Throughout
the 19th century, an unknown number of blind children l were
casually integrated with sighted children, picking up whatever
they could from oral repetition which was the major tool of
pedagogy. Priscilla Chapman remarked on a blind girl at Calcutta
in 1826, who "from listening to the other children, got
by heart many passages from the Gospels". [ 199 ]
The presence
of such children, and the lack of any special means to assist
their education, concerned some teachers at the Bengal Military
Orphan Institution, Calcutta, who in 1838 or early 1839 requested
help from the London Society for Teaching the Blind to Read.
[ 200 ] Materials printed with the Lucas system were provided,
and early in 1841 the London Society reported "a pleasing
document which has lately been received from the Managers
of the Bengal Military Orphan Asylum, in which it is stated
that the Blind Orphans in that Institution were learning to
read upon Lucas's system, and their joy and satisfaction were
great at acquiring such an important source of instruction."
[ 201 ] The year 1844 saw despatch from London of "a
further supply of embossed books, for the Blind Children of
that Institution." [ 202 ]
These
blind orphans at Calcutta seem to have been the first in South
Asian history to be educated in a school with a formal system
designed for their needs. Their identities, and those of their
teachers, remain unknown. It may yet be possible to discover
some of them in local archives
