ly, but it is just one of the bits of information
tucked away in memory's storehouse. I do not suppose many of you have
ever heard a smile. I have. I hear a smile almost before the lips can
register it, and to me the sound is as musical as the laughter of a very
young child. I think hearing a smile must be like seeing the light in
the eyes, and so lack of eyesight is no deprivation in this connection.

All during my days at school, I went on acquiring knowledge, learning to
see many things, scarcely realizing the handicap of blindness, because
every help was given me, and I was surrounded by those whose condition
was like my own. But when I went out into the world, I found that many
seeing people, so called, had very little vision, although their
eyesight was perfect. I found, too, that, although I knew many things,
and was well equipped to earn my own living, my lack of eyesight was
responsible for a corresponding lack of confidence upon the part of the
public. This was a great disappointment, for I knew I could succeed, if
only some one would give me the opportunity. After waiting twenty years,
the State Library gave me the opportunity. This lack of confidence upon
the part of the public is one of the most depressing features of adult
blindness. Thus far, I have considered the subject from the point of
view of one who has been blind from early infancy, but now I shall view
it from the standpoint of one deprived of eyesight in adult life, who is
taking his first step in the dark.

M. Diderot says: "The help which the senses reciprocally afford to each
other hinders their improvement," and so the adult whose movements are
no longer directed by his eyes, feels utterly helpless and bewildered,
as one who finds himself on a strange road, very late at night, with no
ray of light to guide him. As the blinded soldier is uppermost in our
thought today, I am considering the mental condition of an adult
suddenly deprived of eyesight, not that of the man whose blindness has
come on gradually.

The first sensation when thus plunged into total darkness is that of
unreality, and, just as the light of day dispels the gloom of night, so
the sufferer clings to the hope that any minute he may open his eyes,
and find things as they were before the darkness settled down, with all
its weird shadows, to fill his soul with dread. The continued darkness
causes a feeling of depression and repression, very hard to combat, and
so the sufferer