The Braille Forum Volume II July 1963 Number 2 Published Quarterly by the American Council of the Blind * Editor: Mrs. Marie Boring 1113 Camden Avenue Durham, North Carolina * Associate Editors Ned E. Freeman, 136 Gees Mill Road, Conyers, GA Mrs. Mary Jane Hills, 104 Longview Terrace, Rochester 9, N.Y. George L. Howeiler, P.O. Box 336, Sandy, Oregon * Executive Offices 136 Gees Mill Road, Conyers, GA ***** ** Statement of Editorial Policy The Braille Forum is dedicated to promoting the greater independence, autonomy and dignity of all blind people. The Forum will carry official ACB news and programs, but its pages will also be available for the free expression of views and opinions. Insofar as possible the Forum will publish news of organizations and agencies of and for the blind and any developments of interest to its readers. Timely material is solicited. Selections of material will be made on the basis of interest, timeliness, originality, clarity and forcefulness of expression. In controversial matters space will be made available for the presentation of all divergent points of view. ** Notice The Braille Forum is available in braille, ink-print and on tape. Miss June Goldsmith of 652 East Mallory Avenue, Memphis 6, Tennessee, should be notified of any change of address or of any person desiring to receive the braille or ink-print edition. The tape edition may be obtained from Mr. Melvin D. Cohen, Tape Library for the Blind, Inc., 94 Broad St. SW, Atlanta 3, Georgia. Letters and material for publication should be submitted to the Editor or to one of the Associate Editors. ***** ** Contents ACB Convention Notice ACB President's Fireside Chat Proposed Statement of ACB Principles and Beliefs Angry Florida Lions Join Forces with Militant Blind, by George Card He Won a 40-Year Battle for the South, by Frank Daniel Telephone Newspaper Michigan School Tackles Problem of the Multiple-Handicapped Blind Child Fingertip Vision National Legislation Prayer for the Middle-Aged Meet the Civil Service, by Paul Kirton Proposed Elimination of Rental Fees for Switchboard Attachments Techniques of a Blind Biology Teacher, by Dr. Joseph Frank Blind Bridge Players Letters from Readers Hyde Park Corner, by Earl Scharry Here and There, by George Card ACB Officers and Directors ***** ** ACB Convention Notice The American Council of the Blind will hold its annual convention July 19-21 (Friday through Sunday) at the St. Clair Hotel in Chicago. Make your plans now to attend this convention. Write to the hotel for reservations. Rates are as follows: single, $6.00; double, $10.00; twin, $11.00. The St. Clair Hotel is located on Ohio Street just off Michigan Boulevard, convenient to restaurants, shopping, Chicago's night life and not far from the Loop. In charge of the arrangements for the 1963 ACB convention is Robert O'Shaughnessy, 609 North Allyn, Carbondale, Illinois. Dr. S. Bradley Burson of 917 Kenyon, Downers Grove, Illinois, is in charge of planning the program. The convention is scheduled to hear discussions on rehabilitation, national legislation, workshops, fund raising, projects carried on by state organizations and credit unions. Speeches, panel discussions and discussions from the floor on a great variety of subjects of interest to blind people everywhere promise to make this an outstanding gathering. ***** ** ACB President's Fireside Chat My friends: The time for our 1963 Convention is approaching rapidly. I am looking forward to meeting and becoming personally acquainted with many of you at that time. I shall make an earnest effort to be available in the Headquarters Suite at any time the convention is not actually in session -- 'scusin' a little time to sleep. I hope you will come. The Convention Committee has been working hard to plan an interesting and worthwhile program. Last year in St. Louis we were largely preoccupied with working out a constitution and electing officers. We did lay down some policy guide lines and progress has been made. Certainly ACB is becoming known among the blind and to the agencies. Now we need to get down to more specific details as to our aims and beliefs. If we who serve as officials of ACB are to represent accurately the opinions and aspirations of the blind we need to have as complete an expression as possible from our members, FORUM readers, and other blind persons as to what those opinions and aspirations are. You will find in this issue of the FORUM a "Statement of ACB Principles and Beliefs." Those of us who have been involved in the preparation of this document have tried to express what we believe you want a national organization of the blind to be and to stand for. However, the final form of this statement can be truly a consensus only with your participation. I am asking you, therefore, to give this statement careful consideration, to send your comments and suggestions to the chairman of the Resolutions Committee, and to come to Chicago prepared to discuss fully the various points covered. Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women in it merely players." All of us, as we go through life, are called upon to play many roles. Many of these we choose for ourselves -- doctor, housewife, school teacher, mechanic, Rotarian, club woman, responsible citizen. Some are the natural result of growing up -- school child, teenager, worker, spouse, parent, older person. But many roles come to us without our volition. Normally, far more of these adventitious roles are happy ones than otherwise. However, it is of the latter that we tend to think when we say, "Why should I deserve this?" None of us would have chosen the role of a blind person. But we can learn to play it with joy and dignity. Many other people have had far more difficult parts thrust upon them. The difference between the neurotic and the sound personality lies in the rejection or acceptance of the role appropriate to the moment. The schizophrenic rejects life and the world about him and escapes into unrealities. The healthy, mature individual lifts his chin, squares his shoulders and says, "Well, if that's the way it's going to be -- let's get on with it." Faithfully yours, Ned Freeman ***** ** Proposed Statement of ACB Principles and Beliefs (Editor's Note -- The following statement, drawn up by Earl Scharry and Ned Freeman, is being presented to the Resolutions Committee of the American Council of the Blind for consideration at the 1963 Convention of the ACB. Please send your comments on this draft and any suggestions you may have for such a statement of principles to the Chairman of the Resolutions Committee, John Luxon, 7310 Woodward Avenue, Detroit 2, Michigan.) * STATEMENT The American Council of the Blind is an entirely new organization of the blind based on entirely new concepts of the functions and responsibilities of organizations of the blind. It solicits the allegiance and active participation of progressive and civic-minded men and women throughout the country; the cooperation of other organizations and agencies interested in the welfare of the blind; and the understanding and support of the public. Before soliciting such participation, cooperation and support, it is proper for us to state clearly and forthrightly the broad principles to which we are dedicated as an organization and to outline our objectives and beliefs. The following Statement is recommended to the Second Annual Convention of the ACB for adoption as a summary of the tenets which inspired the founding of ACB and to which our membership subscribes. FUNCTIONS OF ORGANIZATIONS OF THE BLIND. A national organization of the blind is essential in order to perform the following functions: 1. To provide a forum in which the composite and current views of all blind citizens can be ascertained and expressed, and an instrument by which they can be disseminated and effectuated. 2. To increase public understanding of blindness and blind persons. 3. To inform blind persons of services, equipment and opportunities available to them; to inspire them to take advantage of these; and to assume a full and active part in the life of their communities. THE PLACE OF AGENCIES FOR THE BLIND -- There need be no inevitable conflict between agencies for the blind and organizations of the blind. Blindness is not synonymous with dependency, and the blind are not disqualified from a full and active participation in the economic, social and civic life of the community. However, in order to achieve such participation specialized skills must be taught through specialized education; specialized equipment adapted to use by the blind must be made available; and specialized services must be provided in order to train and equip blind persons for employment and to locate employment opportunities for them. Providing and administering such specialized services and equipment requires highly specialized training and a unique understanding of the nature of blindness and its problems. Therefore, the agencies which provide such services should be independent of other social agencies and should operate under distinctive procedures based on distinctive concepts. Specialized agencies serving and assisting the blind have a legitimate place in our society, and we favor supporting and strengthening them in every way possible. They can provide valuable factual data and guidance and they have the necessary funds and personnel. Also, the Governmental agencies are charged with the legal responsibility for providing training and services. Their views on matters affecting the welfare of the blind are entitled to be heard and weighed with the greatest respect. In the formulation of programs such organizations should consult with, and consider the opinions of, representatives of organizations of the blind, and other qualified blind persons, in order that such programs may truly serve the real needs and best interests of the blind. The need for such consultations applies to both private and governmental agencies. Wherever possible, properly qualified blind persons should be employed to carry out programs and services affecting the blind. THE NECESSITY FOR OPEN DISCUSSION. An organization of the blind, like any organization, should at all times be responsive to the will of its membership. The membership should, therefore, be kept informed fully on all relevant facts and arguments. The best means of assuring this is a regularly published magazine. Such a magazine should provide members and non-members alike with useful and enlightening information, and it should also be a forum for the free exchange of varying points of view. It should be divorced as completely as possible from political considerations. It should be regarded as belonging to its readers and not to the officers of the organization. It should not be the mouthpiece for the imposition upon the readers of the philosophy of the current leaders, but a guide to the leaders in helping them ascertain the consensus of opinion of blind persons generally. LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITIES. It is a proper function of organizations of the blind to act as spokesmen for the blind with regard to pending legislation and to initiate and foster measures affecting the blind. In such fields as social security and vocational rehabilitation it is frequently necessary to act on the national level, and in such cases the national organization should adopt and promote a single national policy responsive to the views of the national membership. However, many problems can best be solved on a state or local level, and in such cases the national body can be of assistance in providing information as to measures and procedures that have proved successful elsewhere, and in the drafting of documents tailored to the needs of the particular group involved, but it should act only in an advisory capacity at the request of the state or local group. Social and legislative experimentation is of value and there should be no attempt to impose a stultifying uniformity. Solutions should be sought on the basis of the circumstances prevailing in the particular state, the degree of development of programs for the blind and the political and economic climate. We feel, however, that the true well-being of blind persons is better served by fostering and encouraging individual initiative and responsibility rather than dependence on public or private assistance. PROMOTING BETTER PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING. The frustration experienced by many blind persons in their efforts to integrate with their communities economically, socially and culturally is due, not to public apathy or ill will, but to a lack of public understanding of the capabilities and aspirations of the blind. A national organization of the blind must help to dissipate this curtain of misunderstanding by familiarizing the public with the solid achievements of the mass of blind persons. It can impress upon the public the paramount importance to the blind of independence and opportunity, and the distastefulness to them of paternalism and pity. The public must be made acquainted with the many success stories among the blind in such a way as to make clear to both blind and sighted persons that they do not demonstrate any miraculous powers on the part of the individual, but are the result of opportunities pursued through hard work and determination, which could be duplicated in many more cases if comparable opportunities were made available -- and comparable determination were experienced. The most effective way to combat misconceptions about blindness and the blind is through our own conduct as individuals and as organizations. Therefore, in all literature released by us or in our name great care must be taken to avoid appeals for pity and references direct or indirect to helplessness. As individuals and as organizations we should act with responsibility and with moderation. In our policies and programs we must be cognizant of the public interest and the public welfare and must not pursue our own advantage at the expense of the public good. We can best demonstrate our competence for first-class citizenship by taking an active interest in civic matters and in the welfare of other groups -- particularly the welfare of other handicapped groups. PROVIDING INFORMATION TO THE BLIND. Blind individuals frequently are not familiar with appliances specially adapted for their use and with special services and opportunities available to them. Organizations of the blind should disseminate such information. Also, by publicizing the experiences of successful blind men and women others can be inspired to strive for careers in the same fields. Acquaintance with other blind persons who have adjusted to blindness and are playing active roles in their communities can be a very important element in the re-orientation of the newly blinded, and such contacts should be