Empowerment and debilitation in the educational experience of the blind in nineteenth-century England and Scotland

History of Education

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 47-68

  Oliphant, John ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 31444436645     PISSN: 0046760X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00467600500419877     Document Type: Article

References (115)

1. The words 'blind' and 'blindness' are used here; for greater continuity with discourse originating over two centuries ago, and because of the inadequacy of recently derived alternatives.
2. Ritchie, J. M. Concerning the Blind: Being a Historical Sketch of Organized Effort on Behalf of the Blind of Great Britain. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1930: 3.
3. As examples, Catholic Blind Asylum and School, Liverpool. The Century of a Great and Noble Work, 1841-1941. Liverpool: privately printed, 1948.
4. From the Acorn to the Oak. London: Published by the Association for Promoting the General welfare of the Blind. 1954.
5. Ross, Ishbel. Journey into Light: The Story of the Education of the Blind. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951.
6. Pritchard, D. G. The Education of the Handicapped, 1760-1960. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963: 44.
7. Butterfield, P.H. "The evolution of special education." Ph.D. diss., University of London, 1970.
8. Heller, Robert. "Educating the Blind in the Age of Enlightenment: growing points of a social service". Medical History 23, no. 4 (October 1979): 392-403.
9. Simey, Margaret. Charity Rediscovered: A Study of Philanthropic Effort in Nineteenth Century Liverpool. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1992: 19-20. Simey offers the fullest description of the founding of the school at a time when the city was striving to be the new 'Athens of the North'.
10. Borsay, Anne. Disability and Social Policy in Britain since 1750. Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2005: 97.
11. Phillips, Gordon. The Blind in British Society; Charity, State and Community c. 1780-1930. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
12. Phillips examines many of the archive sources discussed earlier and with quite different inferences in Koumantarakis, John P. "The Education of the Blind in Victorian Society." M.Phil, diss., South Bank University, 1985. Abstract in ASLIB 36, no. 2 (1988): 36-2588.
13. Jones, Colin. "Some recent trends in the history of charity." In Charity, Self-interest and Welfare in The English Past, edited by M. Daunton. London: University College Press, 1996: 51-64.
14. Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization. New York: Random House, 1995 edition. Chapter 2 describes the spread of institutions in Europe between 1660 and 1800.
15. Borsay, Disability, 19.
16. Armstrong, Felicity. "The Historical Development of Special Education: Humanitarian Rationality or 'Wild Profusion of Entangled Events'?" History of Education, 31, no. 5 (2002): 437-56. See 444-45.
17. Stone, Deborah. A. The Disabled State. London: Macmillan, 1984, 26-27.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Read, Jane. "Fit for what? Special education in London, 1890-1914." History of Education 33, no. 3 (2004): 283-98. See Read's conclusion, 298.
21. Phillips, G., The Blind in British Society, 29 makes typical references to Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles a l'usage de ceux qui voient, which was published in French in London in 1749
22. and translated as An Essay On Blindness: In a Letter to a Person of Distinction. London; R. Dymott, 1773.
23. Siegel, Julius, P. "The Enlightenment and the Evolution of a Language of Signs in France and England." In Language and the History of Thought, edited by N. Streuver. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 1995: 91-110.
24. Paulson, William. R. Enlightenment, Romanticism and the Blind in France. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987.
25. M. Foucault, Madness, 38-64 for the description of how seventeenth-century communities responded to problems such as poverty and madness through confinement.
26. Ibid., 47.
27. See also Foucault's Discipline and Punish. New York: Random House, 1995 edition. Part Two: Section 2, 'The gentle way in punishment."
28. T. Blacklock. "Blindness." In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Edinburgh: Balfour, 2nd ed., 1778: 1188 ff.
29. Quoted in Paulson, Enlightenment, 95.
30. Edinburgh Asylum. Annual Report, 1829: 4.
31. Carton, Abbé. The Establishments for the Blind in England: a Report to the Ministry of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1895, 13. Originally published in French. Bruges: Imprimerie de Vandecasteele-Werbruck, 1838.
