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THE EMPLOYMENT BUREAU FOR THE BLIND is the result of the recent convention of the Michigan Blind People's General Welfare Association, held in Lansing to discuss subjects of practical interest to the blind, and to adopt some plan to better their condition.

This association is composed of the leading blind people of the state. They are bright, active men and women and most of them are demonstrating by their own lives that proper training and a fair opportunity are all that the blind of average ability require to make them self-sustaining and useful members of society.

Unfortunately, however, the majority of them have neither of these requisites. The state school for the blind, at Lansing, in providing them with a good public-school education, a course in music, training in piano-tuning and broom-making for the boys, and in sewing, fancy-work, and cooking for the girls, does much. Yet when we remember, that, small as their class is, it is made up of members of every social and intellectual rank, and that there is quite as great a variety of taste and ability among them as among the sighted, it will readily be seen how poorly equipped their school course leaves them to make their own way in the world to meet the responsibilities of life.

There are many fields of labor in which the blind can do good work if they have a chance and can compete very successfully with the seeing; but it is always hard for them to obtain employment, however competent they may be. The public is not familiar enough with what they can do to give them a trial; and this lack of confidence -- this failure to appreciate what it is possible for energy, ability, and earnestness to accomplish without sight -- is sad and unfortunate in the extreme. Indeed, it has caused more heartaches and failures among the blind than all the other obstacles against which they have had to contend, combined; and it is largely to overcome this condition that the Employment Bureau has been established.

The promoters of the bureau are confident that, when their cause is better understood and they are able to place a few of the blind in positions which they can fill, in different parts of the country, their success will have been assured. In the meantime, however, they must have sympathy, influence, and money; and for these they must rely upon all those who have the welfare of their fellow beings at heart, feeling (?) that the justice and generosity of our American people will not let so needy and worthy an enterprise plead in vain for their encouragement and support.

The definite object of the bureau is to investigate all subjects that are of practical interest to the blind, to familiarize itself with the work that blind people can do, to fit them to do their chosen work well, and to find positions for them.

The headquarters of the bureau is at 238 Clancy street, Grand Rapids, Mich. Its officers are: Miss Roberta Anna Griffith, president; W. Seward Bateman, secretary; and James Perine Hamilton, treasurer.

Correspondence with all those who are interested in the movement is cordially invited, and donations, however large or small, will be gratefully received.