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It seems highly probable that it will be best economy for the State, and best serve the interests of the blind, to work out a co-operative plan of the kind proposed rather than to either turn the Commission for the Blind, which is organized largely for industrial work, into a relief-giving centre; or to inaugurate an entirely new system of public relief through counties, especially for the blind, as proposed in the pension bill. There seems no reason to doubt, for example, that the Mother's Aid can be made applicable to all suitable families with minor children where there is need of supplementary aid, either because of the blind housewife or the blind bread-winner. I could cite repeated cases where the State Board of Charity and Overseers of Towns, have been glad and willing to give outdoor aid to blind persons, upon recommendation of the Commission for the Blind, when convinced that the Commission had done or was doing its proper work in relation to the case. The whole thing needs to be carried much further and authority, workers and necessary appropriation are needed. It seems incredible, that when in Ohio, more than a quarter of a million is being expended annually in the so-called pensions alone, we should question here in Massachusetts the necessary steps for the intelligent, economical working out of our local relief problem.

Beyond these immediate steps, which should be taken without any question this year, we, who are interested in the blind should join hands with others towards working out a system of health, unemployment and old age insurance in which those who become blind shall have their appropriate share of consideration. The notable thing to be considered here is that a large proportion of the blind of Massachusetts have, as in Ohio, become blind late and already succeeded or failed in life as sighted persons; for this reason, the question of their relief should be considered as that of other citizens of like age and circumstance is considered. That the Commission for the Blind shall undertake to see that appropriate benefits are secured for blind persons, even if it does not administer relief directly, seems a sound, co-operative, and economic proposition, as both relief and educational and industrial aid should be given with due regard to each other.

EXTENSION OF PRIVATE RELIEF

The part which private funds have played from the start in every form of work for the blind in Massachusetts will be appreciated when you know that the total of the State budget for the blind does not yet equal the total annual private budget for the blind of Massachusetts. If the Commission gets what has been asked this year in its estimates and the added $15,000 for an occupational colony, the State's total of $125,000 per year, for school, home teaching and commission work, will for the first time almost equal the private annual budget of something over that amount.

The activities of the Massachusetts Association for the Blind during the past ten years are a guarantee that consideration is given adult blind by private donors, though not as yet to any such extent as it has been given to children through the Nursery and School. The opening this year at private expense, of a social centre for blind men; and the private funds for the support of Woolson House, and for loans and gifts, largely through the Association for the Blind, which have this year passed through my hands, totalling $12,000.00, are concrete indications of private interest in this work for adults whose needs we shall continue to commend for private as well as public interest, as we have in the past.

EXTENSION OF INDUSTRIAL AID

Perhaps the most important distinction to be made in work for the blind is the difference between the principle of relief and of educational and industrial aid. Failure to make the distinction causes great confusion in every discussion of relief. The one, relief, is given to individuals on the basis of need, the form of the relief to be influenced by the cause of the need, be it blindness, sickness, insanity or had habits. Educational and industrial aid cannot he given on the basis of need alone, and its form is not determined by need but by the character and ability of the applicant. In the case of the blind, industrial aid is designed to equalize their chances, in competition with those less handicapped. It classifies the blind by their abilities, and varies in its forms, to meet their abilities whether by subsidized non-resident shops; a residential occupational colony; industrial aid in the form of guidance, music transcription or other form.

The special form of extension of industrial aid to the blind upon which we are concentrating this year, in addition to the annual appropriation asked for is the occupational colony for blind men. If you believe with us in working out appropriate ways of aiding the blind case-by-case and group-by-group, you will help us in support of House Bill 57, which is an act to provide an occupational colony for blind men. Two entirely different forms of industrial aid for the gradual development of which we ask increased appropriation this year are the new willow industry, in the established, non-resident, subsidized shops and the extension of industrial aid to blind persons working in competition with the sighted.