encouraged by agencies and organizations. EDUCATION. The trend toward integration of the blind into public schools should not be allowed to deteriorate into a mere escape from the realities of blindness without recognizing the special needs of the blind child. Blind children require specialized equipment, specialized techniques, specialized teaching personnel, and texts specially adapted for the blind to provide the student as nearly as possible with information equivalent to that available to the sighted child. Neither should integration be allowed to result in the deterioration of the residential school. It is recognized that integrated classrooms are not suitable for or available to many blind children. Therefore, the residential school should be preserved as a supplementary educational institution and specialized vocational training and experimentation. The intellectual aptitudes of a large proportion of blind persons and the rapid impact of automation make it imperative that more and more qualified blind students be encouraged and assisted to pursue their studies in the field of higher education. Government funds should be made available to provide more badly needed textbooks in braille, on tapes or Talking Books for such students. PUBLIC ASSISTANCE. Where public assistance is necessary it should be truly adequate for decency and health and should be granted with a minimum of personal investigation and supervision consistent with the public interest. It should be provided as an aid in time of personal disaster and should not be made contingent upon family responsibility, residence requirements, liens, or reimbursement from the estates of recipients. For many blind people public assistance should be only a temporary aid, until full self-support can be achieved, and the attainment of such self-support should be regarded as one of the needs of the individual to which the assistance payments can be applied. Social workers and organizations of the blind should strive together to find ways of giving incentive to able bodied recipients of public assistance to achieve self-support and not to make a career of public aid. These concepts should apply not only to services to the blind but to all categories of persons requiring re-training and assistance toward self-sufficiency. We realize that conditions other than blindness often make the attainment of full self-support impossible for many blind persons. In such cases assistance and services should be directed toward the achievement of the highest degree of dignity and independence of which the recipient is capable. REHABILITATION. Rehabilitation agencies should assist individuals to attain the maximum degree of adequacy and independence in daily living. They should counsel and assist clients in obtaining suitable vocational training and/or re-training, and should aid them in finding dignified and profitable employment. The responsibility of such agencies should not end with the placement of an individual in any employment, but the agency's services should remain available to help the individual to advance in his chosen field or to help him find new and more rewarding employment consonant with his abilities and aspirations. Sheltered workshops can have a proper and worthwhile place in the rehabilitation process by training blind individuals for industrial competency, and by experimenting with new products and new processes in which the blind may profitably compete. They should not be regarded as places of terminal employment for normally competent individuals. Persons qualified to receive unemployment benefits should not be denied such benefits while undergoing re-training for new employment. Persons qualified for OASDI benefits should not be denied disability benefits when unable to find suitable employment because of a physical handicap, regardless of demonstrated ability to engage in "substantially gainful activity." DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF THE ORGANIZATION. The American Council of the Blind is a democratically controlled organization and, as such, its policies are and must remain subject to change by the membership. The membership cannot, therefore, be irrevocably committed to any specific measures, programs or activities. However, in adopting this statement we believe that the mass of our members are united in dedication to the foregoing principles and espousal of the foregoing objectives and beliefs. ***** ** Angry Florida Lions Join Forces with Militant Blind By George Card The December issue of the FLORIDA WHITE CANE carries a lead article reporting recent developments which may bring an end to long domination over the blind of Florida by the administrative head of the state agency for the blind. It is alleged that Harry Simmons, who administers the Florida Council for the Blind, has dictated the policies of the Council for more than fourteen years. In 1941 the Lions of Florida pushed through legislation establishing this agency and had five of their number appointed to its Board of Directors. One of these men is alleged to have been completely subservient to Simmons from the very first and was able during all these years to lull the Lions of the state into a sense of smug self-satisfaction by convincing them that the Florida Council was doing a splendid job for the blind. In 1952 the Florida Federation of the Blind came into existence and almost immediately began to ask embarrassing questions. Its first president, Larry Thompson of Tampa, was at that time a placement man in the employ of the Council. At the risk of losing his job, he did not hesitate to tell what he knew at first hand. Each year Simmons was reporting to the Federal Government that his agency was placing hundreds of blind people in remunerative employment. Larry believed that, aside from the vending stand program, these extravagant claims were almost wholly fictitious, and he fearlessly said so. He was fired, as were others in the agency employ who dared to speak out. Simmons succeeded in arousing great resentment against the Federation of the Blind, among the Lions, who regarded the Florida Council as their baby. The Federation and its leaders were reviled and execrated and for a time the organization's survival was doubtful. But it did survive and continued to expose what it regarded as a cruel deception being practiced by the state agency. And at last, in early 1962, the Federation was able to convince Governor Bryant that the Florida Council really belonged neither to the Lions nor to Harry Simmons but to the whole state and that its Board ought not to continue to be dominated by representatives of one group. Accordingly, he appointed two independent-minded citizens, and these began to raise skeptical questions. Last year, for instance, the Florida Council boasted that it had made more than 300 placements of blind persons, but the state welfare agency reported that only eleven blind persons had been removed from the list of over 2,500 on the public assistance rolls because of employment. Simmons refused to identify any of his alleged "placements." When such facts were brought to the attention of the Lions their confidence was shaken, and they began independent inquiries. Simmons made a desperate effort to squelch this investigation, but it had already gained too much momentum. The Lions of Hillsborough County drew up a scorching report to the Governor, based on their findings. A vacancy occurred on the Florida Council's Board in December, 1962. If Governor Bryant appoints a third independent member, as it is devoutly hoped he will, the lid may be blown off entirely and the long winter of discontent for the blind of Florida may at last end. If it does, the major credit must go to the Florida Federation of the Blind and to the dogged courage of its leaders. ***** ** He Won a 40-Year Battle for the South By Frank Daniel (The following article under the above title appeared as a feature story in the Sunday Atlanta Journal-Constitution for February 3, 1963. Accompanying the article were two pictures: one of Commissioner McDonald, the blind hunter, with a deer he had killed by his keen sense of hearing; the other of McDonald and his wife feeding the birds on the spacious lawn of his home, where he takes great pride in his garden. When asked for permission to use this article in the FORUM, Mr. McDonald replied, "The only thing is, there must be some confusion about the dates. Since I am now only 39 years old, how could all these things have happened so far back?" We have consulted the archives and find the dates in this article substantially correct. We can only conclude that Walter McDonald was the youngest person ever to be elected to public office.) Walter Raleigh McDonald says that as a Georgia Public Service Commissioner for 40 years his chief concern has been the economic development of his state. This is a flat statement about a distinguished career as full of ups and downs as a topographical map of Georgia's mountain country. It tells the facts, but it omits the story. And it is a stirring story of personal and professional accomplishment, punctuated with not a few tough tussles and not a few triumphs over those artful dodgers, vested interest and established procedures. Mr. McDonald ignores the story angle because he is a stickler for facts. Facts have proved his stoutest weapon. Nor are they "cold" facts when he uses them like an acetylene torch to cut through the icy steel of power, prejudice and partiality. ... McDonald has been a vital figure -- he has been the enduring key figure -- in the long legal fight that restored fair transportation costs to Georgia and the South. In consequence, Georgia sends its products to market at the same freight rates it costs other sections to send their products to Georgia. The unfavorable freight rates were preposterous, stultifying and menacing to the nation because they handicapped one section of the country ... The disparity of shipping costs had prevailed for 50 years when Mr. McDonald was elected Public Service Commissioner in 1922. ... Born on a dairy and produce farm near Augusta, Ga., Walter McDonald lost his sight when he was 13. He briefly attended the Georgia Academy for the Blind where he decided to become a lawyer. There was money available to train him to become a blind farmer, but none to educate him in the law. He borrowed the money at the bank and became a student at the famous Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia. He learned how to study, how to develop a retentive memory to which facts, details, dates cling like lichen on a rock. He learned, too, that he had a mind that went on absorbing knowledge, an inquiring mind. He learned to put his other senses to work for his eyes. He went to the Brown College Preparatory School and in one year finished the two-year course. "I studied Cicero and Virgil at the same time. That's an advantage because the contrast in the two men is so striking." When he entered the law school of the University of Georgia, he paid his way by selling law books. When he graduated in 1914, he went back to Augusta and hung out his shingle. He became a criminal lawyer, but the violence and passions of criminology had small appeal to a mind fascinated with the labyrinth of "due process." He turned to real estate law and was enjoying a good practice when he was elected to the Georgia General Assembly about the time the United States entered World War I. Only a few years later he was elected to the Public Service Commission and remains not only its senior member by far, but with more years of service than any elected Georgia official. He was off the Commission for a brief period because of a disagreement with the then governor. Ten years after he became a commissioner, he and Miss Estelle Carpenter of Augusta were married. They live at 735 West Ponce de Leon Ave., Decatur, and are members of the First Baptist Church. They have a daughter, a son, and three grandchildren. Mr. McDonald is an enthusiastic huntsman and fisherman. He has shot two deer. "I aimed where I heard the bucks leap," he explains. He has shot many wild turkey. The effects and potentialities blindness create soon came to fascinate him. As a member of the Decatur Lions Club he has long been active in social work for the blind. He was a leading force in the recent creation of the Community Services for the Blind in Atlanta. "Our chief problem is not educating the blind," McDonald says. "It is educating the public. There is an unrealized wealth of capability in Georgia's sightless men and women and children. We're making progress, I'm glad to say. We have blind scientists, lots of lawyers, but there are yet scores of fields of activity where the blind are especially able." How a handicap can be turned into a special ability is impressively illustrated in the instance of Walter McDonald. Loss of sight intensified other perceptions, concentrated his powers, challenged his spirit, developed his resources. Economy as it applied to an ambitious blind youngster grew to economy as it applied to a state, a region, a nation when McDonald became Public Service Commissioner. He was not long in feeling the challenge of Southern freight rates. It became his life work. "I made thousands of speeches. I talked to any group or civic club that would listen. ..." He had learned the value of money, and that experience impelled him the fight which was to last another 30 years before he saw the injustice revoked by law. When it came about, in 1952, it was a triumph which might have justified a rest period. But Mr. McDonald hardly stopped to catch his breath. The battle was won as far as rates on manufactured articles were concerned. But other freight rates -- those on farm and forest products, for instance -- were just as inequitable. Mr. McDonald knew that the economic welfare of Georgia, of the South, demanded adjustment of all freight rates. During the McDonald term of office Georgia had become a livestock raising area. But the grain on which cattle, hogs, and sheep are fed came from the Midwest, the nation's breadbasket. To produce livestock economically, feed had to be brought to the South economically, at no higher cost than its shipment elsewhere. Then, too, there were top-heavy carrying charges on the lumber the South produced and shipped across the country. "It was no time to stop," Mr. McDonald says. A stopping time hasn't occurred since. He is still busy. (Editor's Note -- Walter McDonald is a former member of the Executive Committee of the National Federation of the Blind. He has been president of the Georgia Federation of the Blind since its inception. He is chairman of the Credit Committee of the GFB Credit Union.) ***** ** Telephone Newspaper (Ed. Note -- The following appeared in the house newspaper of the Blind Service Center of Metropolitan Detroit, Inc., which was originally founded by the Detroit Chapter, Michigan Council of the Blind. This agency has now attained its second full year of active existence.) The Blind Service Center of Metropolitan Detroit maintains a unique means of mass media communication for the blind people in the area served by the agency. The simple method employed is a three-minute taped daily message, which may be heard by dialing telephone number KEnwood 2-5000 in Detroit. The message is changed daily and is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Completely automatic equipment is used, which is installed and maintained by the Michigan Bell Telephone Company. The service is operated from the home of an agency volunteer, who supervises the activities of other volunteers in procuring and taping appropriate material. Tapes may be made anywhere and re-transcribed onto the telephone recording machine. They may also be recorded directly. Two incoming lines are utilized to avoid the inconvenience of busy signals. During the first year of operation approximately 40,000 calls were received by the "telephone newspaper." A meter attached to the equipment records the number of incoming calls. The amount of daily usage is carefully analyzed to determine the popularity of various types of subject matter. The criteria employed in deciding the content of the daily messages are that they be of special value to blind people and are not conveniently available elsewhere. Experience has shown that approximately 500 words may be transcribed on the three-minute tape. A total monthly volume of 15,000 words may be employed. Typical of the "newspaper" contents are: 1. Information as to changes in Social Security or welfare regulations. 