32. Barasch, Moshe. Blindness: The History of a Mental Image in Western Thought. New York-London: Routledge, 2001: 94-97.
33. Monbeck, Michael. The Meaning of Blindness: Attitudes towards Blindness and Blind People. Bloominglon: Indiana University Press, 1973. See Chapter 1.
34. Ibid., 32.
35. Ibid.
36. Laura Bridgman's relationship with her tutor, Samuel Howe, is the subject of Elisabeth Gitter. The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Home and Laura Bridgman, the Original Deaf-blind Girl. New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001. Gitter shows how Howe exploited the Victorian archetype of the pathetic but valiant disabled child and how the interest both of her mentor and the public at large waned as the girl grew older.
37. Johns, B. G. The Land of Silence and the Land of Darkness. London: Longman, Brown, Longman & Roberts, 1857.
38. These essays were originally published in the Edinburgh Review in January 1854.
39. On the subject of making reference to Foucault, see Dinges, Martin. "The Reception of Michel Foucault's Ideas on Social Discipline, Mental Asylums, Hospitals and the Medical Profession in German Historiography." In Reassessing Foucault: Power, Medicine and the Body, edited by C. Jones and R. Porter. London: Routledge, 1994: 181-206.
40. Chadwick, Owen. The Victorian Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966, 337.
41. Liverpool School: "Papers." Revd H. Dannett, Plan, 50.
42. Moss, William. Liverpool Guide. Liverpool: printed by Crane & Jones, 1796: 82-83.
43. Liverpool School. "Papers." Hymns and Anthems used in St. Mary's Chapel attached to the School for the Blind. Liverpool: privately printed, 1870.
44. Edinburgh Asylum. Annual Report, 1829: 6-7.
45. Mitchell, Alexander. The Blind: Their Capabilities, Condition and Claims. London: George Morrishj 1860: 45.
46. More detailed descriptions of religious teaching are found in Alston, J. The Asylum for the Blind, Glasgow: Statement of the Education, Employment and Internal Arrangements Adopted at the Glasgow Blind Asylum. Glasgow: privately printed, 1836: 18ff.
47. Johns, The Land of Silence, 181-82.
48. Wagg, J. A Chronological Survey of Work for the Blind. London: Pitman, 1930: 14.
49. Also, Liverpool School, Papers, File 1818-73.
50. See "Correspondence on proposed move to Hardman Street, 1849-50." for 'Appeal', March 1850.
51. Dannett, Plan, 33.
52. De Guillié, Sebastien. Essay on the Instruction and Amusement of the Blind. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1894. A reprint of an anonymous translation. London: privately printed for Richard Phillips, 1819.
53. British and Foreign Blind Association. Second Annual Report, 1875.
54. Forfarshire Mission to the Blind. Annual Report (1884).
55. Elisabeth Gitter describes how, in Massachusetts, a new elite similarly rushed to support the cause of blind education, perceiving an opportunity for its self-justification. The Imprisoned Guest, 14.
56. Colquitt, William. "Description of Liverpool." In Poems. Chester: W. C. Jones, 1802: 32.
57. Smithers, Henry. Liverpool, Its Commerce, Statistics and Institutes. Liverpool: Thos. Kaye, 1825: 23.
58. Carton, Establishments, 38.
59. Hall, Ivan. Mori Arinori. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973: 249. Mori was one of a group of 40 students from the Satsuma domain who left Japan for London in secret in 1865 to learn the ways of the West and were tutored for a time in London at University College.
60. Howe, Samuel G. Address of the Trustees of the New England Institution for the Education of the Blind. Boston, MA: Perkins Institute, 1833: 8.
61. Harrison, Brian. "Philanthropy and the Victorians." Victorian Studies 9 (June 1966): 353-74.
62. See Phillips, The Blind in British Society, Chapter 7.
63. Liverpool School Management Committee. Minute Book 1793-1803: 86.
64. Johnson, E. C. An Inquiry into the Musical Instruction of the Blind in France, Spain and America. London: John Mitchell, 1855: 41.
65. In the early issues of the Blind Advocate, there were a number of complaints regarding the excessive time dedicated to music in the institutions, at the expense of more useful instruction.
66. See Blind Advocate 1, no. 1 (September 1st 1898): 3.
67. Gall, James. Account of the Recent Discoveries which have been made for Facilitating the Education of The Blind. Edinburgh: privately printed, 1837: 211-12.
68. Liverpool School. Visitors' Book. See entries for 21 October 1824, 21 December 1825 and 22 November 1848.
69. Ibid., 11 August 1849.
70. Ibid., 29 May 1851.
71. Phillips, The Blind in British Society, 107.
72. Ibid., 110.
73. Carton, Establishments, 16.
74. Anderson, Thomas. Observations on the Employment, Education and Habits of the Blind, with a Comparative View of the Benefits of the Asylum and School Systems. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1895: 46. First published London: Simpkin & Marshall, 1835.
