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In America, where the struggle for existence is less severe, and where money is more plentiful, we have been long coming to realize the necessity of fitting each individual for a self-supporting life. Our education has been administered to all children alike, without regard for their capacities or circumstances. Consequently most children leave school unprepared for a trade or industry or profession. This general state of American education has complicated the difficulties of the sightless. Excellent schools for their instruction, established on sound principles, have existed since 1832 when the first institutions for the blind were opened in Boston and New York. But they have laid little or no stress upon industrial training. Their system of education has the same faults as that in the ordinary American schools for the seeing. Besides, our institutions for the blind are intended for children and youths, and have not taken very much interest in the adults. Until recently we have had nothing which corresponds to the societies for the blind in Europe, and the associations which have lately been formed in two or three American states are scarcely beyond the stage of tentative effort.

One great difficulty of the adult blind is, that of the thousands of occupations in which men engage, only a very few will ever be possible for the sightless. The occupations in which they have already succeeded are the manufacture of mattresses, brooms, brushes, mats, baskets, some simple kinds of carpentry and weaving, cobbling, typewriting, piano-tuning, massage, knitting, crocheting, and plain sewing. They have also succeeded to some extent as travelling salesmen and agents. There is opportunity for them in news-stands, tobacco and candy shops and other small businesses. No doubt other occupations and industries will be found for them.

But even a few occupations are sufficient for them all, if the trade and the man are fitted one to the other, and both are properly advanced in the hurrying market-place of life. The practical failure of many graduates of our schools for the blind is rooted in the entire problem of education. But in addition to these there is a class whose problem is not strictly educational -- those who have lost their sight immature years.

The lot of an idle graduate of a school who has learned how to be blind is hard enough. He leaves school flushed with hope and courage. He thinks he can brave the world and conquer it. Perhaps he hears of a position as teacher and makes the necessary application. His application is refused because he cannot see. He learns of another position and applies for it in person, passes all the tests and examinations successfully, and is praised for his ability. Still his services are not accepted because it is not thought possible for him to teach even music as well as a seeing man. Yet he has been fitted to teach music. He has even studied under masters.

If a young blind man, educated and trained in the dark, loses courage after repeated failure, what must be the feelings of one who is suddenly stricken blind in mine or factory? Blighted ambitions, sorrow, bitterness, and despair. "What will become of me? Who will feed and clothe my little ones? Must I live useless always, an object of charity?" These are the questions that rack him. He may try to be cheerful; but happy he cannot be, unless he finds occupation. His unused faculties will rust. The light of intelligence fades from his countenance. His hands grope for the tool that accident has snatched away.

What shall we do to alter this condition of the blind in America? First of all, it is necessary to awaken public interest in matters concerning the sightless. An enlightened public sentiment is the only power in a democracy that can bring about and maintain the betterment of my class. When the public understands the blind man, his needs and capacities, there will be an end to the more special causes which we find partly responsible for present conditions in this country -- lack of enthusiasm, intelligence, and coöperation on the part of those who have charge of the institutions for the blind.

The superintendents of these institutions, dependent on boards of trustees who know almost nothing about the needs of these institutions and the difficulties of the blind, trusted by a public which is not informed, are often men of indifferent attainment, wedded to petty theories, and unprogressive. They are generally kind, and believe that they have the best interests of their charges at heart. But the existing condition of the sightless throughout the country affords sufficient evidence of their incompetence.

An obvious illustration of their incompetency and the absence of coöperation between the schools is the confusion in the prints for the blind. One would think that the advantages of having a common print would not require argument. Yet every effort to decide which print is best has failed. The Perkins Institution for the Blind, with a large printing fund, clings to Line Letter -- embossed characters, shaped like Roman letters, (1) in spite of the fact that most of the blind prefer a point system. The Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind offers its readers American Braille, a print in which the letters are composed of raised dots. This is a modification of the system which was perfected by Louis Braille three quarters of a century ago and is still the system used throughout Europe. The New York Institution invented, controls, and advocates New York Point, another species of Braille. The money appropriated by the national government to emboss books for the blind is used for all the types. The new periodical, the Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind, the boon for which we have waited many years, is printed in American Braille and New York Point. The same book, expensive to print once, has to be duplicated in the various systems for the different institutions. Other prints are yet to come. They are still in the crucible of meditation. A plague upon all these prints! Let us have one system, whether it is an ideal one, or not. For my part, I wish nothing had been invented except European Braille. There was already a considerable library in this system when the American fever for invention plunged us into this Babel of prints which is typical of the many confusions from which the blind suffer throughout the United States.