But, as it is, enough renowned have arisen from our ranks to prove that, while blindness fetters the hands and the feet, it verily adds wings to thought.  Indeed, the world has but one Homer, who sits forever shrouded in darkness, the veiled god and father of song; and but one Milton, who gave to the world its “Paradise Lost” and its “Paradise Regained,” while he bequeathed to the blind of all ages the glory and the beacon light of his name.

EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.

A brief description of the methods employed in their literary, artistic and industrial education.

I should not consider this work finished without a chapter on the mode of educating those who have been so unfortunate as to be deprived of the readiest medium through which education is imparted—­the sight.  The systems, although some of them are in use in nearly every State in the Union, are very little understood, and are always inquired into with every evidence of interest by visitors to the institutions, where they often express quite as much surprise as gratification at what they see.  I have therefore, in the following, endeavored to give as full a description as possible of the various methods and appliances employed to convey through the sense of feeling, information to which our eyes are closed.

On entering the schools the children are generally wholly uneducated, and have first to be taught the form and value of letters.  To effect this the letters are raised, and the pupil learns their form by passing the fingers over them till their forms, names and their use are fully understood.  With some this is a long and tedious task, but others master it in a short time.  I mastered the alphabet in one day, but I was not a child and had a mind sharpened by experience.  By constant exercise the sense of feeling becomes so acute that very slight differences of form are readily detected, and reading by the touch becomes an easily mastered art.  Having thus the key of knowledge the subsequent progress of the student is in his own hands, and, to the credit of the afflicted, it must be said it is generally very rapid, one reason for which is that loss of sight shuts off one fruitful source of distraction, and the mind is more easily concentrated.  Another reason is that the necessity for education is generally appreciated, and the student is eager to acquire it.

The form and use of figures is taught in a similar manner, but the teaching of arithmetic is largely mental, on account of the difficulty of producing raised figures with sufficient rapidity, and the study of higher mathematics is pursued even more strictly from oral teaching.