Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 22

Besides a good general education, the blind must have careful and detailed training in some handicraft, or thorough preparation for some profession. The trades and professions open to them are few, and if they fail in one of these they cannot turn quickly to some other line of work.

Those who have charge of their education should avail themselves of the knowledge that has been gained in all countries, in order to decide wisely in regard to the trade or occupation for which each pupil should be prepared. It may be some kind of handicraft, pianoforte-tuning, school-teaching, or the profession of music; the talent and ability of each child should be carefully considered before finally deciding his future occupation. The failure to give the blind a practical education often means dependence through life.

Pianoforte-tuning.

Pianoforte-tuning as an employment for the blind originated in Paris.

About 1830 Claud Montal and a blind fellow-pupil attempted to tune a piano. The seeing tuner in charge of the school pianos complained to the director, and they were forbidden to touch the works, but the two friends procured an old piano and continued their efforts. Finally, the director, convinced of their skill, gave them charge of all the school pianos, and cla.s.ses were soon started for the other pupils. When Montal left the inst.i.tution he encountered great prejudice, but his skill in tuning became known to the professors of the Conservatoire, and his work rapidly increased and success was a.s.sured. Montal afterwards established a manufactory, and remained at its head for many years. Tuning is an excellent employment for the blind, and one in which they have certain advantages. The seeing who excel in the business go through a long apprentices.h.i.+p, and one must give the blind even more careful preparation. They must work a number of hours daily, under suitable tuition, for several years. After a careful examination by an expert pianoforte-tuning authority, every duly qualified tuner should be furnished with an official certificate of proficiency, and tuners who cannot take the required examinations ought not to be allowed to impose upon the public.

Musical training.

Music in its various branches, when properly taught, is the best and most lucrative employment for the blind. To become successful in the profession, it is necessary for the blind to have opportunities of instruction, practice, study, and hearing music equal to those afforded the seeing, with whom they will have to compete in the open market. If the blind musician is to rise above mediocrity, systematic musical instruction in childhood is indispensable, and good instruction will avail little unless the practice is under constant and judicious supervision. The musical instruction, in its several branches of harmony, pianoforte, organ and vocal culture, must be addressed to the mind, not merely to the ear. This is the only possible method by which musical training can be made of practical use to the blind. The blind music teacher or organist must have a well-disciplined mind, capable of a.n.a.lysing and dealing with music from an intellectual point of view. If the mental faculties have not been developed and thoroughly disciplined, the blind musician, however well he may play or sing, will be a failure as a teacher. The musical instruction must be more thorough, more a.n.a.lytical, more comprehensive, than corresponding instruction given to seeing persons. In 1871 Dr Armitage published a book on the education and employment of the blind, in which he stated that of the blind musicians trained in the United Kingdom not more than one-half per cent were able to support themselves, whereas of those trained in the Paris school 30% supported themselves fully, and 30% partially, by the profession of music.

Royal Normal College.

To provide a better education and improve the musical training of the blind, the Royal Normal College was established in 1872.[3] Its object was to afford the young blind a thorough general and musical education, to qualify them to earn a living by various intellectual pursuits, especially as organists, pianists, teachers and pianoforte-tuners. From the first, the founders of the college maintained that the blind could only be made self-sustaining by increasing their intelligence, bodily activity and dexterity, by inculcating business habits, by arousing their self-respect, and by creating in their minds a belief in the possibility of future self-maintenance. A kindergarten department was opened in 1881. In July 1896 Queen's Scholars.h.i.+p examinations were held at the Royal Normal College, for the first time, for blind students, and the inst.i.tution recognized by the Education Department as a training college for blind school-teachers.

Educational needs.

