that it does not disregard the home as a factor in the child's life nor remove him during growth from his natural environment, and it gathers in the children whose parents are unwilling to send them away from home. On the other hand, no public-school system can alone provide the balanced opportunities and the inspiration that come from nine months spent every year at a well-equipped institution. However, this may be, where there is a will there is a way. We read of splendid cooperation in 1912-13 between private associations and public schools for the blind, of the medical clinics provided by the New York association, of its gathering the children together week day mornings in summer for "vacation classes" and on Saturday mornings in term time for gymnastic games and calisthenics, for lessons in boy scouting and in the duties of camp-fire girls, for talks on personal hygiene, for music, for manual training and vocational training, in cooking, sloyd, basketry, rush seating, and the like. We hear of blind high-school boys in Milwaukee selling newspapers every evening from 4 o'clock to 6.30, "just like other boys," and of the success of graduate girls as masseuses. Supt. Pearse, of the Milwaukee public schools, traveled to Pittsburgh in the summer of 1912 to tell the American Association of Instructors of the Blind, in convention assembled, of how admirably the needs of blind children were met in his city public-schools system. No previous executive committee of the association had secured such a manifestation of cooperation.

In 1912, too, the "Department of Justice of the United States granted the various day schools for the blind their free quota of books from the American Printing House for the Blind." It is clear, then, both that these nonresidential schools for the blind have passed the experimental stage and that the movement for them is destined to grow broader and larger. Even in Germany the compulsory schooling law does not actually force the parent to send his blind child to an institution. But it is even more vital for the handicapped child to be educated than it is for the unhandicapped; so then, if all blind children are to be brought under schooling in the United States, must not more and more public schools be open to them? It would seem so. This means that residential and day schools will supplement each other, for both are necessary to accomplish the greatest good.

In 1912-13 the Boston school committee established a day school for children who see too little to remain in the regular grades and too much to progress normally in schools for the blind. Similar centers for myopic children have been successfully conducted in London for several years and would seem to be needed in most cities. This year the Massachusetts Legislature made appropriation for a study of the needs of all cases of defective eyesight.

The training of children under school age is carried on in four nurseries for blind babies, and a Minnesota law of 1913 authorizes provision for the care and education of blind infants. No attempt, however, at special provision for the feeble-minded blind children has yet been made in our country. Nor has systematic provision for the higher education of the blind been made. However, three States appear to have made it possible for blind students at some school of higher education to meet the expense of having a reader. Two of these, California and Ohio, have established such "reading scholarships" within the past year.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Books in embossed type are published by the American Printing House for the Blind, at Louisville, Ky., and by the printing departments of 12 residential and day schools, and by one denominational society. In 1912-13 the number of different books issued was 69. Every school which can afford it has its printing plant, and prints books, maps, examination papers, etc., as the school department requires. Five State libraries and 31 free public city libraries maintain departments of embossed books. These, with the 44 school libraries, furnish abundant instruction and relaxation to many thousands of readers. Eight periodicals in raised type are issued; the Matilda Ziegler Magazine alone issues 7,000 copies every month. In the year 1912-13 the circulation of books and periodicals from four libraries alone is known to have been 57,769. The mails carry such books free of postage. No country does more for readers who are blind.

Of the many systems of embossed types that have been devised to facilitate finger reading, it is pleasant to know that in but two do new books still appear in the United States. But even two is one too many. Still further encouragement comes from the fact that a socalled uniform type committee of blind people, appointed by the American Association of Workers for the Blind, has been diligently at work for several years, making tests at most of the schools and workshops of the country, and that in 1913 they made a report which, because of its evident fairness, has gained almost universal support. The year 1912-13 has thus seen substantial progress made toward the evolution of a best type for general adoption.

The work for the blind has had for the past seven years a splendid quarterly magazine, The Outlook for the Blind. This serves as an organ of intercommunication and of inspiration and is a means of uniting all activities for and by the blind. It makes the work less provincial by putting its readers in touch with the best things at home and abroad and by printing a complete list of valuable articles

and books on the subject; and it helps to keep that work in the public eye, for it has a considerable circulation among those who see.

NEW PLANT OF THE PERKINS INSTITUTION.

The academic year just closed has seen the completion of the new buildings of the Perkins Institution and the removal of that famous school into them. They comprise what is believed to be the most complete equipment for a residential school for the blind that exists. embodying, as they do, the ideas gathered during many years from most of the institutions and schools in this country and from some in Europe. Abroad all such schools are more or less hampered by lack of money. The theory on which this plant was reconstructed and a description of its features may be had from the following extract from the director's report for 1912:

It is wise alike for economic and eugenic reasons to educate blind boys and girls strictly apart at all times and places. To keep the two groups apart is wise for the reason also that the division breaks an unwieldy number into groups which may be handled. A further division into cottages is best because it effects the maximum of personal contact of the children and youth with selected adults. Making each cottage of boys or of girls a family is especially desirable and wholesome. The doing of daily chores by all pupils can be made to have a profound educational effect; besides, it is practical training for life. Some one has said that school is not merely preparation for life, it is life; that it should teach boys and girls, not subjects; and that one of the best means is to keep them busy and interested and full of responsibility. Officers and teachers should also have daily "duties," such as caring for their rooms, the chief object being to show to the pupils that housework is honorable and dignified and that its avoidance is not one of the results of education. But it is good also because it promotes the spirit of family interdependence.