2. Availability of new services for the blind. 3. A continuing weekly series announcing the various sales at local department stores. This last service has been extremely popular and is designed to offset the economic disadvantage of the blind in terms of inability to read the daily newspaper. 4. A weekly reading of the catalog of the American Foundation for the Blind, describing adapted aids and devices. 5. Meeting notices of local associations and other groups of blind people. 6. Special features, including discussions by successful blind persons in various trades and professions describing the nature of their work; appropriate holiday messages; obituary; illness; fashion changes; household hints, etc. The reading onto the records is done by volunteers, supplemented by professional announcers or individuals appropriate for a specific feature. An example of the latter was the reading by the Governor of Michigan and the Mayor of Detroit of the various election laws as they relate to the blind. The "telephone newspaper," because it lends itself to the use of the volunteer, is perhaps the most economical program ever established for the use of large numbers of blind people. A two-line telephone installation in Michigan (with metering attachment) costs approximately $50 per month. Incidental expenses for tapes, mailing, etc., are about $10 per month. Records of daily calls indicate a continuing increase in usage. Present indications are that during the second year close to 50,000 calls will be received. If this forecast proves to be correct a third incoming line will become essential. The need for two messages daily, changed every twelve hours, is becoming apparent. ***** ** Michigan School Tackles Problem of the Multiple-Handicapped Blind Child From the March NEW OUTLOOK FOR THE BLIND For the past five years parents and local school personnel have increasingly urged the Michigan State Residential School for the Blind to provide educational programs for the multiple-handicapped. blind child. Because of this pressure the Michigan School for the Blind has endeavored to work with approximately forty children whose additional complications have included several orthopedic conditions, emotional disturbance, mental retardation (pseudo and real), brain damage, and hearing and speech disorders. ... In 1960 a study committee recommended as a primary need the formation of a permanent diagnostic and research team composed of experts familiar with the problems of blindness from the fields of medicine, psychology, social work, and education. The Michigan School for the Blind secured the services of a clinical psychologist and a pediatrician from the University of Michigan, both of whom had had experience with blind children, to act as consultants during a pilot study conducted at the School during the summer of 1961. ... It was felt that the children being studied would respond more naturally within a school environment than in another setting, such as a hospital. School personnel participated, both as workers and as members of the study team. ... The fairly close proximity of the University of Michigan Hospital permitted the transportation of children to its out-patient clinic for medical examinations when needed. The major purposes of the study were: (a) To begin to assemble a team of medical, psychological and educational personnel to make diagnostic and evaluative studies of multiple-handicapped blind children in Michigan. (b) To study the backlog of twenty to thirty children up to and through the age of twelve years (of the sixty children known to the school) who were most desperately in need of evaluation and educational and management planning. ... In addition to the above direct benefits to the child and his family, it was hoped that the study would effect other short and long-term benefits, such as increased knowledge and insight into the problems of multiple handicaps, improvement of management and education, and financial and time gains from the comparatively short-term study which would replace former methods of enrolling children in school programs on a trial-and-error basis. Twenty-eight children were seen by the study team. ... Dr. Robert Thompson, Supt. of the School, acted as administrative director. The physical aspects of the children presented a wide range. A great many actually arrived in a drugged condition. In fact, investigation showed that one child had been heavily sedated since the age of twelve hours following an apparent convulsion, and had been continued on this medication up to the age of six years without re-examination to confirm the necessity for prolonging the treatment. One mother, when asked if she objected to the removal of drugs which had been advised by the pediatrician, remarked, "I'm glad I won't have to be around him." This child had apparently been heavily sedated in order to permit the mother to endure the child's presence. It was not uncommon to find that these children had been physically contained -- some in "back bedrooms," others in cribs and play pens. A few had been so overly cared for that they had had little opportunity to do anything for themselves. Lack of such simple skills as opening a door for one's self had effectively stopped any exploration of the world and thus prevented learning from even beginning. One large seven-year-old boy had almost always been carried by his mother. Some of the children would have been content, as are mentally retarded and extremely disturbed children, to sit in one spot all day long, rocking, or in a typical "siesta pose," except that, instead of merely resting, thumbs, fingers or entire fists were poked into the eye socket as a means of supporting the head. Others seem to be completely inexhaustible -- whirling, jiggling, or squirming. These were in a state of perpetual motion, even to the degree of seeming not to require sleep. Indeed, in the majority of cases sleeping patterns were erratic, ranging from those who rarely slept to those who required constant prodding to keep them awake. The mobility of these children also ranged widely, from the stages of the beginning toddler all the way to the agility of a trapeze artist. At one extreme was a wildly protesting six-year-old who had to be forced to attempt to take steps while supported on both sides. At the other extreme were those who could not be contained within the physical boundaries, causing passers-by to blanch as they watched them hanging from their precarious perches. Naturally, the first child had no awareness or concern for its whereabouts, whereas the orientation of the other children was complete. Most of the children tended toward the lower range of mobility and alertness. ... In all of the children the speech and language development was most inadequate or inappropriate as a means of communication, ranging from no sounds at all to uncontrolled hyper-verbalism. Behavior ranged from extreme aggressiveness toward themselves and others, to complete withdrawal. Swearing, biting, pushing, pinching were the most frequent ways of expressing their hostility. ... Twenty-four-hour nursing care was provided, the nurse on duty also assisting in the management and supervision of the children. All staff members were instructed in the methods designed to achieve the maximum of psychological and physical nurturance for each child. ... Gentleness of handling and of tone of voice was encouraged. ... In all aspects of the environment an atmosphere of permissiveness was favored in order to encourage each child to express his needs without fear, and to explore his world to a far greater extent than he had ever been allowed to do before. ... Individuals and small groups of children were taken by the teacher to classrooms for short periods of time. There they received instruction in speech and language, and training in auditory and motor skills. ... All the children were evaluated individually and the majority received individual therapy. ... An effort was made to form a satisfying relationship between therapist and child. All sedations were stopped. In no case was it found necessary to resume sedation. ... All parents were kept informed of their child's progress, and at the time the child was ready to return home, the parents received counseling concerning the home management of their child and the educational, psychological, and medical recommendations made for each child were discussed with them. Each child was evaluated in terms of his demonstrated ability to learn, to adjust emotionally and socially, and to benefit from formal instruction. Of the twenty-eight children studied, two were judged to be completely normal. ... Eleven children were considered to have clearly demonstrated the ability to learn and the potential for emotional and social adjustment. In these cases it was deemed essential that the child receive long-term individual therapy parallel with his education. In addition, the parents must receive supportive casework therapy. Seven children demonstrated potential for learning, but were considered to be so severely disturbed as to be temporarily unable to benefit from formal instructions. Therapy for these children and their parents was felt to be mandatory and a prerequisite to any educational undertaking. ... In five of the children the extent of non-stimulation, the degree of emotional disturbance, as well as the advanced age of the child, led to the judgment that the reversibility of the developmental trend was most questionable. However, these children had achieved developmental levels which placed them in the trainable category. ... Three of the children appeared to have physical defects in addition to blindness, which made prognosis of their success educationally or socially most doubtful. One of these was deaf, another was aphasic, and the third had abnormal skull measurements. ... At the conclusion of the summer study, specific plans for treatment and placement could be worked out for about 70 percent of the cases. Twelve were accepted by the state residential school with provisions being made for eight of these to receive therapy, and two (the deaf-blind and the aphasic-blind) to receive speech and auditory training. In five of the cases, arrangements were made with their local school districts to place them in special education classes. ... No satisfactory placement solution was found for eight of the non-educable children. ... The study team concluded that in all cases a diagnostic service could have prevented serious maladjustment and developmental and educational retardation had it been available to the parents and child before the marked problems now in evidence had arisen. ... It was unanimously agreed that a diagnostic service must be an essential part of any workable solution. Over and above the direct services rendered to the children and their parents, it was felt that the summer study project produced other beneficial effects. Both at the state and local levels, legislators and school administrators were made more aware of the problems of these children and their parents. Teachers of special classes received encouragement and became more optimistic about what could be done and of the progress that could be expected. The members of the study team gained many new diagnostic insights. ***** ** Fingertip Vision From HORIZON (Edinburgh) In the absence of any spectacular space activity during the past severe winter months, Russians have been captivated by the remarkable case of the girl with eyes in her fingers. Her name is Rosa Kuleshova and from authenticated reports she can really see through her fingers -- recognizing shapes and distinguishing colors without so much as a glance. While Soviet scientists have been pondering over how to get robots to the moon, Rosa has been at the Institute of Problems of Transmission of Information, in Moscow. There doctors put her through an elaborate series of tests in an attempt to discover the secret of her amazing gift. At first the doctors suspected that Rosa's hands were sensitive enough to detect minute temperature changes between black type and white background paper and between colors. They erected a screen and beamed a pattern of invisible infra-red upon it. Rosa failed to pick out the warm pattern. Next they wondered if she could feel microscopic differences in surface texture. They beamed another pattern upon a screen which had equally rough surfaces all over. Thoroughly blindfolded, hands outstretched, Rosa easily picked out light from dark. Having established that the young lady really could see in this way, the Institute staff then set about finding which parts of her hands were receptive to light. They made her touch patterns of dots spaced at different intervals, and tracked down the sensitive areas to the tips of her fingers. These areas -- in an eye -- are called receptors. The doctors calculate that Rosa has several hundred light sensitive receptors in each fingertip. In much the same way that other people can only focus clearly on objects if their eyes are constantly on the move, the Russian girl has to keep her fingers mobile in order to "see," but they are sensitive enough to allow her to lay them firmly on a bright