566 



BLIND. 



communicate to them a knowledge of the surface of 

 the earth, globes and maps must he j.repand with 

 the divisions, \c., in relief. Knowledge obtained in 

 this way must, of course, l>e acquired much more 

 slowly than that received l>y the siht. '1 tic MUMS 

 of touch iind of sight dillcr in this respect, that the 

 former asceiuls hy degrees from tlie perception of 

 part> to the perception of the whole, whilst the latter 

 views tiie whole at a single glance. It is, therefore, 

 evident, that the blind cannot he instructed in the 

 common vduMils destined for those who see: in the 

 first place, because the means of instruct ; on by the 

 touch are wanting ; mid secondly, because the pro- 

 gress of the other children would be retarded by the 

 slow apprehension of the blind pupils. For these 

 reasons, and as the blind form no small part of the 

 population of every country, particular institutions 

 have, in many places, been established for their in- 

 struction. In Prussia, they amount to more than 

 13,000 souls. Zeuiie, in his Belisar (L821, p. 12 et 

 seq.), lias laid down, as a general law, deduced from 

 observation, that the proportion of blind persons de- 

 creases from the equator towards the poles. In 

 Egypt, he says, it is as 1 to 100, while in Norway 

 the proportion is 1 to 1000. 



The instruction given in the schools for the blind 

 nims. first, at a general cultivation of their intellectual 

 faculties. They are afterwards taught some art which 

 may enable them to provide for their own subsistence. 

 These arts are of two kinds mechanical employments 

 and music. The instruction of the blind, therefore, 

 embraces three branches 1. mechanical labours ; 2. 

 the fine arts ; 3. science ; because it is impossible to 

 determine, without trial, the peculiar genius of the 

 pupils, whether, for instance, they should be instructs 

 ed as mechanics, musicians, or mathematicians. The 

 German institutions for the blind, as well as those in 

 Paris, have this comprehensive character, whilst the 

 English aim, more exclusively, to impart instruction 

 in mechanical trades. The first idea of such an insti- 

 tution for blind persons was conceived by Valentin 

 Hauy, brother of the celebrated mineralogist : it was 

 suggested to him by his acquaintance with a blind 

 German lady, the baroness von Paradis, of Vienna, 

 who visited Paris in 1780, and performed on the 

 organ with general applause. Hauy repeatedly vi- 

 sited this ingenious lady, and was much surprised to 

 find in her apartments several contrivances for the 

 instruction of the blind ; for instance, embroidered 

 maps and a pocket printing-apparatus, by means of 

 which she corresponded with von Kempelen, in Vi- 

 enna (the inventor of the chess-player and speaking 

 automaton), and with a learned blind gentleman, 

 named fVeissenburg, at Manheim. Hauy compared 

 the high cultivation of these two Germans with the 

 degraded state of the blind in France, where, at the 

 annual fair of St Ovide, an innkeeper had collected 

 ten poor blind persons, attired in a ridiculous man- 

 ner, and decorated with asses' ears, peacocks' tails, 

 and spectacles without glasses, to perform a burlesque 

 concert. Nor did the great institution for the blind, 

 or the hospital of the 300 (commonly called les yuinze- 

 vingt, founded, in 1260, by St Louis, after his crusade 

 to . Egypt, during which so many soldiers became 

 blind by the ophthalmia, prevailing in that country), 

 present to the philanthropic Hauy a pleasing picture 

 of intellectual cultivation ; rather a scene of dulness 

 and moral corruption. He, therefore, resolved to do 

 for the blind in France what the Abbe de 1'Epee hat! 

 done for the deaf and dumb. In 1784, he opened an 

 institution, in which they were instructed, not only 

 in appropriate mechanical employments, as spinning, 

 knitting, making ropes or fringes, and working in 

 paste-board, but also in music, in reading, anting, 

 ciphering, geography, and the sciences. For this 



purpose, he invented particular means of Instruction. 

 resembling those with which he had become ao- 

 i|iiainti d by his intercourse with the two blind Ger- 

 mans-, Paradis and Wcissenburg. For instruction in 

 reading, he procured raised letters of metal, from 

 which, also, impressions maybe taken on paper: for 

 writing, he used particular writing cases, in which a 

 frame, with wires to separate the lines, could be fas- 

 tened upon the papr: for ciphering, there went 

 movable figures of metal nnd ciphering boards, in 

 which the figures could be fixed: for teaching geo- 

 graphy, maps were prepared, upon which mountains, 

 rivers, cities, and the borders of countries, were em- 

 broidered in various ways, &c. In the beginning, the 

 philanthropic society paid the expenses of twelve 

 blind persons; afterwards, in 1791, the institution 

 was taken under the protection of the state, anil 

 united to that for the deaf and dumb; but, as this 

 was found inconvenient, it was, in 1795, separated 

 from the latter, and, in 1801, united to the hospital 

 of the yuinze-vingt. The mingling of young blind 

 persons here with old soldiers being found very pre- 

 judicial *o the former, Hauy, full of indignation, went 

 to Petersburg, in 1806, in order to establish a similar 

 institution there. After the restoration, in 1815, the 

 establishment was put upon its original footing, and 

 the physician doctor Guillie appointed its director. 



Next to France, the first institutions for the blind 

 were established in Great Britain, where, however, 

 they are supported only by the contributions of pri- 

 vate individuals. In 1790, an institution of this sort 

 was established at Liverpool, in which both males 

 and females are instructed in manual labours, in sing- 

 ing hymns, and playing on the organ. In 1791, a 

 second one was established in Edinburgh, which has 

 all along been managed with great judgment and 

 success. Similar institutions have Since arisen in 

 other places ; one at London, in 1800 ; others at Dub- 

 lin, Glasgow, Bristol, and Norwich. 



In Germany, the first public institution for the blind 

 was established by the king of Prussia at Berlin, in 

 1806, when Hauy passed through this city. Zeune 

 was appointed director of it. He invented many in- 

 struments more simple than those which had formerly 

 been used, and which answered the purpose very 

 well. Among other things, he brought to great per- 

 fection maps and globes, destined for the use of the 

 blind ; which, in many parts of Europe, are used for 

 the instruction of others also, since they present, by 

 means of elevations and depressions of the surface, 

 proportional elevations and pictures, which strike the 

 mind forcibly. In arithmetic, he directed his atten- 

 tion almost exclusively to mental calculations. The 

 first institutions for the blind in Germany, after that 

 in Berlin, were established in Vienna and Prague, 

 both in 1808, and, in the same year, that in Amster- 

 dam, founded by free-masons. In 1809, the institu- 

 tion in Dresden sprang up a branch of that in Ber- 

 lin. In 1810, the institution in Zurich was founded 

 Ky the auxiliary society. In 1811, a similar estab- 

 lishment was instituted in Copenhagen, after the plan 

 of professor Brorson, by the society of the chain, as it 

 is called, (J'erein der Kette}. After the great war 

 for liberty, from 1813 to 1815, when the Egyptian 

 ophthalmia raged so dreadfully among the European 

 armies, several institutions for blind soldiers were 

 established, on Zeune's plan, in Prussia. Their object 

 was to instruct soldiers who had become blind, and 

 unable to exercise their former business, in useful 

 labours. These schools were, at first, intended to 

 continue only till all the soldiers received in them 

 had thoroughly learned some trade : two of them, 

 however, those at Breslau and Konigsberg, have 

 been put upon a permanent footing. The. institution 

 for the blind in Petersburg, which was established by 



