only assistance in learning how to stand alone, or how to regain the foothold they lost when darkness overtook them.

If the state would set aside a sufficient sum to equip shops where the sightless ones could be taught some useful trades they would prove to their benefactors that all they needed was a little help to help themselves. Just a little steadying, just a trifle to aid, and they would go on their way rejoicing, happy in the fact that they were busy and of some value to the world. All states are generous in the provision which they make for people with vision to enable them to pursue their courses of higher education. Now, if such aid is extended to young men and women who are in possession of all their faculties, how much more necessary it is to do something for people who are handicapped by the loss of sight. And here it might be stated, that provision should be made for manual training, since a far greater number succeed in the various tactile industries than otherwise.

The different states of the Union, which have not already established schools for the adults, are rapidly urging legislative action in that respect. When the adult blind have been trained in their various industries, and enabled to put forth their products, it is necessary that they find a market for their wares; and no place is so admirably suited in that respect as a large city where many congregate and where visitors are passing back and forth. The blind drift to large centers for a variety of reasons; in the first place they are naturally social, depending, as they do, upon others, be the dependence ever so slight, they must keep close to the great heart-throbs of the universe, to the human family. They lean and consequently

learn to love the sympathy of the mass of human beings with whom they come in contact. Consequently they migrate to large centers, where they may obtain help. Moreover, when they are skilled along any particular line, a better market is found for their wares in the large central cities. If it is true that more business is done by the sighted in large cities, it is doubly true of the blind, since they are deprived of one of the avenues by which they might enter into keener competition with their fellow-men.

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States recognizing this fact, that environment plays such an important part in their education, have located their shops for the adults in large cities. Massachusetts has two such institutions, one in Boston, and the other in the suburbs of the city. Maine has just opened one at Portland, New York has one New York City; Pennsylvania has one in Philadelphia; Maryland, one in Baltimore; others are located in Hartford, Chicago, Washington, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Milwaukee, Denver, while California has located hers at Oakland, just across the bay from San Francisco, making it easy for the blind to find a ready market and shipping point from the latter city.

Blindness often comes to people late in their lives through no fault of their own, but rather through their misfortune. The cause of

lindness among the adults of this intermountain region is largely due to accidents in mines, or mine explosions. In the event of blindness the occupation along that line, as has been previously stated, is lost, and the poor miner must seek work elsewhere. He tries various lines, oftentimes without avail; he sells newspapers, shoestrings, buttons, or other small articles, on the street. He tries playing a hand-organ, or

other musical instrument, or he begs, and by these means he sometimes gains a very precarious livelihood. But this is done to the great detriment of himself and often to that of the people who observe him. Far better would it be for him and greater credit to the state to educate the adults along the lines of the industries which have been proven and found adapted to them, such as piano-tuning, massage, cobbling, broom and mattress making, chair-caning, basket and carpet weaving, fancy-work, knitting, crochet, bead-work, hat framemaking, the manufacture of hammocks, and other articles for which there is a market. And when educated they will be able to take their places alongside their sighted fellows, hold up their heads, and become self-respecting people, instead of accepting the bounty given to them by charity rather than that which they have themselves earned. The majority of them feel when they earn a dollar that it is of far greater value to them than that obtained through charity. Aid for the blind, not alms, is what they ask. Many of them dislike begging on the street so much that often they would prefer death rather than continue it. But circumstances sometimes make it unavoidable.

The "Society for the Aid of the Sightless" has learned, through visits, that the needs of the blind are great. In nearly every case the cry was not for charity, but for something to do by which they might help themselves to pass away the lonely hours, days, and weeks which they spend in sad darkness. Owing to the lack of exercise they pass many sleepless hours, during the night, wondering if the daylight has come. As a drowning man

"The men and women for whom I speak are poor and weak in that they lack one of the chief weapons with which the human being fights his battle. But they must not on that account be sent to the rear. Much less must they be pensioned like disabled soldiers. They must be kept in the fight for their own sakes, and for the sake of the strong. It is a blessing to the strong to give help to the weak. Otherwise there would be no excuses for having the poor always with us.

"The help we give the unfortunate must be intelligent. Charity may flow freely and yet fail to touch the deserts of human life. Disorganized charity is creditable to the heart, but not to the mind. Pity and tears make poetry, but they do not raise model

tenement houses, or keep children out of factories, or save the manhood of blind men. The heaviest burden on the blind is not blindness, but idleness and they can be relieved of the greater burden.

"One of the principal objects of the movement which we ask you to help is to promote good workmanship among the sightless. In Boston, in the fashionable shopping district, the Massachusetts Commission has opened

a salesroom where the best handicraft of all the sightless in_the_state may be exhibited and sold. There are hand-woven curtains, table covers, bedspreads, sofa pillows, linen suits, rugs; and the articles are of good design and workmanship. People buy them, not out of pity for the maker, but out of admiration for the thing. Orders have already come from Minnesota, from England, from Egypt. So the blind of the New World have sent light into Egyptian darkness!

