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Then there is the man who meets you more than half-way. You are being tested rather than he. How can you help him contribute all that is in him to give? This kind of man is healthy, in mind, body and spirit. He simply lacks the use of one sense-organ. He requires no long period of readjustment. He masters one hand process after another. He had trade-training behind him before he lost his sight, and is confident that he can, with backing and special equipment, follow his old vocation of florist, in which he has had twenty years experience. Your job as a social case worker is with possible employers and backers, and not with the blind man. It is not a question if he will "keep up his end," but whether society will keep up its end. You must prove by actual experiment, and you can do it only with the aid of some florist of standing, that this man can actually do without sight the processes he did with sight, and that there will be a market for his labor, if he is provided with the necessary capital and tools with which to work. The story of how this particular man developed a greenhouse, with crops of chrysanthemums, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc., and of how, when the fuel shortage compelled him to close down, he turned successfully to competitive factory work cleaning bobbins in a worsted mill, is full of interest, -- but what I have told is perhaps enough to suggest the variation in peace problems of employment of blind men.

The variation among disabled soldiers promises to be in some ways greater, in others less, -- less, because the men are already sifted by certain mental and physical tests before they go to the front; greater, because of the chances of other physical handicaps in combination, perhaps quite different from those appearing in problems of civilian life. Greater, too, because among officers and men, this disability may cut across we know not what range of men of talent. The plans so excellently carried out at St. Dunstan's, England, for soldiers disabled by blindness, and the carefully laid plans for American soldiers who may be so disabled, all provide for curative occupation early. Visitors from St. Dunstan's go to the blinded in hospital wards early "for good comradeship." All of the nurses, including the superintendent, in some of our base hospital units have voluntarily equipped themselves with knowledge of principles and practice of occupation therapy, and the government has laid careful plans for each succeeding step to the point where the handicapped individual comes back to live out his life in the community.

Canadian experience tells us that the principle of helping a man back to his former vocation holds in 90 per cent of cases of all disabled soldiers in Canada. Only 10 per cent need complete re-education. Placement takes on a new aspect when the country cannot afford to lose the labor of a fraction of a man. Work for the handicapped is transformed, and it is for us to see that the basis of transformation is brought over permanently into our community programs. Only ignorance of the true possibilities for individuals, and the dangers of emotional and political exploitation stand in the way.

In the meantime, for the worker with individual cases, there are suggestions out of past experience that may be helpful. The informal use of some simple classification, in arranging all the facts about the man and the situation may help both the man and the social case worker to face things together. Dr. Southard's discussion of classification in his course on Social Psychiatry at the Boston School of Social Work this winter has stimulated many of us to put in more orderly shape half-crystallized ideas and methods in social case work. The plan outlined in the footnote for rearrangement of all the facts in the situation is one we are in process of trying out at the School both as a help towards making a plan and getting at larger implications. (2)

It presupposes that all the necessary facts have been gathered and recognized, and that only questions of actual diagnosis and treatment remain. It seems to be most helpful in the matter of proportions and emphasis. The individual as unit, and the offsetting of defects by powers are perhaps the most important points about it in relation to the blind.

In speaking to various groups this winter, students and others, it has seemed to me that it was more important to direct them to acquaintance with the life stories of handicapped individuals -- in fiction (when truly interpretative), in biography, autobiography and in fact -- than it was to dwell on points of special technique, in the education and employment of the blind. Nothing will replace this knowledge. The part of the blind in work with the blind has been its characterizing feature from the start. Often the best thing you can do for a newly blind man is to put him in touch with some other man who has been through similar experiences, and worked out for himself a recognized place of usefulness and a philosophy of life. For suggested reading, to prepare the mind for "what blindness is like from the inside out," a short list is given below. (3) Many more might be given. These are selected because they seem to me to help towards imagining what life in the dark may be like. The titles, even here, often stress what is gone, like "Closed Doors" and "Hitting the Dark Trail." Two suggest both sides of the case in quite a remarkable way, -- "A Beacon for the Blind" and "The Outlook for the Blind." The two most genuine and helpful titles to me are "The Best of a Bad Job" and "The World I Live In." "Closed Doors" and "The World I Live In" do not relate to employment problems of men, but they, perhaps, set you right, at the start, better than any others.