A blind man's offering / by B. B. Bowen.

  • B. B. Bowen
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A blind man's offering / by B. B. Bowen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is not distant, when every state in the Union will have a school for its blind. It must not, however, be sup- posed that society has done all its duty to this class of mankind, by merely establishing institutions where they may be educated. Something must be done to protect them from the ruthless and relentless competi- tion, against which they are poorly qualified to contend. If we have special legislation to protect wealth, (and who in his senses can, for a moment, doubt we have,) surely there can be no very serious objection, to a few special enactments, which shall secure to the poor blind man at least his daily bread. But let us be a little more explicit; for on this subject we wish to be understood. Society, or some one of its commissioned messengers of mercy, selects from the highways and by-ways of our land some twenty blind children, and takes them to a school, where they are educated, and instructed in some useful trade. Of the whole number, perhaps only two are qualified for the professions; and even to these, what we have to say is equally applica- ble. After a term of years has expired, they are sent out into the world, relying upon their own resources for their subsistence: feeling, more deeply than they ever could before they were educated, the incalculable advantages which sight confers, in the every-day pur- suits of life. Without capital and without friends, what, for instance, could they do, supposing they had learned only the art of weaving ? And it must be remembered that they have not the advantages which the division of labor affords to those who work in companies; each one goes from the institution to his home, and there attempts alone, or with such assistance as the sympa- thies of his neighbors prompt, to commence business. He works early and late, (for the blind limit not 4*
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