Excerpt from Ten Years of Psychological Research in Schools for the Blind

In every large library one may find numerous titles having reference to the blind. The special reference libraries of Perkins Institution for the Blind and of The Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind contain the few books and articles there are which deal specifically with the psychology of the blind, many books having chapters upon the subject, and a large collection of biographies and stories in which the authors attempt to delineate blind personalities. Is not a new study of the psychology of the blind superfluous?

Unfortunately, for our purposes, a considerable number of these books and articles are essentially unscientific and must be classed as lit erature of opinion rather than as literature of fact. By the former we mean the writings of blind persons or others which are founded upon casual observations and life experience, while the literature of fact would include only the writings of trained scientists based upon experiments carefully planned and conscientiously executed. In the literature of Opinion one expects to find hearsay evidence, heated argument, and the most contradictory statements. In the literature of fact one expects a cautious attitude with guarded statements which arouse belief because of the evidence cited in proof. Thoughtful blind writers realize the state of affairs and express their feelings in no uncertain terms. Clarence Hawkes writes: There is probably no abnormal condition of life so little understood and appreciated and about which so much that is erroneous has been written as that of blindness, and Librarian Sherman C. Swift. In an unpublished essay on the psychology of the blind, calls the blind The Unknown Folk.

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