1o BOOK OF THE SCENTED GARDEN 
senses of touch and of hearing and of smelling, and 
consequently of tasting, are very much improved. 
One object I had more especially in view in preparing 
this paper was to advocate the growth of sweet-scented 
flowers, and especially sweet-scented hardy flowers and 
foliage, in or around all of our institutions for the blind. 
This is no new gospel, since the late Miss Frances J. 
Hope, of Edinburgh, inaugurated the giving of sweet- 
smelling leaves and flowers to the blind of her native 
city long before even ordinary Flower Missions were 
begun and carried out elsewhere. She used to say, 
‘< Give what flowers and leaves you like to your sharp- 
eyed friends, or the poor who can see; but it is almost 
an insult to offer a blind pauper a gaudy flower without 
a perfume.” Miss Hope was one of the first to observe 
and record the fact that blind people almost invariably 
touch or feel the flowers before they sniff at them. 
Miss Hope was a woman of intellect and mettle, and one 
can fancy or imagine her indignation when some candid 
friend suggested that ‘‘a bottle of perfume would go 
further, and last longer among her blind friends, and so 
save her from ‘ wasting flowers on the blind,’” and thus 
enable her to keep the flowers for the seeing sick and 
poor ! 
(5) Hearing or Sound.—On our power of hearing de- 
pends all enjoyment of music, bird song, and other 
sweet sounds. Even speech itself, that master-key of 
the human race, depends to a great extent on our power 
of hearing, though speech may be seen by the deaf just 
as writing is felt by the blind. Of hearing, however, 
we need say no more, since it has practically nothing to 
do with our present subject. 
Aids to the senses have improved—much more so than 
have the senses themselves. Edison’s micro-tasimeter 
detects the difference of heat to the I,0o00,cooth part of 
a degree, his hygrometer shows the faintest trace of 
