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admiration cooled, the funds fell off, and the Institutionlanguished until it was put upon a government founda-tion. The blind really received hut little advantage froman invention that at first promised so much. The fault,however, seems to have been not so much in the plan as iin the execution of it. The books were bulky and expen- isivc, and the letters, though beautiful to the eye, and jclearly embossed, wanted that sharpness and permanence 'so essential to perfect tangibility; besides that, thoughthe letters filled three spaces, they were too small to bewell adapted to the sense of touch. Large editions ofthe few books printed were published, the idea having ■taken a strong hold of the public mind, so that thoughthe evil was soon perceived, it was not easy to abandonthe defective alphabet and assume a better, for that stepinvolved the sacrifice of all the previous labour. Hencetins nolde invention, except, perhaps within the walls ofthe Institution, soon sank into oblivion, and very littlemore was heard of it until 1814, when Hatty, havingfallen into disrepute, was pensioned off on 2,000 francs ja-year, and Dr. Guillie, an active and enterprising gentle- !man, was made Diiecteur-Ge'/ierul in his place. Dr. Guillie !soon revived the printing, and having considerably modi- !fied the letters, commenced the publication of a series of jelementary and other works, among which are the follow- !mg (see Table No. I., p. 415). |
The mechanical execution of these volumes was ex- jceedingly heavy. Most of them were ponderous folios :and very expensive, still they formed for many years !almost the only literature of the blind, not alone in !France , but in other countries. We should not omit par-ticularly to mention the following book which has comeunder our notice:— Police Iiistorique sur VInstruction des.Tenues Aveugles. Par M. Guillie. Directeur- General deVInstitution Poyale des Jeunes Aveugles de Paris. Paris ,Imptime’ par les Jeunes Aveugles, 1819, 4to, 52 pages, with1 7 lines to a page. Two leaves are pasted together, sothat it is read as if embossed on both sides of a sheet.This is the second edition, the first having been embossedin 1817, the third in 1820, and a fourth edition enlargedin 1821. On page 52 is a curious specimen of printing inrelief, in colour, so as to render the letters more easilyroad by the eye. This book was a valuable contributionto the library of the blind, but still retains nearly all theobjections that were made to Hatty's first books; it canonly he read by those possessing a very delicate touch.It is replete with information respecting the means thenemployed for the instruction of the blind in Paris ; itproves, however, that the art of embossed typographyhad made but very little progress. It is singular that inthis hook no mention is made of the author’s predecessor,Hatty, to whom, we should not forget, the idea of finger-reading is due.
Between the years 1821 and 1S40 very little printingwas done by this Institution, except religious books, andmusic after the system of notation by letters and ciphers.The annexed is a list of them:" see Table No. II., p. 415). ;
UInstitut des Jeunes Aveugles de Paris , since its foun- !dation in 17S4, has at times been in a deplorable condi- jtion, but about the year 1840 it underwent a thorough |reorganization, and is now, under the able management Iof M. Dufau, justly entitled to the front rank of institu- Itions of this class in Europe , from its usefulness no lessthan its age. A radical reform in the priuting depart- ;ment has been made: M. Dufau has devised a system oftypes consisting of capitals and lower-case Homan letters, jand has greatly improved the character of the embossing, iThe French books are now well embossed, sharp, clear, jand durable. They have also been so much reduced in ;bulk that they are offered at a moderate price. M. Dufau >has proposed to print a standard library for the blind, to !consist of 10 vols.. in quarto, for elementary instruction, iand 10 vols. for higher instruction. The first series is jnearly completed, and this is the list (see Table No. III., jp. 4i5). ;
The second series of this library, not yet printed, it is 1to be hoped will soon follow. For the above lists, andother interesting information respecting the Paris typo- !graphy for the blind, the Jury is much indebted to a 1valuable pamphlet published by M. J. Guadet, entitled !
L’ Institut des Jeunes Aveugles de Paris, son Histoire etses Provides d' Knseignemcnt, Paris , 1850, Svo, pp. 115.
At Vienna an institution for the blind was establishedin 1804, but the Jury is not aware of any printing havingbeen executed in Austria before the year 1830 or 1831.About this date the intelligent publishers Treusinskv, ofVienna , embossed sheets with the Lord’s Prayer in variouslanguages, in Roman letters, and afterwards printedworks for elementary instruction. The subject has beenrecently taken up by the Imperial Printing-office, andseveral volumes have been published, but the Jury areunable to give a bibliographical description of them.’
In 1806, M. Ilaiiy was invited to establish institutionsfor the blind at Berlin and St. Petersburg!!. His systemof instruction was adopted in each of these institutions,and the books used were for a considerable time suppliedfrom the press of Paris . Both of these institutions in apecuniary point of view were unsuccessful to M. Ilaiiy,and in 1808 he returned to Paris , and for a while residedin quiet with his brother the celebrated Abbe Ilaiiy.
The Jury have not been able to trace the progress ofthe printing for the blind at Berlin or St. Petersburgh,but they learn that the amount of matter embossed inGermany until very recently did not exceed half of theNew Testament.
It was in Great Britain and in the United States thatthe first improvements were made in embossed typogra-phy; aud only within the last 15 years that the blindgenerally have derived any considerable advantages frombooks. Before 1826, when Mr. James Gall, of Edin-burgh , first began to turn his attention to the intellectualand moral education of the blind, it is believed that not asingle blind person in any public institution of this coun-try or America could read by means of embossed charac-ters. To Mr. Gall is due the credit of reviving this art.With the most commendable zeal, patience, and perse-verance, lie canvassed the form of every letter until atlength he adopted his angular alphabet. lie seems, fromhis own Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of theLiterature of the Blind, Kdinburgh, 1834, 8vo, pp. 388, tohave experimented long and patiently with a greatvariety of arbitrary and Roman alphabets, with a view offinding one sufficiently simple and tangible for finger-reading. On the 28th of September 1827, lie published“A First Book for teaching the Art of Reading to theBlind; with a short statement of the principles of the artof printing as here applied to the sense of touch. Edin-burgh, published by James Gall .” This is believed to hethe first book printed for the blind in the English lan-guage. It is a small oblong octavo volume, of ninepages, price sixpence, with four preliminary leaves inwhich the author sets forth his “principles.” The em-bossing is in high relief, and though it presents rather arude appearance from the fact of its having been printedfrom wooden types, yet it soon rendered the practicabilityof reading by the Wind a matter of experience in GreatBritain. Mr. Gall then issued sheets printed by metallictype, which were easily read by the pupils in the asylumat Edinburgh . Encouraged by his success, in March1828, he issued his prospectus for the publication, bysubscription, of the Gospel by St. John, but it was notuntil about the middle of 1829 that he perfected hisalphabet to his own satisfaction. He tried three differentfounts of type:—first, the double english size; second, thedouble pica; and third, the great primer; and, afterprinting and cancelling sheets in each of these threefounts, he at length, in January 1S32, finished the print-ing of his great work. The blind must ever feel indebtedto Mr. Gall for the zeal and honest endeavour which hedisplayed in accomplishing what he thought would mostbenefit this unfortunate class. Notwithstanding the lastsheet of his work was printed in January 1832, yet it wasnot till October 1834 that he was enabled to publish it.It is entitled, “The Gospel by St. John, for the Blind :with an Introduction, containing some Historical Noticesregarding the Origin of a tangible Literature for theirUse. By James Gall. Edinburgh: James Gall , 24Niddry-s’treet. 1834. In 4to.” The Introduction, incommon type, comprises 18 pages. The text, in embossedcharacters, consists of 141 pages, with 27 lines on a page