The aims and claims of the British and Foreign Blind Association, founded 1868, incorporated 1902.

  • British and Foreign Blind Association.
Date:
[1913]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The aims and claims of the British and Foreign Blind Association, founded 1868, incorporated 1902. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The Association is the principal publishing house of Braille books, periodicals, music, etc., in the Empire. Embossed books are necessarily costly to produce, so that in order to place them within the reach of the blind they have to be sold considerably under cost price, which involves a serious and ever-increasing annual loss. The cost of the plates for a book of average size is ^25 ; and no matter how many copies are sold, this initial outlay has to be borne by the Association, whose output is therefore governed by the amount of charitable assistance received. It possesses 79,457 two-page plates for producing the books specified in its catalogue. During the year 1913, 6,516 plates were prepared and 164,335 books, magazines, newspapers, etc., were produced by its embossing presses. The activities of the Association may be summarised as follows :— ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. The Association publishes a large amount of embossed literature, including school books and a school magazine, and supplies all kinds of apparatus used in the education of the blind. It also assists in safeguarding the elementary education of blind children by gratuitously conducting the business of the College of leachers of the Blind, the examinations of which are recognised by the Board of Education. The Secretary- General acts as Honorary Registrar of the College, which was founded on the initiative of the Council of the Association. HIGHER EDUCATION. The Association is now specially engaged in encouraging the higher education of the blind by issuing, at a nominal price, a carefully-selected series of embossed scientific books, profusely illustrated by embossed diagrams. This series includes volumes on “Sound and Music,” “Trigonometry,” “ Mechanics,” “ Electricity and Magnetism,” “ Modern Chemistry, “ Psychology,” “ Geology,” “ Astronomy,” “ Heat,” etc. Others are in course of preparation. An examination