, they are
more and better exercised than they are in the case of those who see. In
the morning, in the dormitory, one asks another, 'Is the sun shining?'
and the one who is the most alert in dressing runs instantly into the
yard, and flourishes his hands in the air, to find out whether there is
any warmth of the sun perceptible, and then he runs to communicate the
good news, 'The sun is shining!' From the voice of a person they obtain
an idea of his height. We judge of a man's soul by his eyes; they, by
his voice. They remember intonations and accents for years. They
perceive if there is more than one person in a room, even if only one
speaks, and the rest remain motionless. They know by their touch whether
a spoon is more or less polished. Little girls distinguish dyed wools
from that which is of the natural color. As they walk two and two along
the streets, they recognize nearly all the shops by their odors, even
those in which we perceive no odor. They spin top, and by listening to
its humming they go straight to it and pick it up without any mistake.
They trundle hoop, play at ninepins, jump the rope, build little houses
of stones, pick violets as though they saw them, make mats and baskets,
weaving together straw of various colors rapidly and well--to such a
degree is their sense of touch skilled. The sense of touch is their
sight. One of their greatest pleasures is to handle, to grasp, to guess
the forms of things by feeling them. It is affecting to see them when
they are taken to the Industrial Museum, where they are allowed to
handle whatever they please, and to observe with what eagerness they
fling themselves on geometrical bodies, on little models of houses, on
instruments; with what joy they feel over and rub and turn everything
about in their hands, in order to see how it is made. They call this
_seeing_!"

Garoffi interrupted the teacher to inquire if it was true that blind
boys learn to reckon better than others.

The master replied: "It is true. They learn to reckon and to write. They
have books made on purpose for them, with raised characters; they pass
their fingers over these, recognize the letters and pronounce the words.
They read rapidly; and you should see them blush, poor little things,
when they make a mistake. And they write, too, without ink. They write
on a thick and hard sort of paper with a metal bodkin, which makes a
great many little hollows, grouped according to a special alphabet;
th