Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 23 (1/2)

Chiefly owing to the unremitting energy and liberality of Dr T.R.

Armitage, in connexion with the British and Foreign Blind a.s.sociation, all school appliances for the blind have been greatly improved and cheapened.

EMPLOYMENT

Reference has been made to the fact that music in its various branches furnishes the best and most lucrative employment for the blind. But those who have not the ability, or are too old to be trained for music or some other profession, must depend upon handicrafts for their support. The princ.i.p.al ones taught in the various inst.i.tutions are the making of baskets, brushes, mats, sacks, s.h.i.+ps' fenders, brooms and mattresses, upholstery, wire-work, chair-caning, wood-chopping, &c.

Females are taught to make fancy baskets and brushes, chair-caning, knitting, netting, weaving, sewing--hand and machine--crocheting, &c. It is difficult to find employment for blind girls. It is hoped that typewriting and ma.s.sage will prove remunerative.

The blind, whether educated for the church, trained as teachers, musicians, pianoforte-tuners, or for any other trade or occupation, generally require a.s.sistance at the outset. They need help in finding suitable employment, recommendations for establis.h.i.+ng a connexion, pecuniary a.s.sistance in providing outfits of books, tools, instruments, &c., help in the selection and purchase of the best materials at the lowest wholesale rates, in the sale of their manufactured goods in the best markets, and if overtaken by reverses, judicious and timely help towards a fresh start. Every inst.i.tution should keep in touch with its old pupils. The superintendent who carefully studies the successes and failures of his pupils when they go into the world, will more wisely direct the work and energies of his present and future students.

Within recent years great improvements have been made in some of the progressive workshops for the blind. At the conference in London in 1902 Mr T. Stoddart gave the following information in regard to the work in Glasgow:--”We are building very extensive additions to our workshops, which will enable us to accommodate 600 blind people. We mean to employ the most up-to-date methods, and are introducing electric power to drive the machinery and light the workshops. We have to do with the average blind adult recently deprived of sight after he has attained an age of from 25 to 40 or even 50 years. In Glasgow we have developed an industry eminently suitable for the employment of the blind, namely, the manufacture of new and the remaking of old bedding. There are industries which are purely local, where certain articles of manufacture largely used in one district are useless, or nearly so, in another; but the field in which this industry may be promoted is practically without limit. It is perhaps the employment _par excellence_ for the blind, and among other advantages it has the following to recommend it: employment is provided for the blind of both s.e.xes and of all ages; there is no acc.u.mulation nor deterioration of stock; it yields an excellent profit, and its use is universal. We have been pus.h.i.+ng this industry for years, our annual turnover in this particular department having exceeded 7000, and as we find it so suited to the capabilities of all grades of blind people, it is our intention to provide facilities for doing a turnover of three times that amount. Instead of the thirty sewing-machines which we have at present running by power, we hope to employ 100 blind women.

At cork-fender-making, also an industry of the most suitable kind, we are at present employing about thirty workers. It is also our intention to greatly develop and extend our mat-making department.”

In the United States many blind persons are engaged in agricultural pursuits, and some are very successful in commercial pursuits. When a man loses his sight in adult life, if he can possibly follow the business in which he has previously been engaged, it is the best course for him. In the present day, work in manufactories is subdivided to such an extent that often some one portion can be done by a blind person; but it needs the interest of some enthusiastic believer in the capabilities of the blind to persuade the seeing manager that blind people can be safely employed in factories.

In England, at the time of the royal commission of 1889, upwards of 8000 blind persons, above the age of 21, were in receipt of relief from the guardians, of whom no less than 3278 were resident in workhouses or workhouse infirmaries. The census returns for 1901 indicate that the number at that time was equally large. It would certainly be more economical to establish workshops where the able-bodied adult blind can be trained in some handicraft and employed.

The papers read at the various conferences show that, even under the most favourable circ.u.mstances, some are not able to earn enough for their support; nevertheless, employment improves their condition; there is no greater calamity than to live a life of compulsory idleness in total darkness. The cry of the blind is not alms but work. One of the workshops in western America has adopted the motto, ”Independence through Industry,” and it should be the aim of every civilized country to hasten the time when blindness and pauperism shall no longer be synonymous terms.

BIOGRAPHY

It may be interesting, in conclusion, to mention some of the names of prominent blind people in history:--

Timoleon (c. 410-336 B.C.), a Greek general.

Aufidius, a Roman senator.

Bela II. (d. 1141), king of Hungary.

John, king of Bohemia (1296-1346), killed in the battle of Crecy.

John Zizca (c. 1376-1424), Bohemian general.

Basil III. (d. 1462), prince of Moscow.

Shah Alam (d. 1806), the last of the Great Moguls.

Diodorus, the instructor of Cicero.

Didymus of Alexandria (c. 308-395), mathematician, theologian and linguist.

Nicase of Malines (d. 1492), professor of law in the university of Cologne. The degree of doctor of divinity was conferred on him by the university of Louvain, and the pope granted a dispensation suspending the law of the Church, that he might be ordained as a priest.

Ludovico Scapinelli (b. 1585), professor at the universities of Bologna, Modena and Pisa.

James Schegkius (d. 1587), professor of philosophy and medicine at Tubingen.

Franciscus Salinas, professor of music at the university of Salamanca, in the 16th century.