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calamity. Our most beautiful and correct perception* are 

 derived through thu medium of sight ; the wunt therefore 

 of such a medium is an evil li>r which no other posses- 

 sion can compensate. Hence it is t!i n we at first consider 

 the blind as an unfortunate race, whose conceptions must 

 not only be confined to that narrow sphere in which they 

 live and move, but, as far as a knowledge of external objects 

 i* concerned, must be limited to that imperfect acquaint- 

 ance which is obtained by the sense of feeling. Looking 

 however further into the subject, we find that the sense of 

 hearing is constantly communicating knowledge to a blind 

 person which help* him to analyse and compare: from 

 \\hirh he draws inferences, and arrives at conclusions more 

 IT loss correct; that constant experience enables him to 

 modify any false impressions which he may have received ; 

 that association, memory, and other powers of the mind are 

 active ; that the senses of smell and taste are continually 

 (Miitributing some small additions to his stores of know- 

 ledge, and that, by these united means, he may become 

 well-informed on subjects of ordinary discourse, though 

 labouring under a disadvantage at first appearance insur- 

 mountable. The self-education of a child born blind com- 

 mences as soon after its birth as that of one who sees ; and 

 if parents in such cases would give themselves trouble in its 

 instruction, instead of looking upon their case as one of 

 despair, they would be amply rewarded by the improve- 

 ment, surpassing all expectation, which their child would 

 make. They would find little difficulty in communicating 

 to him the names, shapes, and many other particulars of 

 objects: and indeed language, with the exception of some 

 classes of words denoting colour, or other qualities, which 

 can only be known by means of sight, might be as perfectly 

 conveyed to him as to the child possessing all its senses. 

 They would find that they could give correct ideas of num- 

 l*rs to a large amount by means of tangible objects, and of 

 still larger numbers by analogy ; that they could also give 

 ideas of time, space, distance ; so as to impress him with 

 correct notions of the earth, its size, inhabitants, productions, 

 climates ; the occupations, the pleasures, and the pains of 

 mankind. All this is knowledge of a useful and pleasing 

 kind, and many parents would become highly int' 

 in such a work ; they would soon find that they might pro- 

 ceed still farther, and enable their blind child either to 

 attain a certain degree of perfection in some mechanical 

 art, or, by educating his higher faculties, train him to occupy 

 a more intellectual and important station. 



The parent who reasons and acts thus upon his child's 

 calamity will be supported and animated by the knowledge 

 that he is supplying by his own attention the defect of na- 

 ture, and that he is educating his child to fulfil important 

 duties with the same pleasure to himself that others have 

 who possess a more perfect organization, and that he is pro- 

 viding a most etiicicnt check to listlessness and mental 

 torpor. 



The ear has been happily called ' the vestibule of tho 

 soul,' and the annals of the blind who have become illus- 

 trious confirm the remark, for they show that few intellectual 

 studies are inaccessible to them. It has even been 

 and has received a kind of universal assent among those 

 who have associated much with them, th.it in certain 

 branches of study they have a facility which others rarely 

 possess. The blind appear to have immense advantages 

 over the deaf: their intercourse with the outward world, 

 by means of speech, is more direct, and consequently more 

 rapid, and their knowledge of passing events is equal to 

 that of mankind generally. The deaf and dumb see in- 

 deed all that passes within their immediate sphere, but 

 owing to the circuitous mode of communication which they 

 have to adopt, they can know little beyond it, and enter 

 very partially into the spirit of passing events. In addi- 

 tion to this, finding that they do not always understand 

 perfectly, nor guess rightly, their temper becomes impatient, 

 and their countenance acquires an anxious or irritable ex- 

 pression, which is sometimes mistaken for cleverness. \\ e 

 know of no deaf persons who have attained to any great 

 degree of eminence, even under circumstances favourable to 

 the development of their powers ; but with regard to the blind, 

 they have enriched the arts, the sciences, and literature by 

 their successful pursuits, and not {infrequently under circum- 

 ititices of extraordinary difficulty. Viewing both 

 rliswtofmen as devoid of education. dependent upon them- 

 selves for support, and for the enjoyment of life, Ibe blind are 

 physically greater objects of compassion than the deaf, be- 



cause, without peculiar modes of education suited t<> their 

 privation, they cannot obtain a livelihood ; but so far as hap- 

 is dependent upon knowledge, ami from this source 

 romcof the purest enjoyments arise, they an- ncuilv n a level 

 with ordinary men. Through th- ear they can acquire 1 



of the highest order, and cunnot remain long in any 

 company of their fellow-men without becoming in 

 grce wiser. The case of the deaf is tl;e reverse ot this : tln-v 

 are not physically so dependent as the blind : h;i\ inn tl 

 vantage of sight, they may apply then nd acquire 



the simpler imitative arts, and thus earn a sul>>i- 

 but mentally they are little above brutes : they can know 

 nothing of the things around them, they feel thcmselve 

 pressed 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 



Our object in making 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 clashes, but more particularly among per- 

 sons who labour under impediments so distressing as those 

 we have mentioned. Our advice would be to educate such 

 persons as highly as possible, to impro\e especially 

 faculties which they appear to possess in a superior i! 

 to mankind generally ; but not to waste time and labour in 

 endeavouring to instruct them in arts in which the) can 

 never attain to an equality with persons who possess the 

 full enjoyment of their senses. 



In this and in other countries some attention has been 

 paid to alleviate the sufferings and diminish the ignorance 

 of the blind; the hand of pity has been extended to lead 

 them into society, and the voice of sympathy has Wii heard 

 by them in the midst of their darkness. Asylums in several 

 parts of Great Britain have rescued a few from a life of list- 

 lessness 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. Still, from all the in- 

 quiries which we have been able to make, we do not think 

 that sufficiently well-directed and persevering efforts have 

 been used to raise them to that intellectual standard to 

 which those may and should reach who are cut off from so 

 many of the pleasures arising from external impressions. 

 Enough has been accomplished to assure us that other im- 

 provements might be effected, not indeed enough to show- 

 all the defects of the plans which have been pursued, nor 

 perhaps to suggest a system which might be regarded as 

 complete and in all its parts practicable. It has been 

 proved that blindness is no insurmountable obstacle to the 

 acquisition of knowledge; but the evidence of this fact has 

 not led to a proper system in the establishments which have 

 been formed for the reception of the blind; that in conse- 

 quence asylums have been provided rather than inttitutiotlt 

 places of abode, rather than places for instruction. \V here 

 instruction has been professedly an object, the attempt has 

 been to make the blind perform works to excite the wonder 

 of visitors, rather than to confer any essential benefit upon 

 the blind themselves; or they have been trained to execute 

 works, which it would be irrational to suppose they could 

 ever perform with the same cxaciij, us who see. 



Many of these fallacies in their education were probably 

 derived from the French schools, in which they once pre- 

 sented a more prominent feature than they do at the pre- 

 -':it time. 



It is invariably found that persons who are deficient in 

 one sense exercise those that are left to them more con- 

 stantly, and for this reason more accurately ; for the 

 are improved or educated by rx< rcisc. The exquisite fine- 

 ness of touch nnd 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 unaccus- 

 tomed eye of a landsman, and the acutcncss of sight, hear- 

 ing, ami smelling in many savage tribes, are all to ho re- 

 ferred to the same cause, namely, the constant excrc. 

 those organs. Those persons who are deprived of one or 

 other of their senses will, to a great degree, supply the 

 Icii. iciicy by the aid of those which they still retain. Hear- 

 ing and touch are especially cultivated by the blind ; by thu 



