They See With Their Hands (Concluded)

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 223, 1 October 1943, Page 12

They See With Their Hands (Concluded)

HIRTY children in the school at the Blind Institute in Auckland include a number in infant classes and a few preparing for University entrance. Their earliest training is calculated to make their finger-tips sensitive ‘so that they may become adept readers

in Braille. They thread minute beads on fine wire, bending the wire to the shape of a chair or a sofa or a motor car or a cottage, weaving the flat surfaces of the articles in a regular diamond pattern. When I visited the Blind Institute I watched those small and nimble fingers

delicately threading coloured beads; a little Maori girl and a little Maori boy, their heads sometimes bent over the work and sometimes raised sky-wards, quickly turned corners to make a box or a chair with no help from the teacher. Another little girl was learning her first steps in Braille, the standard six dots (arranged in the manner of the six spots on dominoes) raised plain and big in metal brad heads on wooden blocks, and combinations of those six dots arranged to spell to her fingers the more simple familiar words of her world. I learnt to connect the shape of the printed letters c-a-t with my beloved and long-suffer-ing Tibby, and this little girl was learning to connect a sound and a feeling, the sound of a word in her ear with the feeling of an arrangement of raised dots under her fingers. She did not look unhappy, and she did not look daunted; but I was saddened to think how much, enough an@ so much to spare, we have of sight that we cannot share or give away to these in such great need. Bd 3 Bd A little girl came into the room, very pink in the face. "Well, Judy, what have you been up to?" the teacher asked. But Judy said nothing, remained very pink, and threaded beads at a great rate. The pinkness was the teacher’s signal of mischief (which turned out to be a hidden handkerchief) and a sign that investigations must be made. It might have been unreasonable, but I found this one of the many things that made me feel cheered about the children in the Blind Institute. Good for Judy (pink in the face if you like) who had the spunk to concoct a mischief. Beyond the bead stage, the children with now sensitive finger tips read books in Braille, learn touch-typing-and that is real touch-typing, no occasional peep to make sure of n or m, i or o-take dictation on the Braille machine or prick the Braille signs, by hand, through the sliding frame which has slotted holes to guide the pricker to make evenly-spaced combinations of dots. From the rows of Braille they have pricked out, the pupils then transcribe on to the typewriter in typing that would not disgrace a graduate of a commercial school. Indeed I saw some littlé girls typing rows of words such as trails, silhouette, brilliant and anxious without a mistake except for an occasional extra space. A boy of fourteen or fifteen took dictation on a Braille machine faster than I could take it in longhand and faster than the average typist could take it on the typewriter. This machine works on much the sanfe principle_as a typewriter, having levers for the various combinations of letters and syllables. But as in shorthand grammalogues shorten whole phrases to one combination of dots. School inspectors visit these pupils; I saw the last report and was not surprised to find that the inspector was as impressed as I was with the work in the school and with the general atmosphere of cheerful industry. ae * ms After school hours the children play in the sun, listen to music or have music lessons, read their Braille story books or magazines, or take part in Girl Guide or Scout activities. In a gymnasium eight girls in Guide uniform were dancing and singing under the direction of a teacher. There was a dim light in the gymnasium but, apart from the warmth, it seemed to make no difference to them whether they danced in that dimness or out on the sunny lawn. They did later (continued on next page)

‘continued from previous page) go outside, singing their round song, dancing their round dance in the sun, their voices sounding soft and charming in that air of a garden with lawns and trees. They know the paths and the corners of the buildings and the open spaces by heart and finger and seem to suffer few bumps or bruises. I noticed, however, that when they ran out of the gymnasium they began to slither their feet as they came near the door, and then moved quickly and surely down the steps. Forty-Eight-Sock Week In the women’s workrooms most of the women are now busy binding the cords for the netted ends of hammocks for the Navy. They sit at long tables and whip the ends of the cords with silk thread; as the cords are finished they go to the men’s workrooms to be fastened into the eyelet holes in the canvas ready for netting. Some of the women were knitting and a few were doing basket-work, the most general. occupation in normal times when supplies of cane are available. At a table in the sun someone was working what looked like a complicated mincing machine-a sock-machine. On the table there were four or five pairs of grey and brown and navy blue socks, soft and fine and evenly knitted and with the toes and heels agape for the final stitching by hand. The machine, with its dozens of hanging needles, looked most elaborate to my eyes. I watched-.and then asked questions, The woman who worked it was slipping one needle out and another in, all the way round the wheel. "I’m changing from purl and plain back to plain." Her fingers seemed quick and sure and methodical and soon all was ready for plain knitting. The wool was

wound on attractively shaped large spindles and I took a photograph as she bent over the winding wheel. But when I said I was astonished at her nimbleness and her ability to turn out so many pairs of socks (24 pairs a week) she said it was nothing, she was used to it. "How long have you been making the socks?" "Twenty-seven years now," she said. * * * You may be surprised at the great number of men compared with the number of women at the Institute. Although when you see a soldier in battledress with black shades across his eyes, and another with a bandage, both making a

tour of the works with their relatives, guiding and being guided, you begin to know why there are more men than women. Yes, there are men here returned from the present war, one of them waiting to go to England to learn the profession of massage; and there are men from the last war, and many who have lost their eyesight through accident, and some, more or less equal in number with the women, born blind or be@éome blind with the years. A Wounded Airman’s Chair In a room that might have been a giant porcupine-house men were making chairs-small fireside cane chairs, luxurious stream-lined lounge chairs, armless sewing chairs, deep-seated high-backed sofas, and very elaborate highly mobile chairs for wounded servicemen. As I went in the door I was confronted by a bristling array of canes-this porcupine was certainly excited about something. But within fours minutes those angry quills were under control, beginning to form the gentle slope of a chair-back, coaxed into position by the strong hands of the man weaving the binding cane under and over, under and over row after row. A wounded airman somewhere in N.Z. is soon to have a comfortable chair in which to wheel himself about. It has all the usual features of such chairs as well as some new ones designed by a member of the Institute staff to make it easier for the occupier of the chair to be independent. The greater part of this chair was made by blind workers. * * * I watched a blind young Maori who gave himself a respite from basket-weav-ing to polish a half-coconut shell. He was whistling very sweetly as he worked and I heard afterwards that he can play most instruments anyone puts into his hands. "Those shells,’ I said, "make very good bowls. I’ve seen them used for fruit." "Yes," he said. "They are good. But not this one. This is the other end. It’s got two holes in it. I’m making it for a soap dish." He was very jolly and seemed to find life full of jokes; I hope when he’s finished his beautifully polished soap dish he thinks of something else that will give him as much pleasure to make. * % * A very small girl with a very big orange came into one of the workrooms and handed her orange to the man at work on a wicker basket. A young woman with more oranges followed her. Then began the shared rite of peeling the orange. , "His wife and daughter," the supervisor explained. "They live in one of the Institute’s houses and he comes to the Institute daily to work. Yes, his wife and the little girl drop in most days to see him." * * * The Blind Institute buildings and gardens cover five acres of ground and there is much to see. In one visit there isn’t time to see the work in all the workrooms, the children in the school rooms, the gymnasium and the carpentry shops, the library and living rooms and dining room (all these rooms with furniture made in the Institute), the shop and the packing rooms. But one visit is interesting and enough to make the visitor want to oo back.

J.