TABLE 77.-Statistics of institutions for the deaf for 1885-86; from

*From Report of the Commissioner of Education for e Located in a public school building.

a For both departments.

b From Treasurer's Report for 1886-87.

replies to inquiries by the United States Bureau of Education.

TABLE 77.-Statistics of institutions for the deaf for 1885-86; from

replies to inquiries by the United States Bureau of Education-Continued.

II.-EDUCATION OF THE BLIND.

I.-GENERAL REMARKS.

New institutions and buildings.-Three institutions for the blind have been estab lished during the year. Two, the Wyoming and Texas institutions-the latter for colored persons-are also for the deaf, and one, the Alabama Academy for the Blind, was formerly the blind department of the Alabama Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind. Neither the Texas nor the Wyoming school was in operation during the year. In Pennsylvania a number of gentlemen of Pittsburg, in order to reuder available a legacy of $20,000, have set about raising additional funds for the establishment of a western Pennsylvania school, but the Office is uninformed as to the result of their exertions. In Kentucky the department created in 1884 for the education of the blind colored children of the State was opened October 4, 1886. At Roxbury, Boston, a brick building large enough to accommodate 35 or 40 pupils is in process of construction on a recently purchased lot of 6 acres, and will be opened during 1887 as the kindergarten department of the Perkins institution. Three lots and a commodious building have been secured for the Oregon school.

The Perkins institution continues to be the New England school for the blind; New Jersey and Delaware still send their blind to the Pennsylvania institution, nine and three, respectively, and the District of Columbia has pupils at the Maryland school. Higher education.-The effort to secure a college for the blind continues unabated, and at the last biennial meeting of the instructors a committee of thirty-three was appointed to carry on the agitation of the subject. It is proposed to ask Congress to incorporate an institution for the higher education of the blind, such as has already been established for the deaf (see p. 840, Convention). At the instance of Superintendent Anagnos, the board of directors of the Perkins institution has taken steps in the organization of a post-graduate course in that institution, for those who have shown marked talent and capacity for higher attainment in any important branch of study

or art.

Printing for the blind.—The radical difference of opinion as to the relative merits of the "line" and the point systems of printing for the blind still continues (see p. 840, Convention), and, to accommodate the friends of each system, the annual income from the national fund is expended in equal parts in producing the same work in different type. As between the point systems of printing and writing known as the Braille and the New York, the latter bids fair to become the American system, although it has not been so generally favored here as the Braille has been in England and on the Continent. Editions of seven works-"Pilgrims Progress," "Imitation of Christ," "In His Name," etc.-have been printed and distributed within the last few years by the Society for Providing Evangelical Religious Literature for the Blind, which also publishes a Sunday-school paper having a circulation of 1,000; and the American Bible Society has published during the year an edition of the Psalms in New York point. All these have been printed by the American Printing House, at Louisville, Ky., the great printing centre for the blind. At the printing office of the Perkins institution, which has recently been supplied with a new press, Scott's Talisman, in two volumes, the New Testament, in three, and two volumes of an edition of Dickens's David Copperfield have been printed in raised type.

Workshops for the blind.-Self-support in after life being the purpose for which manual instruction is given to blind pupils, the result is a matter of great interest to their instructors. If, after the time and money devoted to mental and industrial instruction, the great majority of the pupils become severally an educated rather than an illiterate burden on individuals or the community, merely from failure to make the vocations they have learned profitable, or from inability to obtain employment, it would seem doubly economical to drop the manual feature if, on examination, the cause of the evil be found irremediable. Touching this, Superintendent Chapin of the Pennsylvania institution, who has been familiar with the subject for the last 40 years, says: "In due time these young and elderly mechanics [pupils taught at his institution], having perfected their trades, are honorably discharged, some to their own homes, others to seek their fortunes in our larger towns. They apply for employment at the large manufactories and dealers, but are disappointed. There is not an establishment that will receive a blind man for employment. With the exception of those who succeed at their own homes in the country districts, there is very little hope for employment elsewhere for blind mechanies." Very much the same condition of affairs exists in England, on the competent authority of Dr. Armitage, and did exist in Saxony and other parts of Germany until the "Saxon system" was introduced. This system consists in the institution's keeping up a permanent connection with its former pupils. For this purpose there is an annual fund of about $7,500 derived from

'The Education and Employment of the Blind, by T. R. Armitage, M. D., 2nd ed., 1886, pp. 71 seq.