"It is not enough that our blind children receive a common school education. They should do something Iwell enough to become wage earners. When they are properly educated, they desire to work more than they desire ease or entertainment. All over the land the blind are stretching forth eager hands to the new tasks which shall soon be within their reach. They embrace labor gladly because they know it is strength.

"One of our critics has suggested that we who call the blind forth to toil are as one who should overload a disabled horse and compel him to earn his oats. In the little village where I live there was a lady so mistakenly kind to a pet horse that she never broke him to harness, and fed him twelve quarts of oats a day. The horse had to be shot. I am not afraid that we shall kill our blind with kindness. I am still less afraid that we shall break their backs.

"Nay, I can tell you of blind men who of their own accord enter the sharp competition of business and put their hands zealously to the tools of trade. It is our part to train them in business, to teach them to use their tools skilfully. Blind men have given examples of energy and industry, and with such examples shining in the in the dark other blind men will not be content to be numbered among those who will not or cannot carry burden on shoulder or tool in hand, those

who know not the honor of hard-won independence.

"The new movement for the blind rests on a foundation of common sense. It is not the baseless fabric of a sentimentalist's dream. We do not expect to find among the blind a disproportionate number of geniuses. Education does not develop in them remarkable talent. Like the seeing

man, the blind man may be a philosopher, a mathematician, a linguist, a seer, a poet, a prophet. But believe me, if the light of genuis burns within him, it will burn despite his infirmity, and not because of it. The lack of one sense-or two-never helped a human being. To paraphrase Mr. Kipling, we are not heroes, and we are not cowards, too. We are ordinary folk limited by an extraordinary incapacity. If we do not always succeed in our undertakings, even with assistance from friends, we console ourselves with the thought that in the vast company of the world's failures is many a sound pair of eyes!

"I appeal to you, give the blind man the assistance that shall secure for him complete or partial independence. He is blind, and falters. Therefore go a little more than half way to meet him. Remember, however brave and self-reliant he is, he will always need a guilding hand in his.

'Besides the blind, for whom existing institutions are intended to provide, there is the numerous class of active, useful men and women who lose their sight in mature years. Those who are in the dark from childhood are hard pressed by obstacles. But the man suddenly stricken blind is another Samson, bound, captive helpless, until we unloose his chains.

""Thus with the year

Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even and morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's

rose,

Or flocks or herds, or human face divine;

But cloud instead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me.'"-Milton.

Ever foremost in all good works pertaining to humanity, and with an interest enduring as her granite mountains, Utah was one of the first states in the Union to incor

porate a society which had for its purpose the amelioration of her population who are blind.

This organization, known as the Society for the Aid of the Sightless, obtained its articles of incorporation in 1904, and immediately proceeded to gather statistics in reference to the blind, to send people to visit them in their homes, to teach the helpless and unfortunate ones, who, like blind Bartimeus, had sat in darkness at the gates, waiting for one of the Lord's messengers to bring consolation and comfort.

The society has for its president, Dr. James E. Talmage, who has been tireless in his efforts to promote the interests of the blind, and to pave the way through which they may travel more securely to a higher and better life.

The principal work of the society as its charter indicates, is to help the blind to help themselves, and the members believe this can best be

done by encouraging reading, writing, varied studies, and especially skill in handicrafts suited to them, and by means of which they are not only enabled to pass away many a weary hour, but by the knowledge gained they can earn something which will tend to make life less burdensome to themselves or to oth

ers.

Blessed be work, is a motto which might be writ in words of fire on the shield of every blind person in the world, and then every blind person should see to it that the motto is carried out to the fullest extent.

Every aim in their lives should. be toward activity and every one having charge of them should see

The "Western Association of the Blind" is composed entirely of blind people, and is open to all the blind of the inter-mountain region. It has within its ranks blind people of all ages, and from many different localities. It has for one of its primal purposes the uniting of the blind into small groups. For instance, where several blind are assembled, a small community of interests may be built up and report made to the headquarters of the association, stating the number of blind, their occupations,if they have any, their ability to read and write, or whatever knowledge they pos

sess.

The Lord, always mindful of these unfortunates, opened a way by which their path in life might be less less thorny. Mrs. Andrew S. Rowan of Fort Douglas, succeeded in obtaining the use of a room in the Packard Library, Salt Lake City, in which the blind of that place may listen to readings, and there they assemble for one hour three days each week, while Mrs. Rowan, or some lady whom she has interested in the cause, takes charge of the class. Mrs. Rowan has also organized an auxiliary to the reading class, composed of prominent women of Salt Lake City, who are interested in the cause of philanthropy.

In addition to reading, there is instruction given in typewriting, and every Saturday morning for the space of two hours, Miss Marie Hansen, a young blind woman, gives lessons in the style of reading pursued by sightless people.