75. Miller, P. J. "Factories, Monitorial schools and Jeremy Bentham: The origins of the management syndrome in popular education." Journal of Educational Administration and History 5, no. 2 (1973): 10-20.
76. Carton, Establishments, 42. The Edinburgh Asylum was to win the Gold Medal for Bedding at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1884.
77. United Kingdom. House of Commons. "Report of the Royal Commission on the Blind, Deaf and Dumb and Others of the United Kingdom". Sessional Papers, 1889, Blind. 1889. Vol. 19, 'Report': para. 64.
78. Gardner's Trust for the Blind. Report on the Conference on Matters Relating to the Blind held at Westminster 1902. London: Printed by Farmer & Sons. 1902.
79. See Henry Stainsby's paper, "Professions and Trades Best Adapted for the Blind", 78-99.
80. The Charity Organisation Society. Report on the Training of the Blind. London: Longmans Green, 1876. This influential publication had provided ample evidence of this, well before the Royal Commission began its investigation, and subsequent Inspectors' Reports did so after the Commission's report.
81. Cutsforth, Thomas.D. The Blind in School and Society. New York: Appleton, 1933, 64.
82. Alston, The Asylum for the Blind, Glasgow, 15.
83. Mitchell, The Blind, Their Capabilities, iv.
84. Ibid., 23.
85. Ibid., 24.
86. Van Landeghem, Hyppolite. Exile and Home: The Advantages of Social Education for the Blind. London: printed for the author by Clowes & Son, 1865: vi-x.
87. In her earlier pamphlet van Landeghem distinguishes different types of charity. Charity Misapplied. London: privately printed, 1862: vii.
88. Marston, Revd H. J. R. "The Mental Culture or Higher Education of the Blind." Paper given at the Westminster Conference, 1902: 14-22. See 15.
89. Bell, Donald. An Experiment in Education: The History of Worcester College for the Blind, 1866-1966. London: Hutchinson, 1967: 16.
90. Royal Commission 1889, Report, Para.97.
91. Bell, An Experiment, 49-50.
92. This theme runs through several of the essays on the education of elites from the time of the ancient Greeks in Wilkinson, R. H., ed. Governing Elites: Studies in Training and Effectiveness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
93. Bell, An Experiment, 28-9.
94. Royal Commission 1889, vol. 20, Minutes of Evidence, 94.
95. See Barnhill, Alexander. A New Era in the Education of Blind Children or Teaching the Blind in Ordinary Schools. Glasgow: Charles Glass, 1875: 23.
96. See Armstrong, Felicity, Brigitte Belmont, and AlietteVerillon. "Vive la difference? Exploring context, policy and change in special education in France: developing cross-cultural collaboration." In Inclusive Education: Policy, Contexts and Comparative Perspectives, edited by F. Armstrong, D. Armstrong and L. Barton. London: Fulton, 2000: 60-77. See 72.
97. Tony Booth points out that a system is transformative when it bends to accommodate others on their terms, but assimilationist when it imposes its own sometimes inappropriate or irrelevant criteria. See Booth, Tony. "Inclusion and exclusion policy in England: who controls the agenda?" In Armstrong et al., Inclusive Education, 78-98. Important distinctions are made on these definitions, 86.
98. Armstrong et al., Inclusive Education, 73.
99. Final Report of the London School Board, 1870-1904. London: T. King, 2nd ed. 1904.
100. Ibid., 179.
101. Ibid.
102. See Martin, Jane. Women and the Politics of Schooling in Victorian England. London: Leicester University Press, 1999: 26ff.
103. Martin charts the increase in numbers of women on school boards from the 1880s. Prochaska, Frank. Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth Century England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. Prochaska produces very little evidence other than selective legacy lists to support his arguments on the contribution of women to blind education.
104. Royal Commission 1889, Minutes of Evidence, 170ff.
105. London School Board. Final Report, 170.
106. Glasgow North British Daily Mail 20 January 1887.
107. Yorkshire Post 13 July 1888.
108. Queen 31 March 1890.
109. Maclure, Stuart. A History of Education in London 1870-1990. London: Allen Lane, 1990: 66-67.
110. Royal Commission, Report, para. 251.
111. Ibid., para. 253.
112. Ibid., para. 120.
113. Purse, Ben. "The Bitter Cry of Britain's Blind." Blind Advocate 2, no. 13 (1902).
114. Humphries, S., and P. Gordon. Out of Sight: Childhood and Disability, 1990-1950. Plymouth: Northcote House, 1992.
115. See Brian Simon's essay, "The history of education: its importance for understanding." In The State and Educational Change, B. Simon. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1994: 3.