red patch and then trace the outline of the blue "after-image" which is left when the patch is taken away -- just as if she were seeing the after-image picture left when a T.V. set is suddenly switched off. The fascinated Soviet doctors cannot yet explain why, but they have been able to record small changes in the electrical currents of her brain when her fingers are registering light. These suggest that her whole nervous system is responding to the light stimulus. This is borne out by the fact that -- with practice -- she can register difference between light and dark objects with the tip of her tongue and the tips of the toes on her right foot. At this point knowledge ends and mystery takes over, but Rosa is to be the subject of further experiments, for there is a chance that her strange power may be latent in all of us and if it only could be developed! ... ***** ** National Legislation (Excerpted by George Card from an article by Irvin Schloss in the May NEW OUTLOOK FOR THE BLIND.) "The 88th Congress convened on January 9. ... Since a substantial number of the programs recommended by the President failed to win approval by the last Congress, he has again submitted proposals covering these major areas. ... Many of his current recommendations are expected to consume a considerable amount of time in thorough hearings by appropriate committees. A special LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN listing the members of House and Senate committees which process legislation of interest to blind persons and workers for the blind was sent to most readers of this column in April. It is recommended that readers keep this document for reference. "Education. Administrative recommendations in the field of education are embodied in H.R. 3000, introduced by Adam Clayton Powell, of New York, and S. 580, introduced by Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon. Of specific interest is Title V, Part B, of H.R. 3000, which contains provisions applying to the education of handicapped children. These provisions would establish a three-year program of grants to colleges and universities for fellowships to train leadership personnel, teachers, and other specialized personnel needed in the education of exceptional children. There is a similar provision for grants to state educational agencies for their use through colleges and universities or otherwise for short- or longer-term training of agency personnel. The existing scholarship and fellowship program to train teachers of the deaf is extended by the bill until July 1, 1964, when it is merged with the total program for training teachers of all types of handicapped children. The bill authorizes appropriations of $13,000,000 for fiscal 1964 for training personnel and such sums as the Congress may determine for the next two years of the program. A significant provision in this same part of the bill is separate authorization for research and demonstration projects in the education of handicapped children, with an annual appropriation of $2,000,000 for three years authorized for this purpose. If enacted, this provision could prove as effective in the field of education of the handicapped as a similar program has been for vocational rehabilitation. The House Committee on Education and Labor held hearings on this bill in February, but no decision had been announced by the middle of March. At the February hearings the Council for Exceptional Children was asked to appear and comment specifically on provisions involving the handicapped. It endorsed the total bill, the AFB, AAWB, and several other organizations interested in other types of exceptionalities, expressed their support as well. Th e major education bill for exceptional children, H.R. 4640, was introduced by Rep. John E. Fogarty. Congressman Fogarty has long been a champion of legislation to improve education and vocational opportunities of the disabled. He characterized this bill as one which would accomplish for the education of handicapped children what the Vocational Rehabilitation Act is doing for the rehabilitation of handicapped adults. Among other things the bill establishes a program of grants to the states for the education of exceptional children, with authorization to the state educational agency to contract with other public and nonprofit organizations within or outside of the state for provision of services. It would also establish a program of grants to colleges and universities for scholarships and fellowships as well as for courses to train teachers, leadership personnel, research workers, and other specialists needed in educational programs for exceptional children. Finally it would establish a program in the Office of Education of grants to public and other nonprofit organizations for research and demonstration projects in the education of exceptional children. "Rehabilitation Amendments. H.R. 269 and H.R. 325 contain amendments to the Vocation Rehabilitation Act, which would authorize private funds designated for rehabilitation facilities and workshops to be considered state funds for federal matching retroactive to 1954, authorize a special grants program to states with lagging vocational rehabilitation programs to strengthen these programs; authorize the acceptance of clients without establishment of a vocational objective for a period of up to six months for evaluation of rehabilitation potential as a means of improving services to the severely disabled; establish a program of grants to public and other nonprofit organizations for the construction, equipping, and initial staffing of workshops and vocationally oriented rehabilitation facilities. "The Administration's bill, S. 968, introduced by Senator Lister Hill (Ala.), contains substantially the same provisions as those described above with the following exceptions: authorizes the administrative housing of the state vocational rehabilitation agency within a broader range of state agencies than is presently permitted, provided that the vocational rehabilitation division is given a full-time director and has equal status with other component divisions of the same state agency; authorizes federal financial participation in rehabilitation services which are not statewide and are financed by local public funds; and increases the duration of extension and improvement grants at 75 percent federal matching to five years. The National Rehabilitation Association's bill, H.R. 4027, would increase the authorization of appropriations for the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped to $500,000. "Proposed Tax Legislation. The President's taxation bill includes several recommendations with significant implications for nonprofit organizations which are largely supported through charitable contributions. They would increase the amounts a taxpayer may deduct for charitable contributions to 30 percent of adjusted gross income. Presently, the ceiling on contributions is 30 percent for contributions to educational institutions and 20 percent for contributions to other types of philanthropically supported organizations, including voluntary social welfare agencies but would eliminate the unlimited deduction of interest payments, contributions, etc. by a taxpayer to those which exceed 5 percent of adjusted gross income. The National Social Welfare Assembly and others believe that many of these recommendations will result in reducing contributions to nonprofit organizations and agencies which depend on contributions from the public for support of their programs and services." Note: Mr. Schloss does not mention H.R. 2853, which would expand the present Talking Book program to benefit other categories of handicapped persons who find it impossible to read ink-print. The ACB and a number of other state organizations of the blind are on record as favoring such legislation. In February, Mr. Robert Bray, of the Library of Congress staff, told me that support for such an expansion is increasing with every session of Congress and that it is certain to come in the near future. ***** ** Prayer for the Middle-Aged (From Sunshine News of Lockport, New York, as published in the White Cane of the Washington State Association for the Blind.) Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older and will some day be old. Keep me from getting loquacious, and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. Release me from craving to try to straighten out everybody's affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody; helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all -- but Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends at the end, at least enough for pallbearers, with a mourner or two. Do not let the editor head my obituary with the words OLD CRAB DIES AT LAST: EVERYBODY GLAD. Keep my mind free from the reciting of endless details ... Give me wings to get to the point. Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing, and my love of rehearsing them is become sweeter as the years go by. ... I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the details of others' pains, but help me to endure them with patience. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken. Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a saint -- some of them are so hard to live with -- but a sour old woman is one of the crowning works of the devil. Keep me where I can extract all possible fun out of life. There are so many funny things in life, and I don't want to miss any of it. Amen. ***** ** Meet the Civil Service By Paul Kirton (From the Missouri Chronicle, March, 1963.) It is well known that a surprisingly large number of blind workers are doing well in government jobs, yet many who could easily meet the requirements for Federal employment have only a hazy idea about the Civil Service system through which such jobs are obtained. So let's take a quick look at the various categories of employees under the Civil Service. First of all, there's the standard competitive Civil Service system, under which you have the problem of applying for the right to take an examination in order to compete for a particular kind of job in a certain area of employment. Time was when most people regarded blindness as a sufficient reason for denying one the right to take such an examination; but in recent years great progress has been made toward a better understanding of our employability, and the Federal Civil Service has led the way in granting medical clearance to blind persons wishing to compete with sighted applicants for available jobs. Assuming that you have the necessary medical clearance -- that is, official permission to compete regardless of your lack of sight -- here's how the competitive Civil Service system works. You and the sighted competitors take the same examination, then the three at the top of the register are interviewed and one of them is selected for appointment to the position. Although the appointee is really on probation during the first year, he has little to fear as long as he does the work reasonably well. Nevertheless, if you happen to be the appointee, remember that it's work -- not blindness -- that counts, for your future job security will depend upon the work efficiency report prepared by your superior at the end of the year. Now if this report commends your performance during the period of probation, you gain what is called status. Thereafter, in case of dismissal, good cause must be shown -- the boss can't just walk up and say, "Sorry, we don't need you any longer." In other words, you're in if you pass the year of probation. On top of this category, in which applicants take competitive examinations and hiring is strictly by the grade, there is a second category called Class A Civil Service employees. This group consists largely of professional persons who are already licensed in their profession in a local, state or Federal jurisdictional capacity, and whom it would be unrealistic or impossible to test competitively for a desired position. In order to land this Class A job, therefore, the licensed professional depends upon successfully interviewing a government official who needs him in his department. It boils down to this: if you have your license and succeed in selling the right official on your qualifications for a job, you're a Class A employee. But remember, you never have tenure in a Class A job. You can be let go at any time even though you are a career professional. That's something for me to remember, too, for I'm in this category. Before applying for my position, I took the Federal Service entrance examination to compete for administrative work, but with licenses to practice law in Texas and Wisconsin. No examination was necessary to compete for a job as an attorney -- the basic element in that competition was to get good advice about interviewing and convincing some department head of my qualifications to work for him. The next Category, Class B Civil Service employees, includes cooks, chauffeurs, messengers and other workers for whom competitive examinations would seem to be a waste of time because so many people can (or think they can) handle such jobs. Finally, there is the Class C category of Civil Service employees. These people are appointed by the President to the three highest-ranking levels of pay. Oh, boy! If you can get in this boat, you have got it. Thus, as we have seen, there are four categories of Federal Civil Service employees, and politics has nothing to do with appointments except in Class C, where political considerations may be the decisive factor. We have also seen that blindness does not disqualify an applicant for many job opportunities in this broad employment field. Does that interest you? Would you like to try for one of these jobs? If so, here are a few pointers that may prove helpful. 1. Copies of the Federal Service job application (form 57) are available at your local Post Office. You should pick up a substantial number of these and fill each one out separately, because originals tend to make a better impression than duplicates. Make certain that each form is filled out accurately; that your answers are consistent, and, since no one likes to struggle through a document that is hard to read, be sure the writing is quite legible. By following this procedure, each official to whom you send an application will get a glimpse of your competence as well as the gratification of knowing that you made a special effort to attract his attention. 2. A job resume, giving additional information about your past, must accompany Form 57. But, since you will probably want to contact boosters as well as prospective employers, it is wise to prepare two kinds of job resumes: one for your friends in Washington, your congressman, the various agencies, coordinators for the employment of the physically handicapped and anyone else who could plead your cause; the other for the officials who could hire you. The resume for boosters should be a well-written statement thoroughly covering your background -- education, training, experience -- and listing all areas of employment in which you could work. The resume for employers, though much briefer, should be a comprehensive statement of your qualifications for the job you hope to discuss at an interview. 