whose steady current, it is to be hoped may carry blessing to a great number of these children of need. In the history of the blind in Connecticut the story of a little Italian boy deaf to the English language handicapped in body, besides his blindness will be ever a notable one. He made his mute appeal to a Hartford lady, who found him in one of the purlieus of the lower part of the city. What could be done for him? Again, the will found a way. He was taken to her pleasant home by his kind patron, Mrs. Emily Wells Foster, and there little by little a new world opened upon his darkened spirit. Kindness could open the

into kindergarten games. No wonder when he waked in the night he used to sing "Ring, ring happy bells!"

After this boy had been taught to walk, his father called at the Nursery to see him. Appearing to one of the teachers he inquired in broken English for "his little blind and crippled boy." "Oh!" said the teacher, "you have no crippled boy any more." When the little fellow appeared and was recognized, the father was overcome with emotion as he embraced the

other evidence of his skill and perseverance. In October, 1894, the growing wants of the movement required enlarged accommodations and the group of children and teachers were moved to more eligible quarters in the double three-story house at 1207 Asylum Avenue. Meanwhile friends were secured both among the seeing and the blind, who gave encouragement to the plan of ameliorating the condition of the blind wherever found in the state. A notable figure among these was

child'who appeared to him at least half transformed.

Musical instruction has been given from the start, and has proved a most valuable aid in raising hope and inspiring mental aspiration in the children. Mr. Marshall, himself blind, but a graduate of the Perkins Institute of Boston, has been the indefatigable and successful teacher of these rescued sufferers. Any one who has heard the rehearsals of his children's orchestra, and marked the proficiency of his pupils from year to year, will need no

F. E. Cleaveland, Esq., a blind attorney in the city of Hartford. Few tongues have been more eloquent in pleading for the rights of the blind than that of this energetic and well informed lawyer. Thoroughly familiar with the literature of the achievements of his class, and himself a fine instance of what they may do in a difficult field, his carefully prepared addresses carry conviction wherever they are heard. He pleads for no infantile legislation on behalf of the blind. He asks only for a fair opportunity for them with simply a

just recognition of their disability. One is startled, who hears for the first time his assertions of their capacity even when handicapped by loss of sight. Hear his well chosen words in the following appeal :

"Your reason is like a king who in his palace sits enthroned. Your sense of sight is but one of five grand avenues of approach along which swift-footed messengers bring tidings of what transpires throughout your kingdom. You lose this sense of sight and you have but closed the palace gates of one of these grand avenues. But the messengers who are thus debarred, are only hindered, not dismayed. For quickly they approach the throne along the other four. Before you lost your sight you thought that little more could be accomplished for the blind than to provide them food, raiment and shelter, but now, with plenty of time to think it over and revise your former opinion, shall you feel compelled to resign the office you now hold and live in idle dependence on your fortune or friends, or perchance, if your fortune and friends should be swept away, will you be content to take a place in some neglected corner of a town poor-house? Or will you say in your mind, what blind men have accomplished may be again accomplished by the blind? Remembering Mr. Fawcett, who was chosen by Gladstone as a Cabinet Minister, would you not say if it was possible for him to make an eminently successful Postmaster-General of a great empire, will it not be possible for me to retain the office I now hold, and still find a way in which I can faithfully discharge my duty as a public servant?

Would you think it possible for a blind man to use the eyes of others as men use spectacles, and become one of the most celebrated naturalists of this day? Turn to your encyclopedia and read the life of Huber who is still the leading authority on the particular lines he followed out."

Mr. Cleaveland has stoutly and persistently claimed from the beginning; First, that blindness itself is not an impassable barrier preventing a person with this limitation from becoming a self-reliant,

self-sustaining and useful member of society. Second, that the only reason why all blind people who are otherwise mentally and physically sound, do not become self-sustaining, is not because they are blind, but because the general belief entertained by all their seeing friends, (including their parents,) has in the case of children, robbed them of that training and discipline essential to a successful career even on the part of those who can see, and in the case of the adult blind operating to confirm them in the belief that they are rendered helpless by the loss of sight. These assertions do not however hang in the air. Witnesses are not wanting to their truthfulness, in measure, at least, who have watched for a few years past the progress of the children gathered in the Asylum Avenue home. Two years have sufficed in some instances to inscribe new signs of intelligence and happiness over these young faces. It is of course true of the blind as of the seeing, that differences in original capacity and native energy, manifest themselves in different degrees of progress, under a course of education. There is an able physician in Hartford, who in a condition of nearly total blindness meets with efficiency a variety of engagements. This is partly due to an element of courage and resolution, the absence of which in another case of similar misfortune would result in folding of the hands, and retiring from an active life. There is however an influence very radical in its character, upon blind pupils as upon all others, from the healthful rivalry of social training. Beyond this the blind from the natural aversion to activity produced by their condition are greatly in need of regular physical training. Without external help they become very shy of exercise.

The report of the Assistant Secretary of the Board of Education for the Blind for the year ending September, 1897. says: