nd the blind adults of our civil
communities, every one of you can help, and I feel sure it will be
unnecessary for me to ask a pledge of co-operation from any one who has
heard me speak this afternoon. The State Library is heartily with me in
every phase of this campaign, and, with its co-operation and
encouragement, I go fearlessly forward, overcoming obstacles, uprooting
prejudices, laboring with heart and mind and voice in the service of the
blind and in the hope of bringing about a clearer understanding of their
needs in the minds of the public.

And now, in conclusion, let me tell you my dream for the future of the
blind, a dream which, please God, will one day come true. I dream of
seeing blind men occupying chairs in our colleges and universities,
blind heart and lung specialists, anatomists and osteopaths, lawyers and
lecturers. In my dream, I see blind salesmen, telegraphers, musicians,
piano tuners and electricians, and other men making brooms, brushes,
mattresses and furniture now so often made by prison labor. And in my
dream, I see blind women teachers, stenographers, dictaphone and
switchboard operators; and other women knitting, crocheting, sewing,
cooking, weaving rugs and making baskets, and doing the work side by
side with their more fortunate sisters, and doing it as well, and often
better. Then and only then will the greatest sting be removed from
blindness; then and only then will the blind beggar depart from our
public thoroughfares, and when all these things come to pass, my dream
for my people will be realized. Aren't you going to help to make my
dream "come true"?

PREVENTION OF BLINDNESS AND CONSERVATION OF VISION IN ADULTS AND
CHILDREN.[2]

Helen Keller, in writing on prevention of blindness, says: "Try to
realize what blindness means to those whose joyous activity is stricken
to inactivity. It is to live long, long days, and life is made up of
days. It is to live immured, baffled, impotent, all God's world shut
out. It is to sit helpless, defrauded, while your spirit strains and
tugs at its fetters, and your shoulders ache with the burden they are
denied--the rightful burden of labor."

[Footnote 2: Reprinted from News Notes of California Libraries, vol. 14,
no. 1, Jan. 1919.]

When I was twelve years old, the well-known oculist, Dr Barkan of
blessed memory, came to examine the eyes of all the children in the
School for the Blind at Berkeley. I was the first to be examined, and