her causes, are feeble in
body and defective in intellect; such children are a great burden in any
class or school, and require special treatment and instruction.
Educational authorities should unite and have one or two schools in a
healthful locality for mentally defective blind children.

More and more, in educational work for the seeing, there is a tendency
to specialize, and thus enable each student to have the best possible
instruction in the subjects that bear most directly on his future
calling. To prepare the blind for self-maintenance, there should be an
equally careful study of the ability of each child.

A scheme of education which has for its object to make the blind a
self-sustaining class should include: kindergarten schools for children
from 5 to 8 years of age; preparatory schools from 8 to 11; intermediate
schools from 11 to 14. At 14 an intelligent opinion can be formed in
regard to the future career of the pupils. They will fall naturally into
the following categories:--(a) A certain number will succeed better in
handicraft than in any other calling, and should be drafted into a
suitable mechanical school. (b) A few will have special gifts for
general business, and should be educated accordingly. (c) A few will
have the ability and ambition to prepare for the university, and the
special college should afford them the most thorough preparation for the
university examinations. (d) Some will have the necessary talent,
combined with the requisite character and industry, to succeed in the
musical profession; in addition to a liberal education, these should
have musical instruction, equal to that given to the seeing, in the best
schools of music. (e) Some may achieve excellent success as
pianoforte-tuners, and in a pianoforte-tuning school strict business
habits should be cultivated, and the same attention to work required as
is demanded of seeing workmen in well-regulated pianoforte factories.

The United Kingdom stands almost alone in allowing the education of the
blind to depend upon charity. In the United States, each state
government not only makes liberal provision for the education and
training of the blind, but most of them provide grounds, buildings and a
complete equipment in all departments. Although it costs much more _per
capita_, from L40 to L60 per annum, the blind are as amply provided with
the means of education as the seeing. The government of the United
States appropriates $10,000 per a