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14 14
SIGfflWh, BLIND
There are more than 100,000 blind
Americans and four-fifths of then cannot read—that is read Braille. For then the
world has been a dark place. If they were lucky, they had contact with the out¬
side world by having friends or relatives read to them; otherwise they just sat,
and people felt sorry for them.
Sight is so peculiarly an important sense that the child who has been born blind
does not know howtoplay until he is taught and cannot concentrate on the simplest
tasks unless his attention has been caught and then directed.
But now, children who were once tense with fear at the
thought of physical activity have been taught to skate, swing
a bat, and even go belly-whopping on their sleighs. Two
WPA instructors who are trying to help 140 blind children
in New York City by building confidence in them say that
these youngsters, formerly hesitant, have so improved under
training that they can scarcely be distinguished from other
children.
Through the Works Progress Administration the federal
Government has engaged in a concerted, directed effort to
tear down the dark wall that so tragically stands between
the sightless and the outside world. Man is a communicative
animal—he needs to acquire knowledge that others have
gathered before him; and he must impart, in some permanent
form, the ideas that are born within him. Since ancient
times, the written word has been the means by which knowl¬
edge was communicated, and the invention of Braille has
lessened the handicap of the blind while they try to live
among the more fortunate mortals who can see.
BLIND DEVELOP TALENTS
An outstanding WPA project for the blind is being con¬
ducted in Berkeley, Calif., where a class in creative writ¬
ing resulted in the production of 15 articles, several short
stories, one play, and early chapters of several books.
In another class instruction was given in Braille short¬
hand, as well as in the reading and writing of Braille. So
great a mastery is sometimes attained by the blind in the
use of Braille shorthand, that they are able to compete suc¬
cessfully for speed with sighted persons using a commercial
shorthand. Occasionally, they become sufficiently profi¬
cient to handle office positions in the business world.
In Georgia for the last few years Braille daily and weekly
news sheets have been distributed to a large list of blind
readers. Originally, there was a project set up to give the
blind elementary instruction in the domestic and industrial
arts. It issued a study bulletin as a part of its teaching;
and the "Braille Guide," containing the high lights of the
day's news, is an outgrowth of this bulletin. The circu¬
lation is over 500 copies. A recent innovation in the "Guide"
has been the printing of pin-point photographs of persons
prominent in the news. Through touch, the blind can get an
ideaofthe features of President Roosevelt, Colonel Charles
Lindbergh, the Dionne quintuplets, and others who figure
often in the news.
BRAILLE LITERATURE INCREASING
WPA projects are regularly adding many volumes to the
supply of Braille literature available to blind readers.
In Vfeshington a blind student at Howard University is fi-
The blind are taught to operate Braille machines and become proficient proofreaders.
nancing his own education and supporting his family, by giving
home instruction in Braille to 12 needy blind persons. He
has learned the transportation facilities over his route and
travels without assistance. In June he will graduate from
the university as an ordained minister. In all, 342 persons
in 7 States are engaged in the basic work of making textbooks
and the lighter classics available in the Braille form.
But the most noteworthy project in the WPA program of
assistance and rehabilitation for the sightless has been the
making and the wide distribution of "talking book" machines.
The machine itself is fundamentally not much different from
a phonograph. When Thomas Edison originally invented the
talking machine, one of the uses which he foresaw for it was
communication of permanent knowledge to the blind. In the
early days, however, it was found that any extended amount
of material would become cumbersome and the transcription of
a single book on records would produce too heavy a load. Of
recent years, however, improved methods have resulted in a
record-disc so perfected that it sustains 150 grooved lines
to an inch. A standard size book can now be transcribed on
six two-sided 12-inch records.
For the 80,000 blind persons in the United States who can¬
not read Braille, many of whom had started to learn it too late
in life to develop the keenly discriminating touch which it
requires, a single WPA project in New York City has produced
more than 15,000 talking book machines.
SIGHTLESS MEM DEVELOP SKILLS
In the WPA factory which produces these machines, there
is an assembly line which amazes the visitor. Thirty-eight
blind men take their places beside the sighted, and with
swift, deft motions splice^line cords, test new controls,
and solder wires. It has been found that blind persons are
particularly adapted to certain phases of production which
can be done by touch alone. At one particular stage the
assembly process requires the introduction of an especially
small screw into a tiny socket. Several sighted workers
have been tried at that task, and with exasperating frequency
the part slipped from their fingers and dropped to the floor.
