Lucasian dialect will probably explain its full beauty 1. Pure Lucas. IN 、। ༩ 9! ་ སྱཱ 91 9-) 9 6 9 9 ) ( › 1 C) So much for short, simple, and common words, as in the above example; but if the learner meet with any longer ones, he is more mystified than ever. Nos stands for nevertheless, kd for kingdom, instead of kid; nsg for notwithstanding, pr for prayer, while fr stands for friend, and thf not for thief, but therefore; tables becomes tabs, and overtake, otak; while elasti wrnss stands for everlasting weariness. Our readers will be able to judge from this how far such an elaborate, complicated, and purely arbitrary system is likely to * "Various Readings; " because most of these signs have two or more distinct meanings; hs=his, has, house; u=unity, you, and unto, &c. &c. help the blind boy over the miseries of the Alphabet and the Spelling Book. The third of the arbitrary systems is the invention of Mr. Moon, who deserves infinite praise, as a blind man, for his labours on behalf of himself and his fellow-sufferers; though it is to be wished that he had never meddled with the alphabet but to print it in the old Roman letter. He claims to have avoided "the complicated form of the Roman letter, and the still less discernible angular type," by a revised alphabet, each letter of which is formed of one line, or at the most of two, having a partial resemblance to those in common use, and allowing only of five contractions, ment, ing, tion, ness, and and, each of which is represented by its final letter. A dozen letters of this alphabet will show how far intricacies have been avoided, or likeness to the ordinary letter has been kept up. D. E. F. G. H. I. J. W. X. Y. Z. &c. N. B. P. We must agree with him that the resemblance he speaks of is partial enough, but we are at a loss to discover in what way our respected old friends Z, and K, N, U, and J are more complicated than the half Q. barbarous looking symbols 7,5,<,~,U, J. One lunar line will suffice to show the aspect of the whole system to the eye of the seeing, and to the finger of the blind boy : _0 017 A\T ALL /OANI Whatever claims these arbitrary systems may have on the blind boy's notice, one fatal defect runs through them all, viz., that they tend to cut him off more than ever from the rest of the world, and especially from those who are able to read, and to help him when he comes to a hard word. The task of learning Moon, Frere, or Lucas, is to him like learning a new language; with this difference, that when he has learned it, and hard work in the course of years has deadened his sense of touch, not a single friend or companion at home will understand it, or be able to read with the eye the mysterious symbols which the reading-finger can no longer discern. Twenty years ago, shrewd old Abbé Carton spoke to this very point: "En effet," he says, "si un caractère, connu des clairvoyants, est employé dans l'impression en relief pour les aveugles, ces infortunés sont plus rapprochés des autres hommes que s'ils se servaient d'un caractère inconnu de ceux qui les entourent. Diminuer la difficulté qu'auraient les clairvoyants à connaître l'alphabet des aveugles, est réellement travailler en faveur des aveugles. Le plus grand malheur des aveugles est leur isolément." Common sense ought long ago to have stepped in and settled this question, but she has had the door shut in her face by prejudice; and the strife still goes on. Meanwhile the old Roman letter, in spite of all patent inventions, manages to hold her own; to print books far less expensive and less bulky than Moon's, and, if the testimony of a large number of blind children is to be believed, quite as easily read; the New Testament in Alston costing 2., that in Moon's type 47. 10s. The use of the Roman letter helps the blind boy to read as all the rest of the world reads; to spell and to write as they do. The other three systems absolutely prevent his doing so, and inflict upon him the intolerable hardship of learning a semibarbarous jangle which no one with eyes can understand, and which he himself is unable to express in writing. Sooner or later (the sooner the better) some one system of embossed printing will be generally adopted, |