From the first day a pupil enters school until he finishes his course of training, care must be taken to implant business habits. Blind children are allowed to be idle and helpless at home; they do not learn to appreciate the value of time, and in after years this is one of the most difficult lessons to inculcate. Having drifted through childhood, they are content to drift through life. The important habits of punctuality, regularity and precision should be cultivated in all the arrangements and requirements. A great effort should be made to lift the blind from pauperism. As soon as pupils enter a school, all semblance of pauper origin should be removed. They must be inspired with a desire for independence and a belief in its possibility. In the public mind blindness has been so long and closely a.s.sociated with dependence and pauperism that schools for the blind, even the most progressive, have been regarded hitherto as asylums rather than educational establishments. A sad mistake in the training of the blind is the lack of an earnest effort to improve their social condition. The fact that their education has been left to charity has helped to keep them in the ranks of dependents.

The question of day-cla.s.ses versus boarding-schools has been much discussed. It is claimed by some that a blind child gains more independence if kept at home and educated in a school with the seeing.

This theory is not verified by practical experience. At home its blindness makes the child an exception, and often it takes little or no part in the active duties of everyday life. Again, in a cla.s.s of seeing children the blind member is treated as an exception. The memory is cultivated at the expense of the other faculties, and the facility with which it recites in certain subjects causes it to make a false estimate of its attainments. The fundamental principles in different branches are imperfectly understood, from the failure to follow the ill.u.s.trations of the teacher. In the playgrounds, a few irrepressibles join in active games, but most of the blind children prefer a quiet corner.

For the sake of economy, schools for deaf-mutes and the blind are sometimes united. As the requirements of the two cla.s.ses are entirely separate and distinct, the union is undesirable, whether for general education or industrial training. The plan was tried in America, but has been given up in most of the states. To meet the difficulty of proper cla.s.sification with small numbers, blind boys and girls are taught in the same cla.s.ses. The acquaintances then made lead to intimacy in later years and foster intermarriage among the blind. Intermarriage among the blind is a calamity, both for them and for their children; some who might have been successful business men are to-day begging in the streets in consequence of intermarriage.

In every school or cla.s.s there will be a certain number of young blind children who, from neglect, want of food, or other causes, are feeble in body and defective in intellect; such children are a great burden in any cla.s.s or school, and require special treatment and instruction.

Educational authorities should unite and have one or two schools in a healthful locality for mentally defective blind children.

More and more, in educational work for the seeing, there is a tendency to specialize, and thus enable each student to have the best possible instruction in the subjects that bear most directly on his future calling. To prepare the blind for self-maintenance, there should be an equally careful study of the ability of each child.

A scheme of education which has for its object to make the blind a self-sustaining cla.s.s should include: kindergarten schools for children from 5 to 8 years of age; preparatory schools from 8 to 11; intermediate schools from 11 to 14. At 14 an intelligent opinion can be formed in regard to the future career of the pupils. They will fall naturally into the following categories:--(a) A certain number will succeed better in handicraft than in any other calling, and should be drafted into a suitable mechanical school. (b) A few will have special gifts for general business, and should be educated accordingly. (c) A few will have the ability and ambition to prepare for the university, and the special college should afford them the most thorough preparation for the university examinations. (d) Some will have the necessary talent, combined with the requisite character and industry, to succeed in the musical profession; in addition to a liberal education, these should have musical instruction, equal to that given to the seeing, in the best schools of music. (e) Some may achieve excellent success as pianoforte-tuners, and in a pianoforte-tuning school strict business habits should be cultivated, and the same attention to work required as is demanded of seeing workmen in well-regulated pianoforte factories.

The United Kingdom stands almost alone in allowing the education of the blind to depend upon charity. In the United States, each state government not only makes liberal provision for the education and training of the blind, but most of them provide grounds, buildings and a complete equipment in all departments. Although it costs much more _per capita_, from 40 to 60 per annum, the blind are as amply provided with the means of education as the seeing. The government of the United States appropriates $10,000 per annum for printing embossed books for the blind. Most of the European countries and the English colonies provide by taxation for the education of the blind.

TYPES

The earliest authentic records of tangible letters for the blind describe a plan of engraving the letters upon blocks of wood, the invention of Francesco Lucas, a Spaniard, who dedicated it to Philip II.

of Spain in the 16th century. In 1640 Pierre Moreau, a writing-master in Paris, cast a movable leaden type for the use of the blind, but being without means to carry out his plan, abandoned it. Pins inserted in cus.h.i.+ons were next tried, and large wooden letters. After these came a contrivance of Du Puiseaux, a blind man, who had metal letters cast and set them in a small frame with a handle. Whilst these experiments were going on in France, attempts had also been made in Germany. R.

