BEING FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH SEPTEMBER, 1906.

HON. R. A. PYNE, M.D., LL.D., Minister of Education:

SIR, I have the honor to transmit herewith the Thirty-fifth Annual Report upon the Institution for the Education and Instruction of the Blind, Brantford, for the year ended 30th September, 1906.

In presenting the thirty-fifth annual report of the Ontario Institution. for the Education of the Blind, I have to record with gratitude that, during the scholastic year 1905-06, the teachers, officers and pupils were singularly free from serious illness, and the results of their joint labors were, therefore, eminently satisfactory. The reports of the literary and musical examiners, Messrs. Passmore and Fairclough respectively, which are appended to this report, indicate the character and extent of the work done in those departments, while the newspaper reports of the several entertainments given by, and to, the pupils, which are copied elsewhere, show something of the relations between the population of the Institution and the population of the city in which the Institution is located. The old tradition of "town and gown" is one of hostility, and there is a natural tendency for a body of students living within the walls of the same building to make a little world of their own, in which ignorance of the ways and ideas of the great world outside is a prominent feature. The tendency to isolation is more pronounced as between blind and sighted people than as between two sets of sighted people, yet I am happy to be able to say that the good people of Brantford have promptly and cordially responded to my every suggestion that the blind boys and girls would love them more if they knew them better. Church choirs and young people's societies have favored us with evening visits, and some families have been generous with their invitations to pupils to come to their homes. All these things help to break down the barrier of reserve, to remove awkwardness and prejudice, and to make the blind feel more at ease in the presence of those who can see.

The conduct of the pupils throughout the session has been, with hardly an exception, exemplary, and there was a decided improvement in the physical condition of the boys, due in great part to the persistence of the Supervisor in keeping them out of doors and on the move. The blind have a lower average of vitality than the seeing, and it is of the first importance

to give them the "maximum of health," without which they can neither study nor work to advantage. The paragraph on "Athletics" will show in greater detail what has been attempted and accomplished in this direction.

No expenditure of labor, or of money, will make a blind person as capable as that same person would be with sight, yet this fact, which one would expect to be obvious, is overlooked by many, who are disappointed that every youth who has attended a school for the blind is not self-supporting, and on the road to a competence. There are, in proportion to numbers, as many grades of intellect and of ability among the blind as among the seeing; the blind man who is moderately successful in business would probably be a "captain of industry" if he could see. What the sighted man, who can barely make a living, would do or be if he were blind, may be left to the imagination of the reader. I have taken some trouble to collect and arrange the evidence of experts on the problem of the blind, believing that the first step toward its solution is to enable the public to understand it.

The seeing boy does not leave school with a trade at his fingers' ends and the ability to earn a living; as a rule the beginning of his apprenticeship at a trade follows the end of his school life. The blind boy cannot take the same enjoyment out of sports and games as his sighted fellow, yet there are times after school hours when outdoor exercise is better for the blind boy than instruction in the workshop.

Applications for the admission of adults, who have lost their sight, as pupils in this Institution, continue to arrive, most of the applicants declaring a preference for a course in piano-tuning. Not many grown men are capable of becoming good piano tuners, and if that were otherwise, the finding of situations for any large number of tuners is difficult, if not impossible. The objections to having adults and children in the same school are stated elsewhere. Yet it would seem as if the case of the adult blind demands immediate attention. The proportion of blind adults to blind children of school age is as five or six to one. How, then, can a school for

the children look after the adults as a side line?

Inspector Langmuir's reports of thirty years ago show that adults were first admitted because there was room to spare, the parents of blind children not being willing to allow them to leave home, and it was understood that as soon as the room was needed for children the adults would have to go out. Not much effort appears to have been made at that time to keep track of ex-pupils. Later, the circulating library caused considerable correspondence, yet the addresses of many ex-pupils were lost, and it is not now known whether some of them are dead or alive. I have prepared an alphabetical list of all the pupils who have attended the school since its opening in 1872, with such information about them as was obtainable from old members of the staff and other sources, and with this as a basis I hope to at least make an approach to the "Saxon System" which is described in these pages. Those who read carefully the statements made before the Royal Commission, at the Edinburgh Conference and at the Saginaw Convention, will understand that the youthful blind require something more than a course. of literary, musical and industrial instruction in an institution like this. Those who are deprived of sight in adult life need even greater consideration, and when this is beginning to be admitted in other countries, Ontario will not deny the fact nor long neglect her duty.

