HISTORY OF INSTITUTIONS. The first book call ing attention to the condition of the blind was published in Italy in 1646, and we find, from this time onward, an increasing interest in the subject of blindness and its effect on the human mind. Locke, Leibnitz, Condillac, Reid, and Diderot wrote upon it, and Rousseau endeavored to bring the question out of the region of ab stract speculation into that of practical every day life. Raised print had been long, though dimly, foreshadowed, and a number of blind per sons had received assistance in their studies from tangible apparatus, such as raised letters and ciphering-tablets, before Valentine Haiiy began his work. To him, however, belongs the honor of inventing embossed hooks for the blind, as well as of founding in Paris. in 1785, the first school for their instruction. The Royal Academy made a report on his work in that year, and while pointing out the features which his sys tem had in common with the agencies previously employed by individual blind persons, declared that to him alone were due their perfection, ex tension, and systematization. The school for the blind aroused great interest in Paris, and Louis X VI. took flatly into favor, bestowing several offices upon him. In the dark days of the Revo lution, flatly and his school suffered much; but he continued his work, under great difficulties and privations. educating some pupils who be came famous. Hatiy's long, faithful, arduous, and fruitful labors in behalf of the sightless earned him the title of 'Father and Apostle of the Blind.' He published an essay on their edu cation, and continued his work in Russia and Prussia. after he had been obliged to give it up in Paris.
England followed the lead of France by estab lishing in 1791 the School for the Indigent Blind in Liverpool, the object of which was to teach poor blind children to work at trades, to sing in church, and to play the organ. In 1793 Mr. David Miller, a blind man, and Rev. Dr. David Johnston founded the Royal Blind Asylum and School in Edinburgh, the main purpose of which was to train the blind to habits of manual labor, though in later years the directors have devoted increased attention to the intellectual develop ment of the pupils. The Bristol Asylum for the
Blind was opened in 1793, its object being to teach sightless children such handicrafts as would enable them to earn their own living. They also receive instruction in music and the English branches. The School for the Indigent. Blind in London was established in 1799. Its chief object was instruction in manual labor, but a more liberal scheme of education was adopted after a time. Similar establishments were founded in Norwich, Glasgow, York. Man chester. and elsewhere. The organized efforts made in Great Britain for the relief of the blind were founded upon the idea that as a class the blind must necessarily remain at the foot of the social scale, forever dependent upon the more fortunate classes. Hence most of the British schools have never taken a high stand in their literary or musical training. The Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind was established in London, 1S72, by an American, Mr. F. J. Campbell, a blind man. who had been educated and had taught at institutions for the blind in the United States, and who brought American teachers and methods to England. There are also in Great Britain societies for teaching the adult blind to read, and circulating libraries of books in raised type have been estab lished in London, Brighton. and many provincial towns. The Association for Promoting the Gen eral Welfare of the Blind, which has been in operation for fifty years, supplies regular work to many at their own homes. and finds employ ment for others in its workshops.
In most of the European institutions the pre vailing idea is that what is done for the blind is in the spirit of favor and charity, rather than of right and obligation. A large number of the so-called schools. especially those. in Great Britain, are mere asylums, chiefly supported by annual contributions, which are made and re ceived in the nature of alias. Even in those establishments which are endowed and supported by the governments the pupils are brought up under such influences as favor the segregation of the blind into a class by themselves, awl do not inspire the desire for usefulness and self-main tenance.