We are happy to add, that institutions of a similar kind have been established in our own country ; and to render our par ticular tribute of respect to the founders and supporters of the school for the indi gent blind, instituted in London, 1799. The object, with a view to which this school was founded, is unquestionably one of the most important and interesting kind that can excite compassion, or de mand encouragement. It provides in struction for the indigent blind, in a trade by which they may be able to provide, either wholly or in part, for their own subsistence ; and thus, instead of being altogether a burthen to the community, they will be of some service to it; and instead of being depressed and cheerless themselves, under a sense of their total dependence, and for want of regular em ployment, habits of industry will relieve their spirits, and produce the most bene ficial effects on their state and character. The children of this institution are com pletely clothed, boarded, lodged, and in structed, gratis. The articles at present manufactured in the school are, shoema ker's thread, fine and coarse thread, win dow sash-line, and clothesline (of a pe culiar construction, and made on a ma chine adapted to the use of blind persons) by the females ; and window and sash line, clothes-line, hampers, and wicker baskets, by the males.
The success that has crowned the ef forts of the friends of this institution, since its first establishment, affords suffi cient evidence of the degree in which the situation. and faculties of the blind are capable of improvement ; and a view of it in its present prosperous state must be gratifying to persons of humane and com passionate feelings. Here they will not find the scholars sitting in listless indo lence, which is commonly the case with the blind, or brooding in silence over their own defects, and their inferiority to the rest of mankind; but they will behold a number of individuals, of a class hitherto considered as doomed to a life of sorrow and discontent, and to be provided for merely in alms-houses, or by donations of charity, not less animated in their amuse ments, during the hours of recreation, and far more cheerfully attentive to their work in those of employment, than per sons possessed of sight.
To this article we shall subjoin the fol lowing directions, given by Mr. Thick nesse, for teaching the blind to write. " Let any common joiner make a flat board, about 14 inches long and 12 wide, in the middle of which let a place be sunk, deep enough, when lined with cloth, to hold only two or three sheets of fool's-cap paper, which must quite fill up the space : over this must be fixed a very thin false frame, which is to cover all but the paper, and fastened on by four little pins, fixed in the lower board, and across the lower frame : just over the paper must be a little slider, an inch and a half broad, to slip down into several recesses made in the upper frame at proper distance for the lines, which should be near an inch asunder ; and this ruler, on which the writer is to rest his fourth and little finger, must be made full of little notches, at a quarter of an inch distant from each other; and these notches will inform the writer, by his little fin ger dropping from notch to notch, how to avoid running one letter into another. When he comes to the end of the line, he must move his slider down to the next groove, which may be easily so contrived with a spring, to give warning that it is properly removed to the second line, and so on."