Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Education and Mental Culture. Introd. by P. E. Lindström - 1. Elementary Education. By J. M. Ambrosius - Schools for the Blind. By G. Åstrand - Institution for the Blind with complicated Defects. By Elisabeth Anrep-Nordin
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iv. education and mental culture.
interest on these funds has defrayed, besides other expenses, the supply of tools
for pupils when they leave, working materials, and the supervision of the blind,
which is intended to advise unions founded for their support, and to give the
blind information, counsel and encouragement. Further contributions are made
towards the depots existing in Stockholm and Kristinehamn for setting up blind
artisans with good and cheap materials; a quantity of more costly tools are
bought, and afterwards presented to the blind; shops are maintained for the
sale of their products; and a home for blind women is kept up in Nynäshamn,
accommodating 18 pensioners, half the number generally being able to defray
by their own efforts the annual payment of 100 kronor.
The directors co-operate with the Association for the Blind in many
departments of their operations; this society, founded in 1889, has enjoyed a yearly
grant from the treasury since 1914 up to 35 000 kr. Its capital at the end of
1914 amounted to 541 730 kr. The association maintains a depot for material,
and workshops for basket-making and brush-binding, with two business places
in Stockholm: the members of its sick fund pay 2 kr. annually, and in case
of illness, receive a weekly payment of 10 kr., limited to 60 kr. for the year.
Thanks to bountiful contributions from private persons, which in 1914 amounted
to 45 651 kr., the association can help blind people with repairs, furniture, etc.,
but this support does not usually rise above 300 kr. a year for any one person.
The lending library, which contains about 5 000 volumes mostly printed by
hand, has belonged since 1911 to the society, which houses this, and many
other of its institutions, in its two establishments in Majorsgatan in
Stockholm.
It is with the same object that The Union for the Welfare of the Blind
works, founded in 1885 with a capital that amounted at the end of 1914 to
250 000 kr.; it often assists elderly blind people who desire to enter on a
second course at Kristinehamn. A workshop is maintained in Gothenburg by a
special association.
Blind people, advanced in years and incapable of work, often become a charge
on the parish. There is, however, a home for elderly blind women at
Norr-backa, outside Stockholm, where 22 blind women were cared for at the end of
1912.
Provision for the blind in Sweden is, in its main features, very much like
that in Germany, a fact due partly to historical reasons, and partly in many
ways to similar conditions, under which the blind live in both countries. The
frequency of blindness, according to the census of 1900, (6’7 per 10 000
inhabitants), is lower than in Germany, Finland and Norway alike, though higher
than in Denmark. In the 1890 census the proportion in Sweden was 8’3 per
10 000 ; this marked diminution may principally arise from the increasing
practice of disinfecting the eyes of new-born children, by which one of the
commonest causes of blindness — blenorrhea neonatorum — is largely removed.
Institution for the Blind with complicated defects (Queen Sophia
Foundation). At the request of H. M. Queen Sophia, Mrs E. Anrep-Nordin
received in 1882, as a private pupil, a blind deaf-mute, in whom the Queen,
had for some years been interested, but who, on account of her double defect,
could not be admitted to any of the training schools in existence at that time
The experience gained in the care of this child showed that the work of training
blind deaf-mutes was by no means in vain, but that the isolation in which such
unfortunate beings would otherwise languish could be done away with. It proved
possible to place them in communication with other persons by teaching them
I to understand and use language — naturally in the form rendered necessary
by their double defects — by means of the manual alphabet and raised letters,
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