Weissembourg (a resident of Mannheim), who lost his sight when about seven years of age, made use of letters cut in cardboard, and afterwards p.r.i.c.ked maps in the same material. By this method he taught Mlle Paradis, the talented blind musician and the friend of Valentin Hauy.

To Hauy belongs the honour of being the first to emboss paper as a means of reading for the blind; his books were embossed in large and small italics, from movable type set by his pupils. The following is an account of the origin of his discovery. Hauy's first pupil was Francois Lesueur, a blind boy whom he found begging at the porch door of St Germain des Pres. While Lesueur was sorting the papers on his teacher's desk, he came across a card strongly indented by the types in the press.

The blind lad showed his master he could decipher several letters on the card. Immediately Hauy traced with the handle of his pen some signs on paper. The boy read them, and the result was printing in relief, the greatest of Hauy's discoveries. In 1821 Lady Elizabeth Lowther brought embossed books and types from Paris, and with the types her son, Sir Charles Lowther, Bart., printed for his own use the Gospel of St Matthew. The work of Hauy was taken up by Mr Gall of Edinburgh, Mr Alston of Glasgow, Dr Howe of Boston, Mr Friedlander of Philadelphia, and others. In 1827 James Gall of Edinburgh embossed some elementary works, and published the Gospel of St John in 1834. His plan was to use the common English letter and replace curves by angles.

In 1832 the Edinburgh Society of Arts offered a gold medal for the best method of printing for the blind, and it was awarded to Dr Edmond Fry of London, whose alphabet consisted of ordinary capital letters without their small strokes. In 1836 the Rev. W. Taylor of York and John Alston in Glasgow began to print with Fry's type. Mr Alston's appeal for a printing fund met with a hearty response, and a grant of 400 was made by the treasury; in 1838 he completed the New Testament, and at the end of 1840 the whole Bible was published in embossed print. In 1833 printing for the blind was commenced in the United States at Boston and Philadelphia. Dr S.G. Howe in Boston used small English letters without capitals, angles being employed instead of curves, while J.R.

Friedlander in Philadelphia used only Roman capitals. About 1838 T.M.

Lucas of Bristol, a shorthand writer, and J.H. Frere of Blackheath, each introduced an alphabet of simpler forms, and based their systems on stenography. In 1847 Dr Moon of Brighton brought out a system which partially retains the outline of the Roman letters. This type is easily read by the adult blind, and is still much used by the home teaching societies. The preceding methods are all known as line types, but the one which is now in general use is a point type.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--Moon Alphabet.]

In the early part of the 19th century Captain Charles Barbier, a French officer, subst.i.tuted embossed dots for embossed lines. The slate for writing was also invented by him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 2.

Apparatus for writing Braille.

Braille Alphabet. The black dots represent the raised points of the sign in their position in relation to the group of six.]

Barbier arranged a table of speech sounds, consisting of six lines with six sounds in each line. His rectangular cell contained two vertical rows of six points each. The number of points in the left-hand row indicates in which horizontal line, and that in the right-hand row in which vertical line, of the printed table the speech sound is to be found.

Louis Braille, a pupil and afterwards a professor of the Inst.i.tution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles, Paris, studied all the various methods in which arbitrary characters were used. Barbier's letter, although it gave a large number of combinations, was too long to be covered by the finger in reading, and Louis Braille reduced the number of dots. In 1834 Braille perfected his system. Dr Armitage considered it was the greatest advance that had ever been made in the education of the blind.

The Braille alphabet consists of varying combinations of six dots in an oblong, of which the vertical side contains three, and the horizontal two dots.

There are 63 possible combinations of these six dots, and after the letters of the alphabet have been supplied, the remaining signs are used for punctuation, contractions, &c.

