Five Lectures on Blindness | Page 2

senses regards
the blind man as a marvel of intelligence and skill, just because, on
losing his eyesight, his remaining senses come to the rescue, and he
continues to live and move and have his being without the most
precious of all physical senses. In the world of the blind child eyesight
plays no part, and so the other senses are made to do double duty, and
the extent to which these may be cultivated is limited only by the
mentality of the child, its early training and environment.
I think hearing is the first sense to be cultivated, both in the infant and
the adult suddenly deprived of eyesight. Through its ears, the child

recognizes voices, detects different footfalls, is enabled to measure
distance with a fair degree of accuracy, and can form a very clear idea
as to the shape and dimensions of a room. All this information is
conveyed to the normal child through the eyes. Dr. Illingworth, a noted
educator of the blind in England, says: "Of course, there is no doubt
that blindness tends to a higher and more perfect development of the
sense of hearing, even in the uneducated, on the same principle that
Nature almost always comes to the aid of her children in providing
protective agencies of one kind or another, even in the very lowest
organisms, and, naturally, for those who are blind, the sense of hearing
is the first to fall back upon for this purpose. Thus it becomes more
highly developed, because there is more frequent call upon, and
exercise of, that sense." Another writer has said, "but a distinction
should be made between sensitiveness and an ability to use the sense,
between native sensory capacity of the sense organ, and the acquired
ability to use that capacity."
The second sense to be developed in the blind child is that of touch,
and this development begins at a very early date, supplementing the
sense of hearing. Long before the child is old enough to read, its fingers
have become its eyes, and each of the ten fingers carries its quota of
information to the active brain, the amount and quality of this
information increasing with the mental development. In addition to the
fingers, the nerves of the face and those of the feet contribute their
share of information. The child learns to detect differences in climatic
condition by the feel of the air on its face. I have often heard very
young blind children exclaim, "It feels like rain! It feels like a nice day!
The air feels heavy! The wind feels soft! The wind is rough today!"
The nerves of the feet contribute their share of helpful knowledge,
calling attention to differences in the ground often unnoticed by the eye,
telling whether the path is smooth or rough, grass-grown or
rock-strewn. The auditory and pedal nerves are mutually helpful, the
ear recording and classifying the sounds made by the feet, often
guiding them aright by recalling certain peculiarities of sound--whether
the ground is hollow, whether the sidewalk is of board or cement, and
whether there is a depression here or a raised place there. I often
wonder how deaf-blind people walk as well as they do, when they can

not hear their footfalls. I find walking much more difficult when on a
crowded thoroughfare, or when passing a planing mill or boiler factory.
The last of the trio of senses whose development compensates in large
measure for the want of eyesight, is that of smell. Through this sense,
the child comes very close to the heart of Nature. Of course, the ear is
charmed by the song of birds, the hum of insects, the murmur of wind
in the trees, or the sound of mighty waters. Through the finger-tips, he
learns the shape and size of each flower and shrub and tree, traces the
delicate pattern of ferns, notes wonderful rock formations, and finds the
first blade of tender grass coaxed to the surface by the warmth of the
Spring sunshine. But all this does not bring him the keen pleasure he
experiences when he inhales the fragrance of the rose, the perfume of
flowers with the dew still upon them, the smell of the freshly turned
earth, the newly cut grass, or the blossom laden trees. In the case of
Helen Keller, the olfactory nerves have been cultivated to a very high
degree, and through this sense she is often able to recognize her friends.
A little blind boy once told me that each member of his family had a
distinct odor, by which he could tell things worn by them, or books
they had handled. Laura Bridgeman is said to have selected the laundry
of the pupils in her school by this unusual process. I frequently astonish
my