Such division into cooperative family living is practical only where the children are old enough to be really helpful. Where they are not so, as in the lower school, the divisions may be by age as well as sex. Where they are so, as in the upper school, the element of age may be disregarded, the divisions being made to provide equally for the families. This has been the case in our girls' cottages since 1870.

The principle which the Perkins Institution is now able to emphasize throughout is that the test of education lies less in what one knows than in how one can adjust oneself to society; that, while it is easy to instruct the young blind. it is difficult to train them so as to hold their own in the world. A reason for this difficulty lies in the tendency of the seeing to underrate the capabilities of the blind; another, in the natural proneness of the blind to magnify this "prejudice of the seeing" and to minimize the influence of their own exertions in overcoming it. The Perkins Institution must be a living, working demonstration of the power of the young blind not only to do this, but also to appear and act like other people-really a continuous exhibition. To this end the best interdependent family living under reasonably good conditions is fundamental. The following is a brief description of the Perkins Institution, at Watertown:

THE NEW PERKINS INSTITUTION AT WATERTOWN, MASS.

Site. It is 54 miles from Boston city hall; 3 miles from Harvard University; within 6 miles of four other colleges; easily accessible by steam or trolley; within 10 minutes' walk of a flourishing village center and several churches. Fronts for 1,600 feet on the north side of the Charles River Basin and the Metropolitan Park System.

Has 34 acres of land, an old estate, diversified with shade trees, orchards, gardens, playgrounds, and a pond.

Buildings. The conditions offered gave the architect an excellent opportunity to satisfy requirements of health, practicalness, and æsthetic grouping.

Character of buildings.-Fireproof, low, narrow, yet relieved with gables and bays, affording maximum of light and air. Practically all living and sleeping rooms have southern exposure. Brick, with slate roof; Tudor Gothic style; wholesomely simple and yet beautiful in lines and coloring. Cartouches significant in the history of education of the blind are introduced. There is a lofty central tower and belfry.

Grouping. Two main divisions, a lower and an upper school, each complete and independent, except for a common tunnel connection with power house and service building.

1. Lower school (2 kindergartens and 2 primary schools): Four independent families, each with its own dining room, kitchen, play cloisters, etc., and with its own set of classrooms-all under one roof, inclosing a great court, 155 by 120 feet. Each family has its own matron and teachers.

2. Upper school: Nine cottages in two groups, separated by the main, or school and administration, building. Four families and a domestic-science house for the girls; four families for the boys.

Separate buildings are: A little hospital, containing four separate suites, each with its kitchenette; also dentist's and oculist's rooms. A power house and service building, containing boiler, generating, and refrigerating rooms, storerooms, bakery, laundry; kitchen, dining room, and quarters for 10 men; rooms for the Howe Memorial Press. Director's private residence.

The main building is constructed about two hollow squares, forming a girls' and a boys' quadrangle. The north and south axis building, between the courts, is a museum of teaching objects. In this axis are also an assembly room and a swimming pool, and across it, at the southern end, a gymnasium with roof rink. There is a great hall for public entertainment, dramatics, and dancing; an equally large library; ample rooms for music library, music teaching, and practice, and for piano tuning; and all the needed classrooms for girls' school and boys' school and for their manual training.

The cottages of the girls (like those of the boys) are under one roof and make three sides of a rectangular "close," 270 by 60 feet. From its center runs a 20-foot brick walk, connecting with the main building.

A cottage family is a unit and consists of a matron, 4 teachers, a helper who cooks, half the time of a second helper, and 20 girls or boys of grammar and high-school age. The house is complete, with kitchen, dining room, living room, shower bathrooms, etc. No dormitory, but the small room plan, every room having a sunny exposure.

All buildings are planned to be easily kept in order, as far as possible by the pupils themselves, the example being set by teachers and officers, all of whom personally care for their own rooms. The floors are mainly of battleship linoleum, cemented down and bounded by rounded or hospital base. Some floors are tiled, some are " Puritan." The dadoes are of painted burlap; the doors, flush panel; the windows, outward-opening casements. While everything

is simple, it is yet beautiful. The "institution aspect" is absent; instead there is the pleasant atmosphere of home, in which everyone has his part to perform. Object of the Perkins Institution. The training of blind boys and girls to live lives of happiness and efficiency, both in the institution and in the world. Hence it must be

A. A laboratory in which there shall be plenty of hard work and play and the maximum of personal service from pupils and staff alike; and

B. A place attractive to all-first, to those who live and labor there, and, second, to visitors to the public who must be the future employers of the graduates.

The new Perkins Institution was not built for more pupils, but for better service to all. Its location and the character of its buildings have put it in the public eye. Interested visitors and students of special education and social work are welcome at any time.