3. You will never get a Class A job by sitting at home. You hear about an employment opportunity, you rush over to the man's office and get in by hook or by crook, then you try to convince him that you are qualified. This is where the second kind of job resume can pay off -- make it brief so that the interviewer will read it; but also make it comprehensive and convincing. 4. Don't go job hunting if you are ashamed of your handicap, because a handicapped applicant must have the self-confidence that comes from accepting his disability and working his way around it. In our case, for example, we must know how to cope with the problems posed by blindness before we have a chance of convincing an employer of our ability to handle the routine problems of a given job. Furthermore, we cannot afford to let a personnel interviewer embarrass himself by asking about such basic requirements as reading, writing and mobility -- points that obviously must be discussed. A blind applicant should anticipate these questions and explain how he will deal with them. This frank and realistic approach to one's special problems can have great weight in an interview -- and elsewhere. Consider, for instance, the case of an official of the Interior who lost his sight in the performance of his duty. We all know, of course, that blindness comes as a terrific jolt to any adult, yet this man took the blow without so much as a pause for concentrated rehabilitation training. This fantastic individual went right on working and kept his job. How? By applying the fundamental rules -- if you can't solve a problem one way, try another solution. That rule, plus encouragement from wise friends, was all the help he required. He is still the Director of the Division of Wild Life Refuges -- though totally blind, he is the head of a Federal agency. Compared with that gentleman's prominent position, my job is far, far down the ladder. The work is fascinating, though, and I love every phase of it. I am in the Solicitor I s Office of the Department of the Interior and belong to the Minerals Branch of the Division of Public Lands. We review the work of the Bureau of Land Management and Geological Services, but my primary responsibility is in review of oil and gas leases on Federal lands -- including the outer continental shelf, the general public lands of the United States, the acquired lands and the reserve title to river beds. However, such leases are not the only problems that come my way, because, incredibly, there are more prospectors in "them thar hills" than ever before, and also because that reminder of by-gone days, the Homestead Act, is still going strong. In addition to the public lands, minerals and homesteads, there are other national assets -- fish and wild life, the forests and the Indians, for instance -- under the Department of the Interior. Consequently, the Department has set up a number of administrative subdivisions, each having its own limited authority, its own personnel and its own legal problems -- but the entire administrative mechanism must operate within the framework provided by certain Acts of Congress. So the Department needs a staff of lawyers who, while handling a wide range of specialized problems, never lose sight of their paramount duty to assist the administrators with correct interpretations of those key Federal laws. Now it may be convenient for some people to believe that those interpretations are biased in favor of the administrators, but such is not the case. After eighteen months of daily contact with my colleagues in the Solicitor's office, I know them to be scholars and gentlemen who put a great deal of professional integrity into their work. They have the two-fold honor of being legal advisors to the administrators as well as protectors of the rights of American citizens, so it is their job to indicate what the officials may do and what they may not do. Furthermore, when an individual requests advice or information concerning a personal problem connected with any area of our work, it is our duty to spell out his rights in the matter and to state where the applicable statutes can be found. Obviously, then, an attorney with the Department of the Interior must be a thorough workman. He does lots of legal research. He takes many notes and studies them carefully; he discusses controversial points with his colleagues, and finally, having reached his conclusion the hard way, he dictates an opinion to be sent forward in the chain of command, or a letter to someone who has requested special attention. Being well aware of this rather formidable routine before applying for my job, I was able to inform the interviewer about the specialized equipment that would be essential to my success. That was when I discovered what cooperation really means. The Department was more than willing to furnish a braille writer, a tape recorder and certain law books which, it was hoped, some volunteer agency would reproduce in braille or recorded form for me. It was even suggested that I might prefer to select my readers from the competitive Civil Service rolls and interview them personally -- a concession that I have greatly appreciated. Yet all they demanded in return was this: "Do your research thoroughly and call the shots as you see them." Since then I have come to believe that this insistence upon careful work and personal integrity is the basic principle underlying the entire Civil Service. Which explains, to me at least, why so many blind people are doing well in Federal jobs. It wasn't blindness that made them eligible, nor were their employers motivated by pity. They were hired because they appeared to have what their jobs required, and they succeeded because they weren't phonies. So, if you want a Federal job that can be performed by a blind person, don't hesitate to try for it. Your chances are a good as the next man's -- provided that you have what is needed for the job. ***** ** Proposed Elimination of Rental Fees for Switchboard Attachments (Ed. Note -- The following notice has been circulated by the Vocational Rehabilitation Division of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.) TO: All State Rehabilitation Agencies Serving the Blind One of the major deterrents to the employment of blind persons as telephone switchboard operators has been the fact that the necessary modifications of the switchboard have required an additional monthly rental charge. If this additional rental charge were paid by the employer, it would mean that it would cost him more to hire a blind operator than a non-handicapped one. On the other hand, if the charge were paid by the employee, it would substantially reduce his earnings. We are, therefore, delighted to announce that the American Telephone and Telegraph Company is recommending to each of its subsidiary companies throughout the United States that a one-time initial charge be made for the installation of the "Seeing Aid" switchboard attachment. The "Seeing Aid" attachment which was developed by Bell Laboratories has been proved effective by many blind switchboard operations under competitive conditions. If adopted, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company's recommendation would replace the additional monthly rental charge for the "Seeing Aid" attachment with a one-time installation charge of $550.00. It is important to note that this recommendation is for the guidance of the member companies. Each company will develop its own policy in the light of local conditions and requirements of appropriate State regulatory agencies. We feel certain, however, that the member companies of the Bell system will cooperate with the State rehabilitation agencies in every way possible in implementing this policy recommendation. The one-time initial charge for installation of the "Seeing Aid" on switchboards to be operated by eligible rehabilitation clients can, of course, be paid by State vocational rehabilitation agencies subject to Federal financial participation. This new policy recommendation of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was developed, after consultation with the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration and the American Foundation for the Blind, to open up more employment opportunities for qualified blind switchboard operators. We shall continue to work with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in studying the results of this policy and its application to other switchboard adaptations which may be developed. ***** ** Techniques of a Blind Biology Teacher By Dr. Joseph Frank (Ed. note. -- The following article is taken from the 1963 spring issue of Mel's Recorded Journal, published by Melvin D. Cohen, Tape Library for the Blind, 94 Broad St. S.W., Atlanta 3, Georgia. Dr. Frank teaches biology and physiology at Eastside High School, Patterson, New Jersey.) At the time I lost my sight I had been teaching science for some 12 years. After a few months of acclimating myself to this new handicap, I was able to continue my teaching through the confidence of my superiors. At that time I was teaching one advanced class in biology, which was physiology, and five laboratory classes. These laboratory classes were also in biology, both in botany and zoology. First of all, I handled my lecture class in the following manner: I had all my lectures recorded on sound tape; and, by listening carefully each evening before my lectures, I ran over all the material I needed to teach the following day. For each lecture class and each laboratory class I had assigned to me two students, usually juniors or seniors. They took the roll for me to see if there were any absentees, and they also had my lecture notes in case I needed any cueing; and I can say that at no time did I have to ask them for a cue. The first day that I got new pupils I sat them alphabetically and memorized their positions. The next day I called their names out and placed them. They were always amazed at this. Of course, when I wanted to call on them, I merely called them by name and looked in their direction. This too aided me in checking as to whether or not they were sitting in the right seats. The students took notes from my lectures. When I had to describe various sections of the body, I had drawn for me large charts on sheets of paper 2 feet long and 1 1/2 feet wide; these sheets of paper I had on a drawing board. Each student had a mimeographed duplication of these charts; and, as I pointed to a part on the large charts, they checked it out on their smaller sheets. The various sections of the drawings were labeled with letters. Of course, I also brought to the classroom models of the various sections of the body from which I was teaching. I gave the class a short ten-question quiz twice a week. I wrote this out on a small piece of paper, and the questions were read to the class by one of my student helpers. I always said to the class, "Remember, there is always the letter 'i' in the word conscience." Very, very few times did I have anyone take advantage of my sightless condition. I never asked my monitor to "squeal" on anyone; I would ask, "Do you think we need a proctor?" On some occasions they would say, "Well, Mr. Frank, let's get a proctor in." We would call one in for one or two quizzes, and then we would not have one for a while. You would be surprised how well this honor system worked out. The cooperation of the students was overwhelming, and also the aid given to me by the student monitors was exceptional. They were loyal and fine helpers. As for correcting papers, the monitors would read them to me, and I would tell them how to check them off. Of course, at home my daughter or my wife would aid me in the correction of papers. I can happily say that my rating by my superiors during this period of teaching was as good if not better than the rating I received before losing my sight. The laboratory work was a real challenge, for in the laboratory they carried out in practical form what they had learned in the classroom. We dissected all sorts of animals, and of course in the botany classes we studied the parts of plants and vegetables. In the laboratory I also had several monitors, who helped in the distribution of materials and in checking dissections. I will take the earthworm as an example and explain how we worked it out in the laboratory. Having been a camera enthusiast, I thought of an idea whereby Kodachrome slides would help me in explaining the interior portions of the earthworm, as well as the exterior portions, and in describing exactly what they should see. I had another teacher help me to dissect an earthworm and have photographs taken with a Kodachrome camera in color to show the various portions. On the dissecting pan I had small arrows pointing to the various portions of the earthworm; on these tags were placed the labels for the various parts. I had a second photograph taken exactly the same; but, instead of having the labeled parts, I had the parts numbered. Using a large cardboard demonstration model, I explained exactly how the students should dissect the earthworm. Then I showed them the Kodachrome slides pointing out what the various parts were. Later on after they had completed this particular animal, I then called them up to my desk where I had another slide containing the numbers and quizzed them to find out whether or not they knew the various parts they had seen. I made various models, using string, straws, cardboard, paper towel rolls, etc., so that I could point out the various parts of different animals to the students. My models were so successful that other teachers made use of them also. I sent a description of how to make the model of the earthworm to a national magazine. I did not tell the magazine that I was without sight. My article was printed in a periodical that was circulated nationally. In the advanced classes we dissected fetal pigs, as well as cats, for the study of physiology. I used the touch method to check out the larger dissections. With the aid of the student monitors, everything worked out quite well. I can honestly say that in five years of this kind of teaching I did not have one discipline case. I quiz the students orally in the laboratories, either going to their desks or having them come up to sit down with me at my desk for a five-minute quiz all about the experiment they are carrying out. Again, the laboratory papers were read to me by the student monitors, and I told them exactly how to make them. Drawings were