ASSOCIATIONS FOR HELPING THE BLIND. 1
THE blind enjoy the compassion of their fellow-men perhaps more than many others that are suffering under the difficulties of life, likely because people consider a blind man a person much more unfortunate than other sufferers. Still this considera- tion was also the reason why the blind have been thought for such a long time unable to do any work, destined to gain their live- lihood by beggary, because it is not much more than a hundred years since the first institution for teaching the blind was estab- lished at Paris. But in this short period of a century what great success has been attained ! Blind children are not only able now to enjoy the same education as full-sighted ones, but in some countries they are even obliged to visit an institution in order to get the same education as their seeing brethren. It is true, writing and reading is rather a modern invention for the blind, and their books are still expensive, and therefore small in number ; but by copying out what they cannot get printed for want of demand, by gathering these copied books into libraries in order to enable a greater number of them to read these books, they have not only been able to acquire a higher education, but the number of those that attend a university, and even pass examinations, increases from year to year.
About a year ago, a small international union was formed under the name "Association des aveugles etudiants," the object of which is not only to establish a scientific library for blind students, but still more to assist each other and to help also the poor among the blind, not only to study, but to get a position after leaving their studies, so that a blind student may no longer be an object of surprise, but that the number of those who have become useful members of society may increase. In these endeavors America is by no means marching behind the European nations.
1 The author of this article is a blind gentleman in Leipzig, who has won a good position as a teacher of modern languages.
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