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Then, their time is frittered away by an extremely minute subdivision; they give half an hour to one study, -- and then they are called away by the bell to another class room, whence, after losing fifteen minutes in arranging themselves, and fixing their minds upon the subject, they are summoned in less than an hour to a third, and to a fourth.

Another great fault is, that they all devote five hours a day to handicraft work; now, this is a great deal too much for a blind man, whose object is intellectual education, and it is far too little for one who means to live by the labor of his hands. But what is worse than this, they are obliged to try to learn so many different kinds of work, that they succeed in none; they devote a few months, or a year, to making whips, another similar term to weaving, a third to net-making, and a fourth to braiding; so that in learning how to braid, a boy forgets how to weave. Now if men, with all their senses, must give their undivided attention for seven years in order to learn any art or trade, how much more necessary is it for a blind man so to do? We would apply the same remarks to most of the European Institutions, with the exception of that of Vienna, which has not fallen under our notice. But we have yet a word for the Parisian School; and we feel constrained by a sense of duty to say it, with the hope, that considering the absolute dearth of any publications about the education of the blind, this paper may fall under the observation of those who are interested in the welfare of the Institution in Paris. There pervades that establishment a spirit of illiberality, of mysticism, amounting almost to charlatanism, that ill accords with the well known liberality of most French Institutions. There is a ridiculous attempt at mystery, -- an effort at show and parade, which injures the establishment in the minds of men of sense. Instead of throwing wide open the door of knowledge, and inviting the scrutiny and the suggestions of every friend of humanity, the process of education is not explained, and the method of constructing some of the apparatus is absolutely kept a secret! We say this from personal knowledge. The same spirit leads to ungenerous treatment of those pupils who leave the Institution, who cannot procure the books which are for sale there without paying an enormous advance on the cost, -- while those who remain, be their age or character what they may, are not allowed to go into the city to give lessons in music, the languages, or in any thing else. We have known some of them to study the English language secretly in their leisure hours, because those having the direction of the establishment had in their wisdom discovered, that it was an improper study for the blind!

With regard to the rest of the European institutions, we shall not enter into a minute examination of the system followed in them; a few general remarks and criticisms will apply to all those on the continent. Before making them, we would again pay our most sincere tribute of admiration to the benevolent individuals engaged in these establishments. Their zeal and labors have been productive of immense benefit to the blind. But they have had much to contend with; they have been laboring in a new and unbroken pathway to usefulness; and it is in the hope of profiting even by their errors, that we point them out. What they have done well and successfully, will serve us as models and guides; in what they have erred or failed, they will serve us as warning beacons.

Those Institutions, endowed and supported by the governments, in general aim too much at show and parade; their object seems to be to teach the pupils to perform such feats at the exhibition as will redound to the credit and glory of the government, rather than to their own good: there is an attempt to make them obtain a smattering of many things, rather than a thorough and useful knowledge of a few. The Institutions at St. Petersburgh and Amsterdam have dwindled into mere Asylums, and that at Madrid, if we mistake not, into nothing at all.

Those establishments, which are supported principally by the zeal and humanity of individuals, thrive much better. The one at Berlin is under the direction of Professor Zeun, -- a liberal and enlightened man, who is however cramped in his operations by the prejudices of others: he believes, for instance, that the blind, when educated, make the best teachers of the blind; but he is not allowed to employ them as he would. The Institutions in England are not under the direction of scientific men, nor is their object a scientific or intellectual education of the blind: the one in London is merely for indigent blind, and they are taught only handicraft work, and a little music; no books are used in the establishment, and no intellectual education is given. The one in Edinburgh is less objectionable in this respect, but the Liverpool and Glasgow Institutions are conducted on the same principle. It is alleged that the pupils, being all indigent, must depend solely upon the labor of their hands for a livelihood; but we maintain that this is a false view of the subject, and we shall endeavor to show that, on this principle (which has been followed hitherto in all the Institutions,) fewer blind persons will be made competent to their own support, than might be by following an opposite one. The great obstacle to the successful competition of the blind with the seeing man, for a livelihood, is the want of sight. What is the occupation then in which sight is least wanted? Is it handicraft work? Decidedly not. Can a blind man ever work so fast or so well at any trade as a seeing man, caeteris paribus? By no manner of means; but he may become, to say the least, as good a musician, as profound a mathematician, as thorough a linguist; and he may teach these branches of knowledge as well. If then the pupil has a decided talent for music, for mathematics, for languages, let him apply himself with all his might, and during the whole season of his youth, to these studies; let him be assured that he will be more likely to attain excellence, and gain a livelihood by them, than by making carpets or rugs, -- though he make them ever so well.