also checked by advanced students, who had a chart to go by in the matter of neatness, etc. These student monitors were organized into a group I called "Junior Biology Laboratory Assistants." The credit they received for this assistance turned out very well on their college applications. In fact, this worked out so well in my biology laboratories that the chemistry and physics laboratories did the same thing. In size the classes ranged from 30 to 32 students. Of course, as time progressed I became more adept at identifying things through the sense of touch. I feel certain without reservations that a sightless teacher can do as well -- in some cases better -- in the teaching profession as those that can see. It is only a matter of being given an opportunity by some of the boards of education. I was very fortunate that the head of my department had enough confidence in me to let me have this opportunity to show what I could do. Many states are very receptive to teachers without sight. In New Jersey I am one of the very few blind persons in the teaching profession. Possibly as time progresses, they will accept the fact that teachers without sight can do as well as teachers with sight. *** Reprints of the foregoing article may be obtained from Ned E. Freeman, President of the American Council of the Blind, 136 Gees Mill Road, Conyers, Georgia. *** Printed copies of the constitution and by-laws of the American Council of the Blind may be obtained from George Card, Membership Chairman, 605 South Few St., Madison, Wisconsin. *** Braille copies of the pamphlet HOW THE CREDIT UNION CAN HELP YOU, which was published by the Credit Union National Association may be obtained from Durward McDaniel, Chairman of A.C.B.'s Credit Union Committee, 305 Midwest Building, Oklahoma City 2, Oklahoma. ***** ** Blind Bridge Players From the MONTANA OBSERVER Charles H. Goren, one of the world's best bridge players, is the author of an article in the January 1963 McCall's Magazine entitled, "In Honor of Honest Players with Marked Cards," wherein he recounts his experience with blind bridge players who have reached high standings in tournament play in competition with sighted players. He mentions especially Dr. Arthur M. Dye, a chiropractor of Charlotte, N.C., who is a "Life Master," highest rating of the American Contract Bridge League. A number of other blind players are approaching this rank, some of whom had never played bridge prior to loss of sight. Mr. Goren states that the only concessions granted to blind players are the use of brailled cards and the courtesy of each player calling out the cards they play. Also discussed and dismissed as almost negligible is the possibility of cheating by both blind and sighted players using brailled cards. This article is of considerable interest to bridge fans and non-players alike. ***** ** Letters from Readers (Ed. Note. -- The following letter is in reference to the article entitled "Separate -- But Not Equal," by Ned Freeman, which was published in the January, 1963, is sue of the Braille Forum.) Dear Mr. Freeman: For more than a decade I served as Public Relations Consultant to the National American Red Cross, which as you know is a two hundred million dollar corporation. In that position the heads of different services consulted me with respect to releases for public consumption which include press, radio, and television. This experience developed in me a sensitivity to public expression. With this background you can appreciate the manner in which the writer appraised and utilized the article you wrote for the Braille Forum before the Budget Panel of the United Appeal. Prior to coming into possession of this article, I had been assigned a place on the program and agreed upon the subject matter of my presentation. After reading your article and realizing that my evaluation would be somewhat subjective, I decided to read for the information of the Board your complete objective analysis of the over-all operative pattern including the Executive Administration and Staff participation. It is customary for several members of the panel on these annual visits to raise a number of questions before making a judgment as to the budgeting allotment for the agency. On the occasion under consideration no member of the panel asked a single question following the reading of the article. The only comment that was made by a member was, "I would like to recommend to the Board of Aldermen that the name of the street be changed from Sunset Avenue to Sunrise Avenue," as a result of what the article reflected relative to the service and program provided by this agency to sightless clients living in the Metropolitan Atlanta community. Your article greatly enhanced the status of the agency with the members of the Budget Panel Committee and improved its image among the hundreds of people to whom this article is being sent. On behalf of all who are to become beneficiaries of your factual and interpretive appraisal, I am gratefully yours, Jesse O. Thomas, Public Relations Chairman, Metropolitan Atlanta Association for the Blind, Inc., 293 Sunset Avenue, N.W., Atlanta 14, Georgia. *** To the Editor: I have found the April issue interesting and helpful, but I am compelled to comment to you on the matter of getting legislation preventing discrimination [against] blind persons by employers. ... I am sure that any blind person who applied for a job for himself could do nothing more calculated to arouse ill will of the prospective employer than to point out that the law forbade his rejecting an applicant on account of blindness. The same would be true of anyone who approached an employer to sell him on employing a blind person. Now, assume that an employer did reject an applicant, and that the applicant was convinced that the reason was his blindness. He could and would go to court because of the rejection. It is almost certain that the employer could readily prove that he did not reject the applicant because of blindness. But, even assume that the applicant won and was employed. The publicity would be such as to assure that any other person applying for work for himself or for another blind person would find all personnel officers completely cold to the idea and their jobs deliberately set up to include things a blind person just could not do. I think the American Council of the Blind would bitterly resent interference by any governmental agency or private individual or group in its sole right to choose its members and to set the standards they would have to meet. Certainly all private businesses have an equal right to determine the composition of their personnel and to set up whatever standards they see fit for whatever reasons they see fit. And no one else can actually determine whether or not a given individual qualifies according to their standards. I think the method used by the Canadian National Institute as explained by Joseph Clunk in the April Braille Forum is much more likely to get lasting results. If you sell a fellow on doing what you want done, he is still a free man; if you force him to do it, he is not. Sincerely, W.U. Lewis, Jr., 909 Alabama Avenue, Durham, North Carolina. *** To the Editor: I enjoy reading the Braille Forum very much, and I read it from cover to cover. The piece about the blind beggar was very interesting; but, when you come to think about it, can you really blame this girl? What about sighted people who use the blind to further their own selfish interests? In our own community there are two outfits that use the telephone to sell supposedly blind-made products, but in reality are made by seeing workers. This I know to be fact. I do not condone begging, but in my humble opinion if any people are to be put in jail, we should first put these sighted racketeers in because they are biggest. People buy articles over the telephones, and then five minutes later when a blind salesman rings their doorbell, he gets the brush-off. They have already done their good deed for a week or so. I have had experience. You blind believe as I do in giving employment to blind people. Why not have the magazine printed at Clovernook where the blind are given a job? The Foundation, a sighted group, is so doing. Warren Weir, 4233 Second St., N.E., Minneapolis 21, Minnesota. *** To the Editor: The two articles on employment in your April issue of the Braille Forum, one by Joe Clunk and the other by Alaric Nichols, stimulated me to write you. Sure, Clunk is right about this pitch for salesmanship, but one wonders if he has logically applied it to his own sales approach. He thinks the employer would react more favorably if, instead of asking for a job for a blind worker, one asked to see the jobs that could be done without the use of sight. What is Clunk trying to sell -- a sighted guy trained to work in the dark? -- or would the employer possibly see through the mist and come up with the idea that Clunk is trying to find a job for a blind worker? This brings me to Alaric Nichols' article, which seems to point out that there is a job for a blind person -- any blind person -- who is qualified for the job by training. Employers are anxious to buy well-qualified and trained human machines to help them make a profit. In the final analysis, it makes very little difference what the employer's emotions are toward blindness, the religion or the nationality of the individual he hires, as soon as he recognizes that the individual in question; is qualified admirably to fill a job vacancy in his establishment. The point of all this is: Take the time and effort to train yourself for jobs employers want to buy, and the fact of your blindness will be of little hindrance to you. So Joe Clunk and all other "employ the handicapped" campaigners, take a new look at your salesmanship and begin selling the assets rather than the handicaps of people. Larry Thompson, 104 West Hanlon St., Tampa 4, Florida ***** ** Hyde Park Corner By Earl Scharry For Whom the Light Fails. (Comments on the book To Catch an Angel by Robert Russell, available both in braille and talking book.) In the introduction to this autobiography by a blind professor of English at Franklin and Marshall College (Lancaster, Pa.), the author invites the reader to identify himself with the story: "My story is your story also. True, there are differences in the circumstances and events, but behind these superficial differences lies the common theme of our lives -- the leaving of the familiar in which we rest secure, for the sake of an uncertain future." This will be particularly true for the blind reader. He will find the book full of incidents and reactions told in a very readable narrative style which he can duplicate from his own experience. Almost at random, we may select one such incident as typical: Russell tells of a friend at the New York Institute for the Blind with whom he shared an addiction to pizzas. They would follow the trail of a pizza by scent, but sometimes it would turn out that the trail ended in a bar. "'All right now,' would come the gruff voice from behind the bar. 'Go on, get back to where you got the rest of it.' 'No! You don't understand, We just ...' "'Out!'" And heavy footsteps would thud around the end of the bar. At this point we usually left, but one day Sam was especially hungry and decided to stand his ground. Two big hands reached under his arms from behind, picked him up, carried him to the door, and set him down none too gently outside. In mock rage mixed with laughter, Sam turned, leaned inside the door and shouted, "We just came here for a pizza. We're not drunk! What the hell's the matter with you? Are you blind or something?" But the book is something more than a mere collection of anecdotes. According to the old school books, the essence of drama is conflict, and by this criterion To Catch an Angel certainly has a dramatic quality. In fact, the book deals with two conflicts -- an inner conflict and an outer conflict. The inner conflict is against the seductive opiate of security and complacency. "Although I had no love for the Lower School," he says, "it was a tiny world in which I felt secure. I knew the playground, my school-fellows, the teachers, and the daily schedule; I knew what was expected of me at every turn, and I knew how to perform it. ... I would have to learn all over again everything I had already learned. For the first few weeks every step would be a step into the unknown. ... I looked forward to all this with no more enthusiasm than I imagine a crab feels at the prospect of having to dispense with his old shell." But Russell attacked this reluctance head-on -- apparently on the theory that the best defense is a good offense. He began his college studies at Hamilton College, a small school in upstate New York, but at the end of his sophomore year he suddenly decided to transfer to Yale. He explains this decision as follows: "I knew Hamilton too well. I liked it too well. It was too secure. I had to leave because I was afraid to leave; that was the real truth of the matter." He began his teaching career at a small branch of the University of Chicago located at Mount Carroll, Illinois, but was soon seeking another position. He explains this move in the same terms: "We had found security in Mount Carroll, and so we had to leave." The outer conflict is of course against the segregation which society imposes upon the blind. The metaphor of the black crows and the while crows symbolizes this segregation: "Black crows herd the white crows together, put them in a special place, and insist they stay there. Then the blacks have the comfort of adopting a general policy toward the whites; but because there are no white crows left among them, the policy is based on ignorance. As the whites gradually develop a culture of their own, their tiny world begins to seem like the real one; they feel ill at ease when chance throws them into company with a member of the other flock." Blinded at the age of five by a splinter from a croquet mallet with which he had been playing carpenter, Russell very early felt the cruelty of this segregation when his erstwhile playmates made sport of pelting him with apples. He says, "This was my tree of knowledge whose fruit I had not eaten, but whose bitterness I had tasted. I left my Eden for the land of the white crows." Then when he was sent to the New York Institute for the Blind, the wall surrounding the premises became, the physical symbol of this ostracism, and he hated it with an almost physical passion and longed to beat against it with his bare knuckles. Russell used every resource at his disposal to combat this segregation. At Hamilton College he cultivated distinction as a convivial drinker, and he also insisted on representing the freshman class in a wrestling intramural competition. Despite strenuous efforts to dissuade him, he persisted, and he succeeded in defeating a