The philosophical apparatus consists of miniature machinery: the spring, the simple and compound lever, the wheel, the cog, the cam, etc., even to the miniature engine are brought into use, and the pupils examine them by themselves, and in their various applications and relations to each other. In teaching those who never could see great difficulty is experienced in conveying the nature and properties of gases, vapors, etc., but with those who have any recollection of what they have seen the task is comparatively easy.
Where the apparatus is possessed the teaching of physiology and natural history are comparatively easy, the pupil handling and examining skeletons, skulls and models of the various parts of the human system, learning their various offices, etc., but many schools do not possess them, while others have fine collections including busts of eminent or notorious personages, zoological collections, plaster models, etc., by which the loss of sight is largely compensated for.
Music is taught by raised notes until the rudiments are mastered. It forms a great part of the course in all the institutions, and is cultivated with great assiduity. When the rudiments have been mastered and the pupil is familiar with the instrument, the music is read to them, the notes indicated by names and value, and they memorize the music. So thoroughly do many of the blind master the art that several are now, within my knowledge, successful teachers of the art to large numbers of seeing pupils. On the other hand much valuable time is wasted in the effort to teach music to those who have no talent for it, and whose time might be more profitably employed in the pursuit of other studies.
In the education of the blind the greatest care is given to the cultivation and strengthening of the memory and the success that is met with is truly marvelous, for the amount and variety of knowledge with which some minds have been stored is to many almost incredible.
The industrial education of the blind is perhaps the most important of all, and all the institutions are provided with workshops, in which the inmates learn some useful mechanical or domestic art. The female pupils are taught to make all kinds of ornamental bead-work, to crochet and knit woolen and worsted goods, to sew by hand and with machines, and some of them acquire surprising skill, though my own experience does not give me a high opinion of the efficacy of attempting to teach sewing, so very few ever practice it after leaving school, though I have found it convenient to sew on a button or repair a rent on occasion. Sewing by the blind, though it may surprise the beholder for the skill acquired under difficulties, will seldom claim their admiration for its own merit.