Victoria 1082 Tasmania 173
New South Wales 884 New Zealand 274 (1891)
South Australia 315 Natal 68
Queensland 209 Cape Colony 2802 (1904)
West Australia 121 Canada 3279
In Australia there are institutions for the blind at Melbourne,
Sydney, Adelaide, Brighton, Brisbane and Maylands near Perth. In New
Zealand the institution is at Auckland.
In Cape Colony between 1875 and 1891, there was an extraordinary
increase in blindness, but between 1891 and 1904 the rate per 10,000
has decreased 23.78%. There is an institution at Worcester for
deaf-mutes and blind, founded in 1881. It is supported by a government
grant, fees and subscription.
Schools for the blind were established by the Dominion government at
Brantford, Ontario (1871), and Halifax, Nova Scotia (1867).
In Montreal there are two private institutions, the M'Kay Institute
for Protestant Deaf-Mutes and Blind, and a school for Roman Catholic
children under the charge of the Sisters of Charity.
United States.
In the United States the education of the blind is not regarded as a
charity, but forms part of the educational system of the country, and is
carried on at the public expense. According to the _Annual Report_ of
the Commissioner of Education for 1908, there were 40 state schools,
with 4340 pupils. The value of apparatus, grounds and buildings was
$9,201,161. For salaries and other expenditure, the aggregate was
$1,460,732. The United States government appropriates $10,000 annually
for printing embossed books, which are distributed among the different
state schools for the blind. Beside these state schools, there are
workshops for the blind subsidized by the state government or the
municipality. Commissions composed of able men have recently been
appointed in several of the states to take charge of the affairs of the
blind from infancy to old age. The exhaustive summary of the 12th census
enables these commissions to communicate with every blind person in
their respective states.
At the 12th census a change was made in the plan for securing the
returns, and the work of the enumerators was restricted to a brief
preliminary return, showing only the name, sex, age, post office
address, and nature of the existing defects in all persons alleged to be
blind or deaf. Dr Alexander Graham Bell, of Washington, D.C., was
appointed expert special agent of the census office for the preparation
of a report on the deaf and blind. He was empowered to conduct in his
own name a correspondence relating to this branch of the census inquiry.
A circular containing eighteen questions was addressed to every blind
person given in the census, and from the data contained in the replies
the following tables (I., II., III., IV.) have been compiled.