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FIELD WORK OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSION FOR THE BLIND (1)

BY LUCY WRIGHT
Superintendent Registration and Information Department

IT is not easy to realize that there are among us, throughout the state, nearly 4,000 people without sight, or with very little sight. We who know personally full half the blind population of the state, if we could only wish one thing about them, would, I think, wish that you might know the blind of your own cities and towns, both on your own account for the inspiration you will find in the matchless courage of many of their lives, and on their account because you can help change the false notions and prejudices which are still such obstacles to their progress. We are eager that your state of mind shall not be the one we so often find outside workers for the blind and immediate friends, like that of the gentleman of whom Mr. Holmes told me yesterday (Mr. Holmes (2) is, as many of you know, the most active of blind men, and spends his time finding employment for other blind men), a gentleman who, with his wife, visited a school for the blind and showed no emotion or excitement until they happened upon the boys of the school making their preparations for dinner. He ran eagerly back for his wife. "Maria, Maria," he called, "come back! Come back and see these dear little blind boys washing their own hands!" Just so hard is it for as to imagine relying upon the convenient possessions of touch and of hearing and memory. And many of us are still surprised when a blind person, as the old colored woman said to Miss Garside, (3) "speaks up just as pert as anybody."

(3) One of the four blind home teachers employed by the state to instruct the blind in their homes.

I hope that we can show you that we cannot expect to provide for the blind as though they were a defective group to be sifted out of the population and isolated. (There is, to be sure, a defective group among the blind as among the seeing, but that is a problem in itself.) The problem of the blind is that of a handicapped group whose welfare is bound up with the life of the community. Work for the blind has been roughly divided into (1) care and education of the young blind, and (2) provision for the adult blind. Our particular problem, provision for the adult blind, may in turn be roughly divided into (a) efforts in industrial lines, particularly through shops, and (b) various efforts through what we may call "field work."

Field work is my particular province and the side of our work which most closely touches yours, but I cannot make its place in work for the blind quite clear without saying first a word in regard to this great general stirring that is taking place in work for the blind throughout the country. From all over the United States we hear news of it. In New York, Ohio, Illinois, Maine, and elsewhere, in one form or another, new movements are under way. Today Chicago and Milwaukee are in the midst of a most valuable experiment in education of blind children in the public schools; New York, through private philanthropy, among other things spends $5,000 this year in pursuing its efforts in the direction of prevention of blindness; only last week Ohio's new state commission was visiting ours; New Jersey is still investigating, and more is happening than I can give you a clew to in this brief paper. If you wish to follow the movement here and throughout the world, I refer you to the quarterly magazine, the Outlook for Blind, which will tell you that France has had its Valentin Hauy Association for many years, Germany has its Saxon system of "after-care," and England its substantial chain of workshops. We in the United States, who have had largely institutions for the young blind, and only a few hundred blind persons in the whole country employed in special workshops, are today at the beginning of a movement which will not rest until all preventable blindness has been prevented, until the competent blind have found a recognized place of usefulness in the community, and until the condition of the rest, the aged and otherwise handicapped, has been truly "ameliorated."

What does it mean? It means that the first seventy-five years of work for the blind in the United States have been devoted largely to the education of the young blind. Little by little we have waked up to the fact that the blind for life represent only a small part of the blind population. Home teaching and extension of library privileges have gradually developed for adults, and here and there industrial homes. With the continued extension of social and industrial movements, we have come a step further, and now ask ourselves, not only whether schools alone are adequate and workshops should be added, but whether we have yet found a system of providing for this handicapped class which takes sufficiently into account the economic and social conditions surrounding them. The new viewpoint is, to my mind, the change front the point of view of deeply rooted institutionalism, into which work for the blind fell after its first splendid impulse, to that of looking at work for the blind from the point of view of the blind man himself in his own community. The change that is going on as a result of the new point of view I like to call that of "socializing" work for the blind. Its characteristic method is field work, and it means reorganization and the development of a system in which school, shop, and community shall work together towards the common end of finding for the normal blind man, whether blind from infancy or later in life, a recognized place of usefulness in the world. It is not a change in aim, it is a change in method.

