ools; then of course each fresh
teacher so trained might be able either to superintend another
school, or to carry on in a blind school something of the
pupil-teacher system now adopted for ordinary schoolmasters and
mistresses.

In every country there ought to be at least one normal school where
teachers for the blind may be trained. A simple way of effecting
this would be for the Government to allow to one establishment,
which should first be ascertained to be a superior one in its
management and results, such an annual grant of money as should
enable it to retain several young men as assistant-teachers, who
would be ready to supply vacancies, and to take charge of
newly-established institutions.

This kind of assistance would be, perhaps, the most valuable
encouragement which a Government could give. It would ensure the
training of persons to continue and perfect an art which has been
kept in a state of infancy from the want of such a provision.

The blind may be divided into two classes--those so born and those
who become so from disease or accident; the latter is by far the
most numerous class. Bowen says he believes there is no authentic
instance of any one born blind being restored to sight by human
means. I should rather doubt this, as I have been told that
congenital cataract can be removed if the operation takes place
early enough, viz. at the age of one or two years. The same author
says it is believed that blindness in after life might often be
prevented were the organisation of the eye more thoroughly
understood by physicians. He then gives some facts to show the
extent to which blindness prevails. Bowen says the first accounts
which we have of schools for the blind are those in Japan. They
existed some years before that in Paris, thought to be the first in
Europe, though there is a doubt between it and the school at
Amsterdam. In Japan the instruction appears to be oral. The blind
seem to have fulfilled the office of historians to their nation,
and to have formed no small proportion of the priesthood. The first
regular system of embossed printing in Europe was the invention of
Valentin Hauey, the founder of the Paris institution. Many alphabets
have since been invented, of which I will not speak now, as this
subject shoul