of the diatonic scale, placing red as No. 1 or key note, orange
next, yellow next, then green, and so on to violet. Thus red will not
blend with orange, being the first and second of the scale, but red and
yellow harmonize better, being third in the scale, red and green still
better, and so on to red and deep violet, which are sevenths in the scale
and do not harmonize. Thus we get the tetrachord red, yellow, blue and
violet, which may be represented by the flat seventh of the chord C." But
I leave this theory for some one to elaborate or refute, who has seen
color, and return to my institution life.

The ear and voice are also trained at these schools for the blind, and
music is made one of the chief arts. Piano tuning is also taught in a
practical way. If this business is not taught in all the institutions, it
ought to be, for it comes fairly within the scope of our capabilities. And
I will here say for the benefit of my brothers in the dark that I have
been very successful as a piano tuner, and the business is a practical one
for the blind. Any one with a good ear may learn to tune well, but no one
should undertake to repair so delicate a piece of machinery as a piano
action without long experience, mechanical ingenuity, great caution and
good judgment, having had no opportunity to acquire the requisite skill.

It was not my intention at the outset to write a sketch of my own life,
but to demonstrate by my own experience that the inferior senses may be
made to perform many of the offices of sight. The eyes have some
functions, however, which the ears and fingers cannot perform.

For example, if a piece of silk or woolen goods be handed me for
examination the nerves of my fingers will tell me whether it is fine or
coarse, whether it has a harsh or soft texture, whether it is highly
finished or rough and uneven, but they bring me no intelligence of color.

I may pronounce the goods beautiful, because I find in it certain
qualities that address themselves to my taste, but it is not beauty
addressed to the eye. Light and color, to one who has never seen, is as
inconceivable as music to the deaf. We may get some faint idea of what
light is as a medium of communication, or why color pleases the eye as
qualities of texture please the touch, but the conception is vague and
unsatisfactory.

I have often had the remark made to me, "Well, if you have never seen, it
is not so bad after all, you have less desire to see." This