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One school for the blind in the United States, and only one so far as I know, felt the need of this new point of view, and began to send out, in 1903. a field agent to bring the young blind more promptly to school and to follow up its graduates. That school was the school at Overbrook, Pa., and its director, Mr. Edward E. Allen, is today the director of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind in South Boston.

Here in Massachusetts some such undercurrent of feeling as I have described, stirred in various ways, led to the investigations of a temporary commission and the practical experiments of the association for the blind, and finally to the establishment of a permanent state commission, authorized to develop work for the blind on a new and broad basis, which, roughly outlined, is "to provide a bureau of information and industrial aid, to assist blind persons in marketing their products, and to provide workshops and industrial training, and in general to ameliorate the condition of the blind by such other methods as it may deem expedient, provided that the commission shall not undertake the permanent support or maintenance of any blind person."

Mr. Campbell and Mr. Holmes, of the industrial department, could tell you far better than I about the industrial side of our work, to which our exhibit in the other room will give you some clew. (4) The main point which that exhibit should, to my mind, suggest is that the new movement for the blind, here as well as elsewhere, aims to give the blind man a share in producing things really desirable, useful, and beautiful; so that it shall not be necessary to ask the public to buy them only because they are made by the blind, but because they are beautiful and useful, and made by the blind. Other things being equal, it is right to ask patronage for work for the blind. The blind are your sisters and brothers and parents and children as well as ours. And if we are to give them "equal advantages wills the seeing, not more not less," as the representative of Japan so well described our aim at the recent international conference held in England, it must be through the effort and cooperation of the whole community, for only so far as the public wills can we so divide the labor as to give the blind man what he can do. We must ask the public to see and favor the things that are well made by the blind, to ask their dealers for the "Wundermop," when they need a mop. I believe in one of our cities the floors of all the public schools are mopped by the "Wundermop." At one time -- I hope it is still true -- the floors of both Yale and Harvard dining halls were mopped by the "Wundermop." Some hospitals use this mop only, but there are not enough wanted yet to keep busy half the men who could make them. So it is from mops to rugs, through dusters and mittens, and every product of shop and home work. The mop may represent the only thing which a man who has been an expert accountant can do to earn a living if he becomes totally blind at forty-five. The rug may be the only thing a young Italian, suddenly blinded in an explosion at a stone quarry, can do to support his wife and children. The machine-hemmed kitchen towel may be the only work a woman becoming blind at twenty-five can do in her own home, where she has an invalid mother to care for; but I must not go on, although these only suggest some of the people we come to know through field work.

This summer we had in a small salesroom at Manchester-by-the-Sea a beautiful illustration of what cooperation can do for the blind. A local business man gave rent-free a location for the venture; a friend of the blind who lived in Manchester fitted up the rooms, and gave her continued personal interest through the summer. The commission furnished supervision, bookkeeping, a loom for the blind weaver, etc., and employed two young blind women who belong in that town all summer, at a fair wage, one at weaving and one as saleswoman for the shop. As a result we had two busy, happy blind girls; sales averaging $too a week, about half of which went into the pockets of women and men who work in their homes, and half helped pay the wages of the blind workers who had made the rugs, etc., in the shops. In all, that fortunate Manchester enterprise benefited thirty or forty blind persons.

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Now I must tell you of some of the other conditions and needs which we find when we come to know the blind in their homes; and among them I must speak of some very distressing conditions, because we need your help in overcoming them. The first is that of lay efforts towards the prevention of blindness. Nothing, perhaps, makes us more confident that this new movement in behalf of the blind means a real revolution than this, that its watch-word is prevention. All of which let me illustrate by telling you about the campaign for prevention of blindness in which the organized medical profession leads the way, and in which the share of lay workers is already pointed out. To get the length and breadth of the campaign for prevention throughout the country read the report of the committee on ophthalmia neonatorum to the American Medical Association, last June. (5) Here in Massachusetts the Eye and Ear Infirmary, a year ago, welcomed a social worker, one of whose duties is to discover, by investigation and individual work among the patients, what may be done in a social way to supplement the medical work for the prevention of blindness.

