. Curious schools. n under theircommand. All graduates of the West Point Acad-emy come forth f om its doors with nice ideas ofhonor, and a high ideal of manhood ; and invariablythey profess a great love for their Alma Mater andnever regret the experiences of cadet PERKINS INSTITUTION AND MASSACHU-SETTS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND. HALF a century or so ago, if my young readerscould have peeped into the windows of asmall wooden house on Hollis Street, in Boston,you might have seen two little girls, six and eightyears of age, fumbling away over some bits of twine,gummed in the form of letters, u
. Curious schools. n under theircommand. All graduates of the West Point Acad-emy come forth f om its doors with nice ideas ofhonor, and a high ideal of manhood ; and invariablythey profess a great love for their Alma Mater andnever regret the experiences of cadet PERKINS INSTITUTION AND MASSACHU-SETTS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND. HALF a century or so ago, if my young readerscould have peeped into the windows of asmall wooden house on Hollis Street, in Boston,you might have seen two little girls, six and eightyears of age, fumbling away over some bits of twine,gummed in the form of letters, upon cardboard. A funny sort of school-book, wasnt it ? But, fiftyyears ago, this was good Dr. Howes first method ofteaching blind children the alphabet; and just thinkwhat a piece of work it must have been to preparethe letters in this way — and all with his ownhand! These two little girls were his first pupils. Hefound them one day by the roadside, when ridingthrough Andover; and, having obtained their parents28. Perkins Institution For The Blind. permission, he brought them to his fathers house-inBoston, and undertook their education. It seemed, no doubt, to the father and mother,a very hopeless thing to attempt, but the bright,docile children soon caught then teachers enthu-siasm ; and, in a little while, could tell upon metaltypes each letter of the alphabet, all the arithmeticalfigures, and the different marks of punctuation. Then Dr, Howe gave them some metal frames,perforated with square holes, and on these curiouslittle slates they soon learned to set the types up-right, and to spell out apple, chair, and otherwords in common use. Sheets of stiff pasteboard, marked off with elevatedlines, showed the boundaries of countries—just asthe colored lines do upon the maps in your Monroesgeography; rough, raised dots indicated ranges ofmountains; and pin-heads, big and little, showedthem, according to size, the cities and the towns. Half play and half study it seemed to the
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