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HARTWELL SAYS SCHOOLS ARE TO BLAME

Dr. E. M. Hartwell conducted a hearing before the committee on education today on the report of the special commission appointed last year to investigate the condition of the adult blind, in the Commonwealth, and the bill drafted by the commission for the establishment of a board for the improvement of the condition of this class of citizens.

Alpheus H. Hardy, a member of the commission, said that a large percentage of the blind are beyond the age when they can be benefited by industrial training. The commission had eliminated at once the subject of pensions, as they did not wish to recognize the blind as paupers. The commission felt that the work of the State just now should be tentative, but they were unanimous in the belief that the work should be continued by a board.

Miss Agnes Irwin, dean of Radcliffe College and a member of the commission, urged that Massachusetts should make a study of the subject.

Rev. Edward Cummings of Boston, president of the Massachusetts Association for Promoting the Interests of the Adult Blind, said that the blind want work to help themselves rather than to be paupers.

Dr. Hartwell said that if the industrial training of children in schools had not been neglected in Massachusetts the question of caring for the adult blind would not have become so serious a problem. Samuel B. Capen, J. W. Smith and other spoke.