Ophthalmia neonatorum is, as you no doubt know, a germ disease, due to venereal disease in the mother, occurring in the form of inflammation in the eyes of the newly born, which, with medical care and sufficient nursing, probably never need result in blindness. It is most likely to result in blindness among the poor because of lack of medical advice and proper nursing both before and after the child's birth. As it is, at least one-fourth of the blind in all our schools for the blind today are blind as a result of this disease. At the Boston Blind Babies' Nursery, out of fifty-one children who had come under their care, thirty-one were, their oculist states, blind from this cause. Those of us who know personally the tragic little group of children born in Massachusetts who have become blind from this disease within the last five years, and those of us who know the additional group, not blind, but whose eyesight is impaired for life because they reached the hospitals too late, appeal to you to inform yourself in this matter. Will you not, social workers, take to your offices and give to your district nurses and others the poster which you will find in our exhibit headed, Stop Blindness? (6) Will you not read the paper by Dr. F. Park Lewis, chairman of the Committee of the American Medical Association of which I have spoken; and especially will you not read the paper of Dr. Frederick Cheney, which you will also find in connection with our exhibit, which tells of this disease in the state of Massachusetts? (7) And let none of us ever leave it a matter of doubt as to whether the mothers in our care have medical attendance, and babies with inflamed eyes are sent to hospitals. We have in our office a map of Massachusetts on which we place a red spot for each child born in this state during the last five years who is blind from ophthalmia neonatorum. When the facts are known, it becomes intolerable even that such a map exists, and as our New York fellow-workers have said, the continued blinding of little children becomes a crime. Knowing the social conditions surrounding many of these cases, we most emphasize that here in Massachusetts at least, where we have proper legislation, and where we are rich in medical resources, the remaining work is largely that of general education and of putting people in touch with our medical resources. In common with so many lines of endeavor, it weighs heavily upon those of us who come in contact with the poor at their time of greatest need.

(7) We hope to print this paper in the next issue of this magazine.

The second condition which I wish to bring especially to your attention is that of needless delay in bringing to the service of the blind the resources for helping them. There are, as you no doubt know, in this state the Boston Nursery for Blind Babies, for children under five; the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, for normal persons under nineteen; for adults, State Home Teachers for teaching raised types and simple home industries, a workshop for mattress and chair work connected with Perkins School; for the sale of both home and shop products, the Salesrooms of the Perkins School and the Commission, both now under the same roof at 383 Boylston Street, Boston, and the shops, shop schools, and educational and industrial aid possible under the commission; for a limited number of homeless adults, the Memorial Home for the Blind at Worcester; the Association which publishes the Outlook for the Blind, not to mention the medical, social, educational, and other agencies open to the blind as well as the seeing.

During the last three years I have had occasion to visit a thousand or more homes in which there is a blind member of the family, and to know through other field workers as many more. We have seen, among other things, the results of delays and inactivity in the lives of blind persons. First of all, delays in education of children, when, to make them useful citizens, blind children need more rather than less education than the seeing. As a result of a special study of blind persons under twenty years of age, last year, we referred to Perkins School twenty-five children, of whom sixteen were over ten years of age and six over fourteen years of age. Thirteen had become blind under one year, so that there was an average delay of five years in beginning the education of these twenty-five children -- a serious matter with seeing children; how much more in theirs! The compulsory education law has, so far as I know, never been enforced in this state as regards blind children. At present, at least, it is a matter of making known to parents the need of early and adequate training, wherever the child is. You will find in connection with our exhibit a pamphlet addressed "To the Parents of Blind Children." (8) It is translated from the German by Mr. Allen of Perkins School. We have had it reprinted in both English and French. Presently I hope it will be as much a matter of course that handicapped children are reported by the yearly school census for education as that seeing children who are capable of education are so reported.