big tackle from the sophomore class. He says, "For me, the first night at Frank's bar and the big sophomore tackle were the doors by which I began to enter into the college community. Some, though, cannot find a door. Anything will do -- a talent for music, a gift for telling dirty jokes. Anything so long as it is used. I used what I was lucky enough to possess and was saved from a loneliness that probably would have driven me back home." At Yale he continued his participation in the sport of wrestling with considerable success. Also at Yale, he tells of an incident when he was crossing a street one day and a street car unexpectedly got under way and collided with him. He braced himself and pushed the street car back. This incident, too, becomes symbolic of his fighting technique: "My defiance and pigheadedness on that occasion marked a change in my attitude toward my life at Yale. I would not be ground under; I would not spend my days in lamenting the lost security of Hamilton and all my friends; I would be damned if I was going to confess my own weakness. I would push and push and push." And push he did. He acquired his M.A. at Yale in English literature and finally procured a teaching job. Then after a year he procured a Rotary scholarship and pulled up stakes again to go to Oxford. He wangled admission to Oxford, and after many hair-raising adventures, including bicycling all over England and Wales, he won his Oxford degree. He met and married a Welsh girl, and they finally returned to the U.S., and eventually he became established as a professor at Franklin and Marshall. He had gained admission to the flock of black crows. The wall had been scaled. Scaled, but not battered down. For Russell does not pretend, as do some, that because he had surmounted it, the wall does not exist. He chafes against the discriminations which he personally encounters. On one occasion he applied for a job with the Associated Colleges of Upper New York State and was rejected. He says, "... They were categorically stating that no physically handicapped person could teach. They seemed to think I wouldn't mind so much as long as I knew that Milton wouldn't have been given a job there either." Even after his graduation from Oxford, he tried to get a job -- any job -- to tide him over until he could find the teaching job he wanted, but no one would hire him, and he finally had to spend that year in the workshop for the Blind at Binghamton, N.Y. Of the employers who turned him down on this occasion he says, "They thought of me just as most people think of the blind -- I was utterly helpless or I was superhuman, and sometimes both at the same time. Either view tells equally against one when it comes to getting a job. "'I can't imagine how you have done what you have! It's really miraculous! But no, I won't give you a job turning a screw on our assembly line because I don't really think you could do it.'" But Russell is equally shocked and incensed at the cruelty which the wall of segregation inflicts upon others. On another excursion into the Workshop during the summer he comments: "I freely chose to throw a shuttle for forty hours a week to earn a wage equivalent to that of a part-time maid. This was pocket money for me. For some, it was a career. Out of such salaries they had to scrape the rent, shoes, and meals. Many of them were physically capable of doing any number of jobs in the Binghamton factories where they could have earned enough to live with some measure of decency. It was not their physical incapacity that kept them in poverty, but the public's view of it. "While I sensed the wall against which they battered their hearts, I cherished the smug illusion that it would never be an obstacle for me; that when the time came, with my college training, I could vault this barrier. But an incident took place that cast a shadow on this illusion." He then tells of another college graduate who worked at the shop: "Buoyed up by the courage and optimism of youth, he had flung himself into the struggle and had pitted his strength against the huge and impersonal machine of society. Everywhere he turned he met with the same rebuff, the unconditional rejection coated with the sugar of praise. "The same people who refused him a future would, if they had passed him on the street holding a tin cup, have thrown him a quarter. "It is an unwritten law that whoever shall constantly and openly receive charity from another shall lose his integrity and self-respect, and he shall hate him who has taken this away. It is indeed more blessed to give than to receive, and if a man is prevented from giving, he suffers the ultimate frustration. "But this is what society did to my colleague in the workshop. He had a mind carefully trained in special skills, and he was told by prospective sweet-tongued employers that they would under no circumstance let him use those skills. He was expected to withdraw gracefully, accepting their gift of praise, and quietly to weave pocketbooks for charitable buyers. "They dragged his body out of the Chenango River one cold, gray morning." There may be little that is new to the average blind reader in this book, except that it is much better written than most books of its type. However, its impact on the average sighted reader should be considerable. Such a highly personalized narrative as this may demonstrate as no amount of argument can the injustice of segregation and the denial of opportunity to the blind. ***** ** Here and There A ten-year study of the accident causes of blindness in children, conducted in Great Britain and reported by the HORIZON, showed that more eyes were destroyed by arrows than by air rifles, sling shots and fireworks combined. Jack Swager, long-time president of the Omaha Association of the Blind and a perennial delegate at national conventions, was married on December 10th of last year to Celia Cvitak. The couple are residing at 6603 South 23rd St., Omaha, Nebraska. Frances J. Barnes, itinerant teacher-consultant of partially sighted children in Maryland, writing in the NEW OUTLOOK for March, points out that "We have moved from a period when it was believed that children with limited vision would damage their eyes if they used them to full extent in school, to an era when it has become apparent that use of vision rarely, if ever, results in damage to the eyes." For many reasons, including the partially sighted child's self-image, she urges such terms as "sight-saving" and "sight conservation" classes be dropped in favor of "sight utilization" classes. After more than two decades of sharing space with the American Foundation for the Blind, National Industries for the Blind moved into its new offices on the twelfth floor at 1120 Avenue of the Americas in the heart of New York's busy mid-town area. Vastly increased services and a substantial increase in personnel dictated the necessity of immediate larger accommodations. The present space is just about double that of the former offices. Robert C. Goodpasture, who became head of NIB after the death of C.C. Kleber in 1960, defines the principal objective of his organization as follows: "To see that every blind person in the United States who wishes to have, and is capable of, some form of industrial employment, has an opportunity to obtain it." He adds, "The industrial shop is one of several tools of rehabilitation and it is essential that it be held in proper perspective to the overall programs of rehabilitation. NIB strongly advocates the movement of blind employees into sighted industry or other competitive employment wherever possible." It has been announced that the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation will be renamed the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration. Its head since 1950, Mary Switzer, will hold the title of Commissioner of Vocational Rehabilitation. Harry L. Hines, formerly Director of Services for the Blind in Nebraska for fifteen years, has been appointed supervisor of the Regional Rehabilitation Center for the Blind in Minneapolis. President Kennedy has called the 1962 amendments to the Social Security Act "the most far-reaching revisions of our public welfare program since it was enacted in 1935." Gerald Pye of Macon, Georgia is recovering from two operations incident to a detached retina. At latest report it was not yet certain just how much vision will result. Gerald is optimistic, however, and expected that June 15 would find him back on the job at Warner-Robbins Air Force Base, where he has a supervisory position in the shipping department. Gerald is our Georgia ACB membership chairman. Speaking of state member ship chairman, A.C. Weatherford of New Orleans now leads all of them. To date he has recruited no less than 37 individual members for our organization in Louisiana. From the Saturday Evening Post: "Chan Poh Lin, 18-year -old deaf-blind Chinese girl has just completed two years of study at Perkins School for the Blind. The illustrated article describes the poverty-ridden background and the accomplishments of the teenager who the Perkins staff believe may 'someday emerge as an international symbol for the severely handicapped.' Two years after the loss of both sight and hearing, she was enrolled in the Singapore School for the Blind. She came to the attention of Dr. Edward J. Waterhouse, who visited her while on a trip to Asia. Impressed by the youngster's 'amazing ability to learn' as well as her appealing and enthusiastic nature, Dr. Waterhouse decided that he couldn't let her drift into nothingness.' At Perkins she learned at an incredible rate. She had known no English but by the end of her two-year stay at Perkins she had become able to keep an adequate Braille journal in that language." ... Chan Poh Lin was the subject of a documentary under Armstrong's Circle Theater (CBS-TV) under the title "The Long Journey of Poh Lin." From LISTEN: "The ill wind of the newspaper strike which caused the shutdown of nine Greater New York dailies early in December has been a boon to many blind persons. The unexpected bonus has come in the form of increased coverage of news by numerous radio and television stations in the New York area." ... "A Minnesota optometrist who bought eye-sight insurance policies for himself and his wife in 1941 and later bought eye insurance for each of his two children has recently purchased similar protection for his five grandchildren. He predicts that Bonded Vision will some day be as well-known and widely owned as life, fire and automobile insurance." ... "Dr. Richard E. Hoover, widely known as the developer of the Hoover cane technique used in mobility training of blind persons, has been named consultant to the Royal Victoria Society for the Blind in Australia." ... "Sixteen-year-old Penny Eakin, partially blind, saved the lives of four blind fellow students when she freed herself from her safety belt and held the emergency brake of a run-away bus until it stopped. The driver had parked on a steep hill while he telephoned for a mechanic." ... "It has been announced that Perkins' partially constructed fall-out shelter will soon be available to the public in an emergency." ... "The late Eleanor Roosevelt would have been saddened to learn that one of her last gracious gestures -- the bequest of her eyes to an eye bank -- could not be carried out for medical reasons." ... "Marion A. Woodworth, registrar at Perkins, recently observed her fortieth anniversary as a member of that school staff." From the MISSOURI CHRONICLE: "Mrs. Assunta Jackson, of St. Louis, had a singular honor conferred upon her last March when, as a transcriber for the Federal Civil Service Commission, she was selected to represent her district as a nominee for the Civil Servant of the Year Award." From THE LION: "Robert Miller, of Omaha, Neb., has organized a network of 18 ham-operated wireless stations, which co-operate in seeking eyes for Lions eye banks. There are now stations in Memphis, Detroit, Coronado (Calif.), Oklahoma City, Wood River (Neb.) and three in Chicago. Corneas must be removed within 48 hours after the donor's death and the speed the ham radio operation lends to the transfer is vital. It is hoped the network will grow across the nation. One of the more dramatic successes of the 'Eye Ball Network' came about when the sight of a two-year-old Oklahoma City girl, whose eyes had been ruptured in an automobile accident, was saved. ..." From the HOOSIER STAR-LIGHT: "Some $2,500, in addition to Braille writers and other equipment, has been contributed by the blind of Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland and Italy for the benefit of a school in Hong Kong for blind Chinese children." ... "The largest group pledge ever received at the Iowa Eye Bank of the Iowa State University came from 105 Sisters at St. Mary's Benedictine Priory, Nauvoo, Ia." From the WASHINGTON STATE WHITE CANE: "A recent communication from The Howe Press of Watertown, Mass., states that the Perkins Brailler can now be shipped in approximately four weeks. This speed-up will be welcomed by many who have dreaded the 12 to 14 months' delay that has been the pattern in the past. " From the ABC DIGEST (Calif.): "Fred Pearson, of San Diego, made a second extensive European tour last year. Accompanied by a sighted friend, he covered 11 continental countries, with a side trip to Tangiers, Morocco, and four days in London -- 8,600 miles by car. He was particularly interested in learning what is being done in various countries to find employment for the blind." ... "Field Rehabilitation Services for the Adult Blind is one of the lesser-known state agencies in California, but it gives direct services to more blind adults than any other single state agency. Presently it employs 20 teacher-counselors whose mission it is to inculcate the techniques of daily living and to make possible the attainment of each individual's maximum potential." ... Juliet Bindt makes an eloquent, searching and devastating analysis of the proposal to scramble the four categories of public assistance. She concludes, "Forcing all needy per sons into the same stifling mould seems too great a price for simplicity." ... Elsewhere she writes: "We regret the absence of strong opposition to liens for medical care. Blind individuals, like other realistic persons who are proud in owning their own homes, often go without greatly needed medical attention to avoid a lien they can never hope to repay. This may cost the taxpayer more in the end, and retard social and vocational rehabilitation." The transition from high school to the far more exacting university level is never an easy one and when a period of a dozen years intervenes things are apt to get a bit rough. It is all the more to his credit, therefore, that our ebullient friend, Bob O Shaughnessy, came up with a straight-A average for his first semester's work at the University of Southern Illinois. From the RECORDING FOR THE BLIND, INC., NEWSLETTER: "ln 1962 RFB distributed nearly 20,000 recorded educational books to blind students throughout the country, an increase of 56 per cent over the previous year. At the 14 units where books are recorded on tape, some 2,000 volunteers gave thousands of hours of work recording, monitoring, brailling, writing labels, etc. RFB estimates that it is serving 900 blind college students, 350 high school students and 1,250 adults." From the Peoria Area OBSERVER: "Last year the police in Gary, Indiana, apprehended a blind burglar who had robbed a series of homes with the aid of his guide dog. He was 26 years old and was arrested when a witness spotted him and his dog climbing out the window of a house that had just been robbed." ... "The print shop at the Illinois Braille and Sight Saving School in Jacksonville is to be closed down. This is of great concern to the various organizations of the blind in Illinois as heretofore THE BRAILLE MESSENGER, the I.F.B. NEWSLETTER, music and other Braille material has been supplied to us at little or no cost." ... "An interesting venture is that organized by the Blind Institute of America in California. 