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enlisted in our behalf, to put within our reach a finished college education; such as many who have the use of their eyes, and all other natural faculties, enjoy at the expense of government. Here is yet a field open that will richly repay, in human happiness, the labors of public or private munificence; for it imparts sight to the blind. Showers of emotional sympathy we have on every side; but stern experience has taught us, that these will neither fill an empty stomach, nor satisfy the cravings of an immor tal mind; but, on the contrary, unless accompanied by well-directed christian benevolence, they serve only to awaken in our bosoms smouldering emotions of sorrow, which we would fain forever suppress. Nothing can be more cruel and inconsistent, than for persons who would commiserate our misfortune, to point out its darkest phase, and draw before our imagination a panorama of all the fascinating beauties hid from our view, painted in the most extravagant colors. Such compassion can but aggravate our wounds, and move us to murmur against an irrevocable providence. Even under this affliction, life is not without its charms. So multifarious and boundless are the resources of human happiness, that by the loss of natural sight, new and more glorious scenes of contemplation break upon our spiritual vision. With a lively hope soon to be disencumbered from the imperfections of sense, and forever roam through the regions of fadeless beauty, we endure our lot with patience, and can say, in the language of the poet:

"He doeth all things well." The great Milton, who under a depression of spirits, lamented his loss of sight in the most pathetic strains, said, in moments of cooler reflection: "It is not, however, miserable to be blind he only is miserable who cannot acquiesce in his blindness with fortitude. And why should I repine at a calamity which every man's mind ought to be so prepared and disciplined as to be able, on the contingency of its happening, to undergo with patience a calamity to which man, by the condition of his nature, is liable, and which I know to have been the lot of some of the greatest and the best of my species ?"

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BLIND IN THE INDUS

TRIAL PURSUITS.

SERIES II.-SECTION I.

MECHANICS.

THERE is, perhaps, no calling in which it may become necessary for us to act, where sight is so necessary, as in the manual labor pursuits. In rude stages of society, when mechanical operations were all performed by hand, it may have been more possible for a blind person, in some branches, to compete with the seeing. But in an age like the present, when steam and other natural agents, have usurped the place of muscular power, and the manufacture of all articles of profit is monopolized by large capitalists, this possibility seems almost entirely to have vanished. The facility with which a seeing person will manufacture articles by the aid of machinery, from which those without sight have been entirely excluded, appears to have left this class of laborers utterly without a hope of gaining even a livelihood. But it seems to us that with a little kindly aid, this inequality might, in a great measure, be remedied. That the blind have sufficient ingenuity, and can also acquire the requiite knowledge of any mechanical pursuit, necessary

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to success, will not be questioned by any one, in the least acquainted with their history.

But, in any branch requiring the use of numerous tools, change of position, and bringing together many parts into one whole, they must necessarily lose more time, in feeling over their work, selecting, using and replacing their implements, than one who has his eyes. Here, then, arises their only inability to compete with other laborers. Facility is what they have lost, and not skill. It seems to us that, in those manufacturing establishments where labor is so divided among the operatives, that each person has but one distinct part of the whole to perform, and where no change of position is requisite, the blind might perform some portions of the process with but little or no inconvenience. Should manufacturing establishments of this kind be erected, in connection with our Institutions, where machinery would facilitate labor, we think, with the aid of a few seeing persons to perform the most difficult parts, a more profitable and honorable operation might be conducted, than in the few simple trades at present selected for, and taught to, the blind. Complex mechanism seems never to have frightened them, but on the other hand, when left to their own inclination in this respect, they have almost uniformly selected those pursuits in which great ingenuity and delicacy of perception were most indispensable.

WILLIAM HUNTLY, a native of Barnstaple, in Devon, who was born blind, spent the principal portion of his life in watch and clock making. His father seems

to have possessed great skill in this business, and brought up his son to the same craft. He was considered by the inhabitants of his native place, a very superior hand in his profession, especially in repairing musical clocks and watches. It is said that he seldom met with any difficulty, even in the most complicated cases; and it often occurred that when others failed in repairing a clock or watch, Huntly found no trouble in discovering the nature of the malady, and presently administered the proper nostrum. Had not our own experience and observation taught us to what an astonishing degree the sense of touch may be cultivated, the idea of making it supply the place of the eye, and a powerful magnifying glass, (which is generally used by jewelers,) might, to us, as well as to others, seem preposterous. Besides, these facts will appear still more reconcilable, when it is remembered that Huntly lived in the days of huge wooden clocks, and watches about the size of a Moravian biscuit.

Neither is he the only blind person who turned his attention to this art. WILLIAM KENNEDY, who became sightless in childhood, had the reputation of being one of the best clock builders, both common and musical, of his time. This mechanical genius was a native of Tanderagee, Armagh, and lived in the latter part of the seventeenth century. When a boy, he was master builder and projector for all the children in his native town, nor did maturer years relax his desire to engage in useful employments.

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