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Our next work relates to the prevention of unnecessary blindness. As we have at this convention some of the greatest workers in this field. I need not go into this question in detail. We wish to assist in every way to help to stamp out the scourge of infant ophthalmia, to prevent the shocking loss of eyesight not only from this unnecessary evil, but also from the lack of safety devices in manufactories, glass works, blasting, etc.

We distribute information and instruction for the prevention of infantile blindness. We have an able oculist who gives his services and is active in preserving and recovering any possible vision for our blind people.

Among our friendly visitors is a trained nurse, who is interested in caring for the dismissed patients from hospitals and other blind people in need of her help. We have a zealous doctor, who, in collaboration with our oculist, makes physical examinations required before workmen are admitted to our shop. In this shop for blind men they are instructed in broom making and chair caning and carry on these trades. We are anxious to extend the field for their work as rapidly and in as many directions as seems prudent and useful. Our constant effort is to find occupations suited to the capacity of the individual.

Perhaps the moral effect of giving blind men a chance to work is amongst the most gratifying results of the workshop. We hope ultimately to have a shop for blind women. At present they are mostly beginners, to whom we are teaching industries in our classes or at their homes.

We give out raw material to the women in their homes, where the home teachers instruct them in making marketable articles which we later sell for them. Our home teaching has thus far been entirely done by blind people. We believe that it is better done by them than it could possibly be by sighted people. The chief reason for this is the bond of sympathy in the common handicap of both pupil and teacher.

With our sighted cooperators and our bind teachers we are able to give instruction in music, reading, writing, typewriting, typewriting form phonographs, telephone switchboard operating, stenography, sewing by machine and hand, knitting, crocheting, basket and lace making, and beadwork.

Giving occupations and developing industry are only parts of our work. We believe in encouraging the normal life for our blind in their homes. We do not want them segregated and treated as a class by themselves. We are mapping out Greater New York in districts, so that our friendly visitors can cover the whole territory and so know and follow the home conditions of each blind person whom we want to help, and whom we want to have help us. At times we perform unofficially various services. We have been known to distribute food and clothes. We have placed blind people in hospitals and helped to bury them.

We have a Blind Men's Self-Improvement Club, which has a great field of usefulness. The president of this club is an able and generous cooperator of ours. Besides the blind, the club numbers many sighted associate members; among them people of broad interest and culture, who are helped as much as they help by their exchange of ideas with the blind. The club also acts as a tremendous stimulus to the blind man, putting heart in him through the example of successful men similarly affected whom he meets and hears talk there. It also gives the fortunate blind men a chance for service to the less fortunate, for which they are preeminently fitted.

The Woman's Club of the New York Association for the Blind is run on much the same plan as the Men's. It has also sighted associate members. Through all the officers of the Men's Club are blind, the women have elected two honorary sighted officers.

We recognize happiness and diversion as an essential part of the life of our blind people. Most of new organizations for the help of the blind have tried to give them an opportunity for simply wage earning. It has been left largely for our young Association to emphasize the great importance of pleasure and beauty in educational work for the adult blind, and to recognize that not only are they good, but essential for the best results. With this in mind, our original effort, the ticket bureau, is still an important and vital part of our work. Our blind man will cane better chairs if he occasionally hears an amusing play. Our blind woman will make more exquisite and more marketable things if she has the sound of beautiful music in her memory as she works.

We have never regretted for a moment the amount we have expended in printing and postage and personal effort to make our Ticket Bureaus successes. They have been splendid introductions to the blind, and have had great effect in bringing them into friendly relations with their neighbors. A blind person is given an extra ticket for his guide. This helps him at once to become a social center instead of a social exile. At last he is not asking for something, but he has something to give. Often those who are socially and educationally more fortunate than he will in this way become interested in him, with a lasting benefit to both.