The separation of the scholastic from the industrial work for the blind, and the separation of blind adults from blind children, seem to be de

sirable, yet so long as there is only one Institution for the Blind in Ontario, and so long as even a few adults are enrolled among the pupils, industrial training cannot be wholly abandoned. The list of industries at which a blind man of average capacity can earn even a modest living is very brief. The occupations at which he can earn his board are not numerous. Yet it is much better for a blind man to be employed than for him to be idle, leaving the question of wages out of consideration. In England and in some of the States of America the adult blind are employed in workshops, run at an admitted loss, where the buying and the selling are done by people who can see, and where the wages actually earned are supplemented; in Germany and Scotland the blind are encouraged and assisted to work and do business on their own account. It will be for the Government and Legislature to determine, after a careful study of what has been done in other countries, and of the conditions which prevail in our own, which policy shall be pursued in Ontario. I quote the opinions of three leading educators of the blind in the United States:

Wm. B. Wait, for many years Superintendent of the New York City Institution for the Blind, writes:

"The admission and instruction of adults and children in the same school is a subject of much importance. This practice can only be justified on the supposition that blindness, in some mysterious way, eliminates the difference that otherwise exists between adults and children, and brings them upon a common plane so that they mingle together, without detriment, in the close relationship which exists in a residential school. Blindness, however, has no such levelling effect, but, on the contrary, it strongly emphasizes the distinctions and incongruities that distinguish minors and adults. If adults are to be instructed, moral and social, less than educational, considerations require that the work should be done in schools separate from those devoted to children.

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"Closely related to the question last considered is that of industries or trades in connection with the school. The vocation of a skilled trade belongs to the period of maturity, and it follows that if adults are admitted to the school with minors, a strong inducement is at once furnished for the establishment of a trade school and manufacturing department, while, on the other hand, the existence of such a department opens the way for the admission of adults to be trained to work in it. There are as many adult females as males who are blind, and together they number approximately five times as many as the minor classes. The industrial feature, therefore, tends to become dominant, and unavoidably imparts an element of commercialism to the school so that money-getting becomes the chief desire of the adults, who accordingly prefer shopwork to the mental exercises and more strict discipline of the class room. This feeling is shared also by the younger pupils, and their interest is diverted from study and is directed towards earning money rather than towards mental development and the acquisition of knowledge.

"At the end of their term pupils will not be found to have either the means or the general qualifications necessary to begin business in the trade at which they have worked and to conduct it successfully against the competition of sight and machinery with which they must contend. A fairly good understanding of the situation will usually be gained by the pupils before the close of their school period, and at graduation they are likely to feel, not unnaturally, at they should be furnished with remunerative employment.

"The schools in Boston, Philadelphia and New York City have each had a long, trying and costly experience in this matter, due, no doubt, to the necessity, as it at first appeared, of following closely and persistently the course of their prototypes in Europe. The results in each of the three experiments are conclusive and may be summarized as follows:

"It was found that the prime and essential work of education was subordinated to the conditions created and the demands made by the industries.

"The morals of the school were greatly impaired. The younger pupils were unduly influenced by the adults, whose mental attitudes, dispositions and physical habits were often taken up by the younger pupils, making them in greater or less degree the echoes and shadows of the older ones. Instead of a sense of self-reliance, there was developed a feeling of meritorious and, therefore, deserving dependence, which it was felt to be somebody's duty to recognize and provide for.

"Finally it became necessary to abandon the industrial experiment in order to save the institutions for the strictly educational work for which they were established.

"Looking to any lasting good conferred upon the pupils through the training in trades, by making them self-reliant and desirous to be selfsupporting, the experiment was practically void of results.