"For writing, a ruler is used, consisting of a metal bed either grooved or marked by groups of little pits, each group consisting of six; over this bed is fitted a bra.s.s guide, punched with oblong holes whose vertical diameter is three-tenths of an inch, while the horizontal diameter is two-tenths. The pits are arranged in two parallel lines, and the guide is hinged on the bed in such a way that when the two are locked together the openings in the guide correspond exactly to the pits in the bed. The bra.s.s guide has a double row of openings, which enables the writer to write two lines; when these are written, he s.h.i.+fts his guide downwards until two little pins, which project from the under surface at its ends, drop into corresponding holes of a wooden board; then two more lines are written, and this operation is repeated until the bottom of the page is reached. The paper is introduced between the frame and the metal bed. The instrument for writing is a blunt awl, which carries a little cap of paper before it into the grooves or pits of the bed, thereby producing a series of little pits in the paper on the side next the writer. When taken out and turned over, little prominences are felt, corresponding to the pits on the other side. The reading is performed from left to right, consequently the writing is from right to left; but this reversal presents no practical difficulty as soon as the pupil had caught the idea that in reading and writing alike he has to go _forwards_.

"The first ten letters, from 'a' to 'j,' are formed in the upper and middle grooves; the next ten, from 'k' to 't,' are formed by adding one lower back dot to each letter of the first series; the third row is formed from the first by adding two lower dots to each letter; the fourth row, similarly, by adding one lower front dot.

"The first ten letters, when preceded by the prefix for numbers, stand for the nine numbers and the cipher. The same signs, written in the lower and middle grooves, instead of the upper and middle, serve for punctuation. The seven last letters of each series stand for the seven musical notes--the first series representing quavers, the second minims, the third semibreves, the fourth crotchets. Rests, accidentals, and every other sign used in music can be readily and clearly expressed without having recourse to the staff of five lines which forms the basis of ordinary musical notation, and which, though it has been reproduced tor the blind, can only be considered as serving to give them an idea of the method employed by the seeing, and cannot, of course, be written. By means of this dotted system, a blind man is able to keep memoranda or accounts, write his own music, emboss his own books from dictation, and carry on correspondence."

The Braille system for literature and music was brought into general use in England by Dr T.R. Armitage. Through his wise, untiring zeal and n.o.ble generosity, every blind man, woman and child throughout the English-speaking world can now obtain not only the best literature, but the best music.

In America there are two modifications of the point type, known as New York point and American braille. In each of these the most frequently recurring letters are represented by the least number of dots.

The original Braille is used by the inst.i.tutions for the blind in the British empire, European countries, Mexico, Brazil and Egypt.

APPLIANCES FOR EDUCATIONAL WORK

The apparatus for writing point alphabets has already been described.

Frank H. Hall, former superintendent of the School for the Blind, Jacksonville, Ill., U.S.A., has invented a Braille typewriter and stereotype maker; the latter embosses metal plates from which any number of copies can be printed. An automatic Braille-writer has been brought out in Germany, and William B. Wait (princ.i.p.al of the Inst.i.tution for the Blind in New York City) has invented a machine for writing New York point. These machines are expensive, but A. Wayne of Birmingham has brought out a cheap and effective Braille-writer. H. Stainsby, secretary of the Birmingham inst.i.tution, and Wayne have invented a machine for writing Braille shorthand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3.--Arithmetic Board, Pin and Characters. A, Shape of opening in the board for pin; B and C, pin.]

Many boards have been constructed to enable the blind to work arithmetical problems. The one which is most used was invented by the Rev. W. Taylor. The board has star-shaped openings in which a square pin fits in eight different positions. The pin has on one end a plain ridge and on the other a notched ridge; sixteen characters can be formed with the two ends. The board is also used for algebra, another set of type furnis.h.i.+ng the algebraic symbols.

Books are prepared with raised geometrical diagrams; figures can be formed with bent wires on cus.h.i.+ons, or on paper with a toothed wheel attached to one end of a pair of compa.s.ses.

Geography is studied by means of relief maps, manufactured in wood or paper. The physical maps and globes prepared for seeing children are used also for the blind.