'Practice Apartments' have been recently opened, consisting of living room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two kitchens (one all electric and the other gas), a laundry room and a dining room. The aim of the course is to help recently blinded housewives, middle-aged men and women who live alone, and young, single men and women who have never before kept house. ..." A bill to authorize the use of a spirally striped red and white cane by those handicapped in other ways than by blindness was defeated in the Washington State Legislature during the current session. The organized blind pointed out that such a cane in a traffic situation would only muddy the picture. From VIEWPOINT: "The theme of the Conference of Educators of Blind Youth, held at Hanover, Germany, last year, and attended by delegates and observers from 43 countries, was 'Bringing Education to the Blind Children of the Emergent Countries.' More than 400 individuals participated. This international organization meets every five years, and this was its third meeting. Among many disturbing statistics showing the urgently compelling need for greater effort was this one: Only one- and one-half percent of Africa's blind child population now receives any education, as against 30% of its sighted children. A blind African child, therefore, has one twentieth of the chance of being educated he would have had if he had not lost his sight." ... "An electric typewriter which can type Braille, Roman letters, or the two together, has just been developed by the Fuji Seisakusho Company of Numazu, 60 miles southwest of Tokyo. The machine can easily be operated with one finger by either blind or sighted people. A blind person can type in Braille and a simple adjustment results in the appearance of Roman letters." From THE LION MAGAZINE (May): "A very unusual camera was recently given Westbourne Hospital by the one-year-old Bournemouth, England, Lions Club. The Japanese-made Noyori Fundus camera is used for photographing the back of the eye -- recording in color or black-and-white any 'doubtful' eye disease. ... Patients previously had to go to Oxford or even further afield to have special drawings of their infected eyes made by an eye-artist. The new camera enables photographs to be taken and compared with others a month later, thus simplifying diagnosis. ..." From THE NEW OUTLOOK (April): "There is a contradiction in the Administration's emphasis on support of humanitarian services for all those sectors of the population needing special aid and those aspects of its proposed tax reforms that would jeopardize the level of voluntary social welfare services. Convincing logic supports the view that the changes in question would lead to reduced charitable giving by the American tax payer. ..." ... "Peter J. Salmon, Executive Director of the Industrial Home for the Blind, and Lilyan Webel Banta, his administrative secretary, were married on December 6. Mr. Salmon recently celebrated his fortieth anniversary with the Industrial Home for the Blind in Brooklyn." ... "At the 1962 American Film Festival, the second film produced by the Perkins School for the Blind, entitled 'Children of the Silent Night,' received the Blue Ribbon Award. This same award was won in 1959 by their earlier film, "The Perkins Story.'" ... "The Fourth Pan American Council for the Blind has been called for August 1 to 10, 1963, at Arequipa, Peru." ... "Thirty blind persons in Peru have been trained as beer tasters. The ten best candidates have been employed since April, 1962, and the management expresses complete satisfaction with their performance. They work in half-hour shifts and their alcoholic intake is minimal." ... "Harry E. Hayes, Director of Services for the Blind in Kansas, has become President-elect of the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind." ... "Robert C. Oberhouse, Home Teacher, Division of Services for the Blind, Columbus, Ohio, has received the meritorious service award of both the President's and Governor's Committees on Employment of the Physically Handicapped." This year's winner of the National Essay Contest conducted by the President's Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, on the theme "How My Community Benefits from the Abilities of Handicapped Workers," was won by 16-year-old Miss Judith Keith Sikes, of the Central High School of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This year's contest required the entrants to base their written reports on independent field trips to local places of employment, to visit public employment and vocational rehabilitation offices, and to interview handicapped persons, employers, labor officials, and community organizations serving the handicapped. She will receive first prize of $1,000 and an all-expense trip to Washington, D.C. A letter received from Arnold Sadler, of Seattle, brought the sad news of the passing of Mrs. Lyle Von Erichsen, of Tacoma, Washington. Lyle has been President of the Washington State Association of the Blind several times and attended a number of national conventions, always accompanied by his wife, Fern. Joe Clunk is fond of saying that when a blind man is found doing an extraordinarily good job, there is almost inevitably an extraordinary woman somewhere in the background helping him. Lyle has been one of the most successful practicing blind lawyers in the whole country and has always insisted that his sighted wife was everything that a law partner could have been. She spent nearly the whole of every day in his office and in addition to that kept up a lovely home for Lyle and their son. Fern was truly a great lady. From NEWSWEEK: "A label-making machine to serve a special label-conscious group of customers -- the nation's 400,000 blind persons -- is being marketed by Dymo Industries, of Berkeley, Calif. The 18-ounce braillewriter can stamp out plastic labels in braille. The letter wheel on the label maker contains both the letters of the alphabet and their matching braille symbols so that a blind person can operate it by touch and a sighted per son can use it to print braille labels. After each letter is dialed, a squeeze on the machine's handle embosses the raised braille symbol on a plastic tape that will stick to any smooth surface. Dymo will sell the braillewriter ($29) and tape (70 cents for a 12-foot roll) at cost to the blind." At its annual meeting in April, the Florida Association of Masseurs elected our own Al Drake as state president. From the NEW BEACON (London): "London University has just added a Chair of Clinical Ophthalmology and a Chair of Experimental Ophthalmology and will carry on much-needed eye research.".... "Pakistan -- A step forward in plans for the education of blind children is being taken at a seminar lasting for ten weeks in Lahore, under the sponsorship of the Department of Education and under the Directorship of Dr. Isabel Grant, a Fulbright professor from Los Angeles and a teacher of long standing in the education of blind children, who is herself blind. There are 35 participants from all parts of West Pakistan, some of whom also are blind. The purpose of the seminar is to train teachers of the blind for various localities throughout the country, with the expectation that those participating will in turn be leaders in setting up educational facilities for blind children in their respective areas and in training additional instructors." ... "Ten years ago the well-known tenor, Eric Greene, tried out an interesting experiment. He formed a choir whose membership consisted entirely of registered blind people. This in itself was nothing new; but what made the choir unique was that it was the only group of blind singers in this country whose aim was to perform large-scale choral workers -- and to perform them with a professional orchestra and with top-flight professional soloists. So the 'Pro Canto Singers' were born. In ten years they have proved that a blind choir can perform difficult and complicated choral works and can more than hold its own with any amateur group in the country. They have now reached a point where their services are sought by leading soloists asking to have the privilege of performing with them. One really exciting prospect is that of accepting an offer they have had from a famous choral society to join forces for the production of the St. Matthew Passion." The May READERS DIGEST contains an article featuring an old friend of ours. It is called "Just an Average Lawyer, a Day in the Life of Vernon Williams." Vernon has attended several national conventions, and many readers will remember him. He lives in Aberdeen, South Dakota, and has established quite a reputation for ability and drive. Now there is another young blind lawyer in a city a few miles away -- one Dean Sumner -- who is even a little better known to BRAILLE FORUM readers. Those who know them both have been hugely entertained by the spirited and strenuous competition between these two. They are close friends, but they strive mightily to outdo each other. They have both fought their way through law school, against the well-meant advice of many who believed that a general law practice is no place for a blind man. Both were elected to the office of State's Attorney soon after graduation. Both have been President of the South Dakota Association of the Blind. Both are keen sportsmen and lead extremely active lives. Both are raising healthy and vigorous families but in this area, at least, Dean is now ahead, five to four, even though Vernon had a head start. Their mutual slogan might very well be: "Anything you can do, I can do better!" From THE NEW OUTLOOK FOR THE BLIND: "Howard Jones has been appointed Executive Secretary of the Delaware Commission for the Blind, succeeding the late Dr. Francis J. Cummings. Mr. Jones has served for some time as assistant to Dr. Cummings." ... "William E. Bartram, Executive Director of the New Orleans Lighthouse for the Blind, died as the result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident which occurred in August, 1962. His wife was killed outright. Before World War II, Mr. Bartram was principal of the Ohio State School for the Blind." ... "Western Michigan University, in cooperation with the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, has inaugurated a Master's Degree program for the training of home teachers of the adult blind. ..." From the HOOSIER STAR-LIGHT: "Blind high school girls from eight states met at the Indiana School for the Blind for their annual 'Play Day,' March 16 and 17. The annual event was initiated several years ago in an effort to provide girls from state schools for the blind with the opportunity for travel and social exchange. Boys already have such an opportunity as a result of their involvement in wrestling and other sporting events for blind students. Among other points of interest, the girls visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, site of the annual 500-mile Memorial Day Race." ... "The celebrated Russian Bolshoi Ballet performed the famed Swan Lake ballet under the musical direction of blin conductor Yuri Faier when it opened recently in Boston's Music Hall." ... "Carl Guthrie, well-known Indiana stand operator and active in the organized blind movement, passed away in early March." ... "Joseph Morello, a Springfield, Mass. drummer, with very little vision, recently received a top honor in the Jazz world -- he won DOWN BEAT MAGAZINE'S 27th annual reader poll. He was a member of the famed Dave Brubeck Quartet for seven years and before that of the Marion McPartland Trio. ..." An announcement has just been received from Richard Kinney, outstanding deaf-blind poet and teacher at the Hadley Correspondence School for the Blind, of the birth of a male heir. From the CEDAR RAPIDS GAZETTE: "Another measure designed to end a running power struggle between the heads of Iowa's two rehabilitation and training facilities for the blind was signed into law. The measure removed the Superintendent of the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School at Vinton from the Commission for the Blind and makes all three members appointive by the Governor. Lee Iverson, head of the Vinton school, currently is a member of the Commission by virtue of his position. He and Kenneth Jernigan, Commission Director and head of the rehabilitation center at Des Moines, have been in conflict in recent months over training programs, especially the scope of the work attempted by Jernigan at the Des Moines center. In addition to changing the setup of the Commission, the bill provides that the Des Moines center shall not provide rehabilitation or training for blind persons 16 years of age or younger." ***** ** ACB Officers and Directors * President: Ned E. Freeman 136 Gees Mill Road Conyers, Georgia * First Vice-President: Durward K. McDaniel Suite 305 Midwest Building Oklahoma City 2, Oklahoma * Second Vice-President: David Krause 4628 Livingston Road, S.E. Washington 20, D.C. * Secretary: Mrs. Alma Murphey 4103 Castleman Avenue St. Louis, Missouri * Treasurer: Reese H. Robrahn 210 Crawford Building Topeka, Kansas ** Directors Until 1966: George Card 605 South Few Street Madison 3, Wisconsin G. Paul Kirton Room 6327 Department of the Interior Washington 25, D.C. Delbert K. Aman 220 West Second Street Pierre, South Dakota Mrs. Marie M. Boring 1113 Camden Avenue Durham, North Carolina ** Directors Until 1964: F. Winfield Orrell 5209 Alabama Avenue Chattanooga, Tennessee Earl Scharry 186 Vernon Avenue Louisville 6, Kentucky Mrs. Mary Jane Hills 104 Longview Terrace Rochester 9, New York Robert W. Campbell 253 Stonewall Road Berkeley 5, California ###