LIGHT FOR THE BLIND.
WE print elsewhere an appeal from Mr. C. A. Pearson, who is bravely turning to the gain of others his own affliction, and has put himself at the head of a movement to raise enough funds greatly and permanently to cheapen Braille books for the blind. Literature and music are the chief solaces of the blind. Their ear for music is usually keen and sensitive, since the sense of hearing has necessarily been developed to an extent scarcely possible in people who (even while they do so unconsciously) exercise sight and hearing simultaneously, the one at the expense of the other. There is a good reason why blind piano-tuners are reputed the best in the world. And those who have heard a blind choir sing must have been struck by the singular purity of the voices. But, after all, music mast be an occasional rather than a constant solace, and not all blind Famous who are trained to earn their living can become piano-tuners, still less can they be of the noted brotherhood of blind organists. Literature, or at all events the printed word, on the other hand, is for all blind persons. And it is for them on every day of their lives. It means a hundred times more to them than to persons who can see. Through literature the knowledge of the whole world is brought to them. It is the one great light that shines in their darkness. It opens golden gates to a golden land ; and the keys of those gates are in the hands of all who can cheapen books
most in need of literature are the very people who have to pay most for it. Indeed, it is not enough to say that they have to pay more than others; they have to pay a price that is commonly prohibitive. It must not be supposed that when the best machinery and apparatus for producing Braille books have been installed at the National Institute for the Blind the books will become as cheap as those read by per- sons who can see. There is no hope that such books can ever be produced " to pay." It is simply a question of bow far those blessed with eight will provide at their own expense more light for the blind. Most of the blind are poor. Yet they can all read. They are educated compulsorily, and their education is paid for partly by charity and partly by taxation. But what a situation to be in—to be forced to learn to read, to love the light, and then to find that books are withheld, that the light is out off !
The production of Braille books is expensive because they cannot, with their raised type made by punches in papier maelre, be printed like ordinary type on a rotary press. Four pages only can be printed at a time. The bulk of a Braille book is very great. Ivanhoe, for instance, fills half-a- dozen volumes and costs, as Mr. Pearson says, 19s. 6d., whereas an ordinary paper edition can be bought for 6d. As books for the blind usually carry type on both sides of the pages, extraordinary accuracy is needed in order that the pits on one side shall not interfere with the prominences on the other. As for the rate of printing, it is possible with the modern dry process to print, or rather emboss, fifteen hundred impressions an hour. Under the old wet process only three hundred impressions an hour could be printed. The alphabet consists of various combinations of six dote. There are sixty-three possible combinations, and as the alphabet requires only twenty-six of these, there are thirty-seven combinations remaining for punctuation and contractions of frequently recurring words. There are three grades of Braille type: the simple, the contracted, and the highly contracted. The simple is used only for learning ; its bulk is about twice that of the contracted, which is the form almost universally used. Mr. Pearson himself mastered the principles of Braille in a fortnight. When once it is understood, speed comes only with practice. An expert reads between ten and twelve thousand words an hour. That is to say, he reads at about the same rate as a person who sees can read aloud. This is slower, of course, than most persons with sight read to themselves, but not slower than the rate of a slow reader. There is not so much, one fancies, to complain of in the rate as in the fact that the blind are denied the mercies of skipping. At least, they cannot skip with the ease of one who throws a casual glance ahead. Some old persons whose sight has gradually become too bad to read have learned the Braille system, to their great contentment at the end of their lives. It must be a pastime as engrossing, one would say, as playing patience, and mach more profitable. Each time the speed is increased; and the person who has the necessary enterprise has the signal satisfaction of a sense of independence. Let us look ahead, and suppose that some day a fund of a million pounds will be at the disposal of the National Institute. An annual income of £40,000 would mean a very cheap—possibly an almost free—supply of all standard literature and a weekly paper as well.
There is a vast amount of help that still can be, and ought to be, given to the blind, without the least danger of that most deplorable of effects—pauperizing them in character and stealing away their independence and self-respect. The training of those who are blind from birth opens up specula- tive questions as to the moral and intellectual influences of the absence of one sense—questions which occupied the exploring mind of Diderot, and, through the heterodoxy of his discussion, brought him into the Bastille. Generally it may be said that it is an entire mistake to suppose that the absence of sight quickens automatically all the other senses. Unless the blind child is aroused, it suffers from a natural want of energy. It is timid, and its physical growth is slow because it is afraid to launch itself forth to run and climb and play. Physical backwardness reacts on mental growth. Blind children must be required to do everything for them- selves; the retarding sense of dependence must be destroyed. Everything has to be explained to them, because for the blind visual imitation of the methods of others is impossible. If en.energetic habit is acquired, the greatest difficulty in the
way of a blind person has been overcome. But how great is the obligation on those who admit the public responsibility for the blind to secure that there shall never be just cause or excuse for the blind to relapse into the vegetating state. It is terribly easy for the very poor blind to do that. Few visitors come to their humble homes. There is little talking ; the solitude is oppressive; there is no light in the darkness. True, the cheerfulness of the blind in con- versation is familiar and obvious, but this is perhaps accidental rather than constitutional. While they are conscious of kindly attentions, they cannot see any of those movements of lip or eye that often quite unnecessarily breed suspicion in the deaL If the blind have overcome in youth the disadvantages of • low vitality, they are responsive to such a degree that no one who helps to bring to them more of their primary solace, the light of literature, will ever be in doubt as to their appreciation of the boon. This better provision for the blind is a too long delayed step in social progression. In the eighteenth century blind people were regarded as cumberers of the earth when they were not looked upon as the natural sport of gabies. Just so insanity was once thought amusing in England. It can never, unhappily, be turned to usefulness. But blindness is different. The ladder by which it ascends has its summit wherever human will-power and intellect can make it reach. We sincerely hope that Mr. Pearson will get all and more than all he asks for in his generous campaign.
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