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The consequences of delay in the case of persons becoming blind later in life are equally familiar to all workers among the blind. When blindness comes to a bread-winner between thirty and forty years of age, for example, there is a good chance of wrecking the home life -- the mother going to work, the father idle and alone at home, easily losing courage, physical strength, even sanity. And here I should like to urge a saner and more reassuring attitude of mind upon those who come in contact with persons whose sight is failing or very defective, whether at hospitals, in social work, or elsewhere. No one can venture to underrate the immeasurable handicap of loss of sight, but we can say frankly that hundreds of people are delayed or wholly kept from the relief they might have from special appliances and occupations because of the false notion that technically recognised blindness is the only excuse for learning to rely frankly upon other senses than sight. Prompt, substantial encouragement to learn how to use other senses is absolutely necessary at the start. It becomes "too late" with terrible certainty. Help us then to put the blind of Massachusetts in touch with the existing agencies for their care. It is especially needed because here in Massachusetts our blind population is so scattered that it is a physical impossibility to keep in touch with them without the help of local committees. Last year, for example, we dealt with 593 persons, who represented 145 cities and towns beside Boston. It would be necessary to call upon you in any case, however, to help in this matter, because of the depths of discouragement into which the blind and their families often fall. It is truly a part of our work to inspire the blind with confidence and courage to find what Mr. Macy (9) has so well called the "brave possibilities" under the condition of blindness. Last winter, in the city of Springfield, a woman died at the age of forty-five, who had lived in Massachusetts since her eighth year, and been blind all her life. She lived and died uneducated, a competent, intelligent woman, who would have enjoyed and appreciated music and reading, and all that education and contact with other lives means. She had earned at times a considerable wage from tobacco stripping, finding for herself, you see, brave but rather sad possibilities. There has been too much of this sort of thing; now, with your help, it will not happen any more.

Just here I must say one word of warning. Do not expect, when blindness is associated with either serious mental, moral, or physical defects, that more con be accomplished than under the same circumstances with the seeing. There is something to be done then, and the condition may be ameliorated; but it is painful to everybody concerned when the incompetent Have been encouraged to expect the new industries for the blind to make them self-supporting. The very foundation of progress in work for the blind must be discrimination in school and shop between the blind, a handicapped group, and the defective blind; not to do more nor less for one group than the other, but to distinguish between them.

Some of the simplest and most natural ways of evening things up for the blind are easiest to forget; in no little a thing, for example, as speaking, when a blind person enters a room or when you meet him, remembering to substitute a sound or a touch for a glance. Another comparatively simple thing is the matter of addressing a blind person directly, rather than speaking in his presence about him, as though he were an inanimate object or a deaf person. Mr. Holmes tells me that his own grandfather, to the day of his death, asked Charles's mother what he would have rather than Charles himself. Only the other morning, on the street car, the conductor having asked Mr. Holmes where he gets off, turned to another passenger, and quite confident the blind are also deaf remarked: "That man is blind. You'll have to look out for him." No wonder the newly blind man, condemned by consensus of public opinion to silence and inactivity, feels that life itself is slipping away from him. One of the partly blind men we know, whom the public would not easily recognize as blind, says that many of his difficulties in life would be straightened out if people in public places, like the railway guards, police, etc., only had a custom of speaking instead of nodding their heads. (He was not complaining. It was only a confidential comment.) Again, the recreations that come so naturally to the seeing are often difficult or impossible without sight, or thought so by the blind and their families, which is equally as bad. So it has come about that such a gathering as the recent International Conference of Workers for the Blind devoted a whole session to "Recreations for the Blind." And so it has come about that in some cities work for the blind has begun in the form of "Ticket Bureaus," whose aim is to get for the blind theater and concert tickets for themselves and guides. The point to remember here is, that blindness in a family means both economic loss and double expense of fares, etc., for a guide, so that those who as seeing persons could afford recreations often cannot do so under the condition of blindness, when they need them more than ever. Miss Keller's saying, that "the heaviest burden of the blind is not blindness, but idleness," is the one to remember when you try to think how to help them, whether in the matter of employment or recreations, or both. I speak of this side of work for the blind because it is one which can only be developed by volunteer local work. In Boston, for several years now, friends of the blind have made it possible for professional blind musicians and lovers of music to attend the Symphony concerts. I have always remembered the reply of a young blind woman who had just returned home after an absence of some years at a school for the blind. When asked if she did not find social life through the young people of her own age at her church (she had no brothers and sisters), she said: "No, I think they have no idea that I can walk and talk and enjoy 'sociables' like anybody else. They think I am an invalid." In the heart of a small city and the midst of a large church she was isolated by a widespread misunderstanding concerning the blind. We look to local committees to get acquainted with the blind of their now towns, and help spread the news that the normal blind persons can walk and talk and dance and sing and Work and play.