United States 50,000 Assumed level of nationwide employment of blind and State quotas needed to reach assumed national levels. 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 United States Assumed level of nationwide employment of blind and State quotas needed to reach assumed national levels. 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000 50,000 CHAPTER II SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE BLIND Introduction The ultimate goal of organizations of the blind is the complete integration of the blind into society on a basis of equality. One step toward this goal is the placement of blind persons in competitive employment to the full extent of their abilities. But there are other steps that need to be taken. All the obstacles that stand in the path of attaining this goal must be removed or overcome. All possible aids to the attainment of this goal must be encouraged and expanded. In order that the role played by organizations of the blind in their struggle to achieve social and economic integration may be properly understood, it is necessary to know something of the causes that make it a struggle. As in most social movements, there exist very different and often conflicting points of view. Three basic sets of attitudes may be described: (1) the attitudes of the public, (2) the attitudes of agencies for the blind, and (3) the attitudes of the blind themselves, These designations should not be construed to mean that all members of the public are characterized by the first of these attitudes, that all agencies and workers for the blind are characterized by the second, or that all blind persons and organizations of the blind are characterized by the third. Many members of the public are not the victims of the attitudes described as "public;" many workers for the blind have not succumbed to the common attitudes of agencies; many blind individuals, and even some organizations of the blind, have not yet developed the forward-looking attitudes characteristic of the blind and their organizations. Public attitudes towards the blind In ancient times the attitude of the public towards the blind was one of almost universal and unmitigated hostility. The struggle of all mankind for survival was a stark affair with no quarter asked and no quarter given. Neither the family nor the community could afford to burden itself with the blind. Blindness was looked upon as one of the worst evils that could befall a man. Though certain blind persons attained a sort of spiritual preeminence, inspiring 40216 0-59-pt. 2- -4 a superstitious awe, the mass of the blind were looked upon as unprodu ive and expendable. In those ancient times, no one thought to educate or employ the blind. With the ascendancy of the great modern religions, particularly the Buddhist and Judaic-Christian religions, public attitudes began to change. These religions gave a new importance and dignity to the individual, and encouraged care for the destitute and unfortunate. In Europe especially, hospi tals and asylums were established, some of which were dedicated solely to the care of the blind. These institutions were at first administered entirely by the church, but many were later taken over by secular communities. Some, like the famous Quinze-Vingts in Paris, were established in connection with particular churches and were in the nature of lay orders or guilds. But none of these institutions provided for the blind was more than a refuge from the harshest rigors of life. Until late in the 18th Century, none attempted to educate the blind or to train them for useful employment. Without education or training for employment, the mass of the blind remained illiterate and devoid of any respectable means of self-support. As a consequence, the blind came to be almost universally regarded as fit only for beggary. Even today these views continue to pervade public attitudes towards the blind and to reinforce the popular equation of blindness with physical helplessness and mental incompetence. The widespread assumption that blind individuals are unable to speak, think or act for themselves is one of the most constant and frustrating handicaps borne by the blind person seeking acceptance into society on a basis of equality. Out of the long centuries of indigence and ignorance--enforced by the greater ignorance of society--there survives today a lingering and deep-rooted preconception of the helplessness of the blind, The first attempt at educating the blind and training them to some degree of self-help was carried out by Valentin Hauy in the year 1784. Hauy founded in Paris the Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles, in which the blind were taught such elementary subjects as arithmetic, geography, handicrafts, reading and, above all, music, Hauy was also the inventor of embossed, or raised, print. Education of the blind progressed slowly, Hauy had been in error in assuming that print readily perceptible to the eye would, when raised, be equally perceptible to the touch. Raised print never was a suitable means of reading for the blind; nevertheless, it persisted even after the punctographic system was developed. A survey made near the middle of the nineteenth century reported that fully one-third of the pupils attending the principal schools for the blind in the United States were unable to read, largely as a result of the widespread use of raised print, Louis Braille, himself blind, perfected his punctographic system of reading and writing in 1837, but through the inertia of educators it was not officially adopted even in France until 1854. In the United States, the adoption of Braille was delayed even further by a controversy among instructors of the blind over the relative merits of Braille and New York Foint, another system based on raised dots. It was not until 1918 that a uniform system of Braille was finally agreed upon in this country. Meanwhile, another important advance in education of the blind occurred in 1879, when Congress first made an appropriation to the American Printing House for the Blind for the embossing of books for the blind. This program has since been gradually expanded. At present about a million dollars annually is spent by the Government for supplying Braille, Talking Books and Talking Book equipment to the blind. In 1892 Frank Hall invented the Braille writer, which together with the ordinary typewriter has afforded the blind a ready means of writing as well as reading. Today this equipment is, of course, supplemented by the tape recorder. Education beyond the high school level was not made available to the blind in any significant numbers until well into the twentieth century. In 1907 the first law was passed furnishing financial assistance to blind students who sought to pursue a higher education. The movement was inaugurated by Dr. Newell Perry, patriarch of the National Federation of the Blind, who persuaded the state of New York to set up reading scholarships for blind college students. By 1950, eighteen states were granting scholarships to blind college students, some providing reading services alone, others providing both reading services and living expenses. As this brief survey shows, education of the blind, both in terms of the numbers educated and quality of education provided, is a recent and still limited venture. The public as a whole knows little of the facilities that are now available for education of the blind. Few sighted people have ever seen Braille writing; fewer still have any idea how well a blind person is able to read or write by this means. A large number of people believe that the majority of the blind are to this day almost entirely without benefit of education. It is far from generally known that graduates of our schools for the blind and public school classes for the blind have completed a high school education. In the public mind, the blind in general are still held to be illiterate and incompetent. Vocational training of the blind, like their education is an achievement of comparatively recent times. The first serious suggestion that the blind might be capable of useful employment was made by the Spanish humanist, Vives, writing in the sixteenth century. In his work on poor relief, in which he proposed a state system for the treatment of the poor, he wrote: "Nor would I allow the blind to sit idle or to wander around in idleness. There are a great many things at which they may employ themselves. Some are suited to letters; let them study, for in some of them we see an aptitude |