 

 buildings were erected, within which the institution is still carried on. 

 An Act of Parliament was obtained in 1826, which invests the com- 

 mittee with all the rights and privileges of a corporation, and they then 

 purchased the freehold of the ground on which the buildings had been 

 erected. These buildings were found insufficient for the purposes of 



ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. II. 



the establishment, and the committee purchased an adjoining plot o 

 ground, upon which a new and enlarged building is erected. In 1800 

 there were only^!5 persons in the asylum : the present number of 

 inmates is 154, 78 males and 76 females. The inmates are " clothed 

 boarded, lodged, and instructed." The funds of the charity are ample! 

 The receipts have seldom exceeded the expenditure. In addition to its 

 annual subscriptions, donations, and legacies, it possesses a funded 

 capital amounting to above 80,000i., besides other available property. 

 The articles manufactured by the females are, for sale, fine and coarse 

 thread, window sash-line and clothes-line, fine basket work, ladies' 

 work-bags, and other ornamental works in knitting and netting ; for 

 consumption by the pupils, knitted stockings, household linen, and 

 body linen. The occupations of the males are making shoes, hampers, 

 wicker-baskets, cradles, rope-mats, fine mats, and rugs for hearths and 

 carriages. These articles are sold at the institution, and it is said that 

 the window sash-line is highly approved of by builders of the first 

 eminence. The sale of articles manufactured during the year 1857 

 produced 81 51. 



An extraordinary change has taken place in the educational aspect of 

 this establishment in the lapse of the last twenty-five years ; its chief 

 object at that time was instruction in manual labour ; a few of the 

 pupils were taught music, but the attempt to teach reading and 

 writing had been abandoned from the unwillingness of the inmates to 

 receive instruction. The recent reports contrast most favourably with 

 those of former years. Not only are the pupils carefully instructed in 

 the principles of the Christian religion, including the Holy Scriptures, 

 and in vocal and instrumental music, but the following secular subjects 

 are also well taught : namely, reading, writing from dictation, history, 

 and geography ; the emulating test of half-yearly examinations is also 

 applied to this part of their education, and their inspectors in suc- 

 cessive years (the Rev. J. D. Glenuie and the Rev. W. Taylor) reported 

 most favourably of the results. The former of these examiners says : 

 " Both boys and girls are carefully and thoroughly instructed in the 

 Holy Scriptures, Church Catechism, and Liturgy of our Church, and 

 they have done justice to the instruction so received." In the boys' 

 school, he was " much struck with the accuracy and rapidity with 

 which the arithmetic, as far as Proportion and Practice, were per- 

 formed." He congratulates the committee on the " efficient and satis- 

 factory state of the school." The Rev. W. Taylor states that, " the 

 first and second classes read steadily and carefully on Alston's system, 

 showing that they did not read from memory, but made out the words 

 as they occurred. The lesson on English history given by the school- 

 mistress was very satisfactory." The examiner of the boys' school, at 

 Christmas last, reported favourably as to their proficiency in reading, 

 religious knowledge, ciphering, embossed writing, English history, and 

 geography ; a small class also worked some problems in Euclid for him 

 in very good style. The chaplain's classes, held on four days in the 

 week for special religious instruction, comprise some not in daily 

 attendance at the school, and exclude those who have not yet learned 

 the Catechism. 



The report states that " few of those who study music attain pro- 

 ficiency as readers or workers, and that great difficulty exists in 

 procuring situations for blind organists. It is therefore most import- 

 ant that before making application for a pupil to receive musical 

 instruction, his friends should well consider whether they have a fair 

 chance for securing for that pupil employment as an organist or teacher 

 of music. If a pupil becomes a good musician and is able to command 

 employment, he may do well, but if from lack of talent, or other 

 causes, he is unable to find employment as a musician, or to gain a 

 living at a trade, he will probably become a burden to his friends." 



During the year 1857, a novel and most important feature was 

 introduced into the school, by the formation of a band of about forty 

 instrumental performers, who are instructed in secular as well as 

 sacred music. The band contains about an equal number of wind and 

 stringed instruments, and during last year they gave a concert at the 

 Hanover Square Rooms, which cleared upwards of 1202. for the charity, 

 after all the heavy expenses were paid. The report states, " that 

 though an attractive feature of the school, it is difficult to assign the 

 baud a higher office than that of supplying to the pupils a most 

 pleasant and welcome recreation in their leisure hours." 



One other feature in the operations of this school, derived from the 

 example of a contemporary institution, demands especial notice from the 

 writer of this article, with whom the idea originated, and by whom it 

 has been carried out for many years at the institution with which he 

 is connected, namely, an inquiry at certain intervals as to the after- 

 life of the pupils. Such an inquiry can alone truly show the results 

 of education ; it is applicable to all schools, but more especially to 

 those where children are boarded and educated for a series of years, 

 and in whose future welfare, those who have directed their education, 

 known their failings, and their better qualities, cannot but be in- 

 terested. To all schools of poor-law unions it ought at once to be 

 applied. The managers of the London School for the Blind, have sent 

 out since the year 1854, about 150 forms of inquiry respecting pupils 

 who have left school, and are now at work in the country. The 

 inquiries embrace the following points : their present mode of gaining 

 ! a livelihood ; then- average weekly earnings ; their power of reading ; 

 their knowledge of music, and the use they make of it ; and their 

 moral character. The result of these inquiries is very satisfactory ; 



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