When it was finally decided to give the position to a blind
man, rarely did the mishap occur.
These machines are distributed in the various States by
the Library of Congress in conjunction with the American
Foundation for the Blind. They are loaned for an indefinate
period to eligible blind persons, preference being given to
those who cannot read Braille and have no close relatives
or friends to read to them. The Post Office Department has
established a free franking system by which both machines
and records are sent back and forth without cost.
The American method by which reading machines are manu¬
factured has proved so successful that places as far away
as Bombay and Puerto Rico have bought sets,- and orders are
in for three sets to be delivered to the National Institute
for the Blind in London and four sets to South Africa.
LEPER COLONY NOT FORGOTTEN
These machines bring enjoyment not only to those who are
merely bl,ind, but to those who have been blinded and are
suffering from the dreaded plague of leprosy. In the far
off leper colony of Molokai, Hawaii, and in the National
Leper Home of the United States Public Health Service at
Carville, La., there are many who are blind. They have been
remembered, and the necessary number of machines with a stock
of records have been provided to them as a permanent loan.
For rural districts where electric power is unobtainable,
technicians have developed spring-machine sets equipped with
headphones.
But it is not only in making machines for their own use
that the blind are efficient. Blind workers are also em¬
ployed to construct basket-1 ike containers for meteorological
instruments used by the United States Weather Bureau. These
instruments record weather data at various altitudes, and
are dropped in small parachutes from airplanes. The resil¬
iency of the basket cushions the fall and protects the deli¬
cate apparatus. Each basket bears a tag stating that the
^United States Weather Bureau will pay a certain sum to the
persons who find the instruments and return them by mail.
Literally pricking holes in the blanket of darkness that
^surrounds the sightless, the WPA in conjunction with the
MiilmtHim'
Perkins Institution in Boston1 has completed a project of making 45,000
Braille maps for the blind. These maps have been shipped in full sets of
400 to each of the blind schools in the United States. They contain raised
outlines of all the countries in the world and of each State in the United
States, and also many maps which illustrate important periods of history.
Some of the city maps have proved themselves so valuable that sightless
persons, after studying them, have been able to move about freely. Sometimes
blind children who are taken out by a guide correct his errors as he de¬
scribes various localities because they remember how the localities have
felt on the map.
FLOWERS BY TOUCH AND SMELL
A Braille garden is now under construction by the WPA at the Indiana
State School for the Blind. For the first time they will be able to enjoy
the beauties of a garden, and the young students will be given an opportu¬
nity to learn about flowers and trees in their own school yard. The garden
includes not only flowers and plants but an equal number of small labels
in Braille which give the common and botanical names of the plant, and a
brief rSsumg of its characteristics. When the blind boys and girls .walk
Into the garden, they are able to read the Braille label, touch the plant,
and become familiar with its size and shape, its leaf, and its scent.
At the Indiana State School for the Blind there has been constructed
the famous skating rink where blind children spend many happy hours on a
concrete-circled playground. They have no trouble getting around it, for
the grade is such that they are able to feel when they are coming to a
curve and to guide themselves accordingly. The Lions Club of Indianapolis
has purchased 100 pairs of skates for the children's use.
Vocationally the blind have been helped by a rag-rug-weaving project in
Mississippi that reaches probably the most needy group of workers since it
includes those who do not know Braille. In Washington blind craftsmen have
several times recaned all the gold chairs in the East Room and in the Gold
Room of the White House.
A BEGGING CUP TRANSFORMED
A blind boy, a student rehabilitated by a WPA project, wrote: "I just
had to depend on other people for everything until you sent Miss Ridgeway
to see me. Now, I have learned to fix chairs and canvas, take care of my
room, mend my clothes, and I am learning Braille. I didn't know that blind
people could do so many things for themselves until being taught. You don't
know how happy I am doing these things for myself, and having money in my
pocket. I am drinking coffee out of my cup now. It is the cup I used to
hold out on the street to beg for help.11
Taught to care for themselves, to partake In
normal recreation, exercise and study,and to earn their living
by their own skills,the Nation's blind welcome the opportunity
to become useful members of their communities.
WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION
HARRY L. HOPKINS, Administrator
o u. 8. QOVCRNMINT PRINTING OFFICE WTt
A