"From the foregoing the conclusion is clear that trades or industries cannot be properly combined with ordinary educational work in a school of this kind. If trades are to be taught and industries are to be carried on, they should be taken up after school studies have been completed, and in a place far removed from the school proper."

George C. Morrison, Superintendent of the Maryland School for the Blind, writes:-"To sum up, I advocate the establishment and amplification of a workshop and distributing centre for the adult blind, the establishment of a department for blind women in some existing charitable home, and the establishment of a system of educating the blind in their homes similar to the one in force in Massachusetts. But no matter what is done, no part of the work for the adult blind should be joined in any way to the school work for blind children. There is no connection between the two, and only harm to the already established work will result from any effort to bring them together."

0. H. Bur.

the Blind, Bata

nomic point of v

ndent of the New York State Institution for ites: "The State cannot, from a purely ecoany later date the establishment of some kind of employment suitutions for the adult blind. But why not extend the work of the schools for the blind to include some provisions for the adult blind, their work to be controlled by the same Board of Trustees and supervised and directed by the superintendents of these schools, thus avoiding the multiplication of institutions, the duplication of educational machinery, and the incurring of additional expense?

"I answer: There are several serious objections. As stated in the earlier part of this paper, the schools for the blind in their earlier days admitted blind persons of all ages, but experience has proven this plan to be an unwise one. Some of the strongest objections to it are :

"First, adults are not easily and cheerfully amenable to the discipline which is necessary in the education of children and young people; and it is entirely natural and reasonable that they should not be.

"Second, the education of blind children and the management of a shop filled with adult laborers are two entirely different problems, either one of which is sufficiently difficult of solution to demand all the best thought of one superintendent.

"Third, the presence near a school of anything like a shop is a constant menace to the best work in our schools. Boys particularly are too eager to drop their studies and enter the shop, the strongest reason, I doubt not. being the ardent desire of the boy to be able to earn at as early a date as possible his own living and thus be independent.

"Fourth, for moral reasons adults and children of plastic years should not be brought into so close daily association as is necessary when both are housed under one roof.

"Fifth, the dietary of adults and that of growing children and youth should differ materially, and in most instances, at least, it is impracticable to maintain separate kitchens and dining rooms in the same institution. For these and similar reasons it is not practicable to develop these two distinct kinds of institutions in the same place and under precisely the same management."

So far as the Ontario institution is concerned, the extension or contraction of the industrial work is a question of expediency rather than a question of cost. The small boys and small girls take very kindly to bead work; the larger girls knit, crochet and sew, and some of them net hammocks; the boys cane chairs and net hammocks, cut and peel willow, and there is a pretty large class in piano tuning. Basket work has been done in the past, and it would be easy to revive it and to add broom making. For the accommodation of ex-pupils, stocks of willow and cane are kept on hand, and there are frequent orders for beads, wire, and other materials. But with a school population of juniors there is not much activity in the workshops until the middle of the afternoon, and few can become proficient with such limited practice.

I quoted in last year's report the argument of the late Mr. Anagnos, of Boston, in favor of the practical abandonment of handicrafts by the blind, and the preparation for professional and commercial life by means of higher education. This year I cite equally eminent testimony on behalf of what accords more closely with my own opinion, namely, that if the majority of the blind do not earn their living by handicrafts, they will not earn it at all.

So far, it has not been found practicable to sensibly increase the earnings of the blind in the face of the intense competition of the sighted; to reduce the cost of living is out of the question; how, then, shall the gap between earnings and requirements be bridged without damage to selfrespect or temptation to idleness and pauperism? These are things for sympathizers with the blind to consider, and for this purpose a careful perusal of the following pages is invited.

ATTENDANCE.

The total registration of pupils in the session of 1905-06 was 123, as against 122 in the session of 1904-05: at the opening on September 27th, 1905, there were 107 pupils as compared with 104 at the opening of the preceding session; at the close 111, as compared with 107. Of the twelve pupils who were present during a part of the session, but did not remain until the end, one (male) was homesick and only stayed a few days, two