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But various possible forms of relief are to be considered by another member of the Survey Committee. I have considered it here only in relation to the amount of the appropriation. That some form of relief must be provided for a very considerable number of the mentally deficient, ill, aged, and infirm blind is incontrovertible; but I firmly believe that this relief should be provided through the usual channels of relief after due investigation and recommendation by the Commission through its field workers. Such a plan will save duplication of work, with increased benefit to the blind.

In order to continue its present activities, enlarge its work along the lines suggested elsewhere in this report, and provide relief where necessary, the annual appropriation to the Commission should be increased to at least 8150,000. This amount is easily less than one-half the cost of the initial year of a pension system, and the resulting benefit to the blind will, it is believed, be much greater.

III. PERSONNEL OF THE COMMISSION

Number

A small, active body of workers is the most effective kind of organization; the present number of Commissioners (five) meets well this requirement. The sole reason for any increase in the number is the possible gain in the representation of a somewhat greater diversity of interests. This gain is wholly problematic; it will be considered later in another connection.

Sex

The New York State Commission on the Adult Blind found in 1903 that of the 6,008 persons returned as blind by the census enumerators of 1900, 45 per cent were women; 55 per cent men. As the Commission's activities are concerned with both sexes, it is very appropriate that there should be a representation of both sexes in the membership of the Commission; and as the men probably predominate, the present proportion of two women and three men seems entirely logical.

Points of View Represented

In the matter of adequate representation of divergent points of view,: social and economic, the Commission seems well constituted. One of the first essentials in the work of any State Commission is that strict business,: principles shall be applied. The presence on the Commission of two eminently successful business men should insure this. That these gentlemen give liberally of their time both to attend the meetings of the Commission and, in their capacity as members of the Shop Committee, to consider and pass upon the varied and perplexing problems of shop management that continually arise, does insure the application of business principles just so far as there can be applied in shops where the workers are laboring under su serious a handicap as blindness imposes.

The presence on the Commission of two women, both well known for their humanitarian and philanthropic activities, one of whom has had many years of experience in relief work of all kinds, insures that the purely business point of view shall not be so prominent that the philanthropic and humanitarian aspects of the Commission's activities shall be lost sight of.

That one of these women has been blind for many years assures the Commission that it has at least the point of view of those who have lost sight in adult life.

That the fifth member of the Commission is an educator of the blind whose two years' experience as a teacher in the Royal Normal College for the Blind in London, England, under that eminent teacher of the blind, Sir Francis Campbell, himself blind, has been followed by twenty-six years' experience as the directing head of two of our leading schools for the blind, insures to the Commission constantly the point of view of a leader in the education of the blind in America.

The question may fairly be raised whether one or two additional points of view might be represented on the Commission with advantage to the blind. Would it be helpful if there were added to the Commission a physician, and one blind from birth or early childhood? Unquestionably, it is important that the Commission have the benefit of these two points of view, but it is not absolutely essential that they be represented in the personnel of the Commission. The viewpoint of the former is constantly secured through the close association with such institutions as the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, through constant interviews which the Commission's employees have with oculists who have attended patients during the oncoming of blindness, and through the work on prevention and in behalf of those with defective vision which is a part of the work delegated by law to the Commission. And the point of view of all the blind is unquestionably secured to the Commission through its thirteen blind and partially blind employees and the seven home teachers, four of whom are totally and one partially blind, supplemented by the many shades of opinion expressed by the workers in the Commission's shops and in their own homes. The chief, if not the only reason, then, for adding to the numbers of the Commission is with a view to disarming criticism, which, in the judgment of the writer, would not be effected by the addition of a blind person to the Commission. Such increase is, therefore, not recommended.