Missouri School for the Blind

Last updated
Missouri School for the Blind
MissouriSchoolForTheBlind motto.tif
Location
Missouri School for the Blind
3815 Magnolia Avenue
St. Louis, Missouri, 63110

United States
Coordinates 38°36′30″N90°14′42″W / 38.60821°N 90.24489°W / 38.60821; -90.24489
Information
Type Public
Established1851;172 years ago (1851)
SuperintendentGeoffrey Barney [1]
GradesK–12
Enrollment67
Website http://msb.dese.mo.gov/
Missouri School for the Blind MSB building front.jpg
Missouri School for the Blind

The Missouri School for the Blind (MSB) is a school for the blind and visually impaired in St. Louis, Missouri, operated by the State of Missouri. It has served the state of Missouri from the Greater St. Louis area for more than 150 years as a governmental agency of the state of Missouri. In 1860, the Missouri School became the first educational institution in the nation to adopt the braille system. It also owned, developed and operated one of the nation's earliest braille printing presses.

Contents

History

The Missouri School for the Blind is a state-operated agency in St. Louis, Missouri, serving children from kindergarten through twelfth grade. [2] The school opened under the formal name "Missouri Institution for the Education of the Blind" in 1851. [3] It was organized as a private charitable enterprise by Eli William Whelan, a blind teacher who had previously been the superintendent of the Tennessee Institution for the Blind. The Missouri General Assembly placed the school under state control in 1855, [3] and it was given its present name by legislative decree in 1879. [4]

Among the alumni of the Missouri School are the blind musicians Nat Brown, John William Boone (1864–1927) [5] and Louis Hardin, aka "Moondog" (1916–1999). [6]

Modern era

As of 2011, the school has an enrollment of sixty-seven students served by nineteen teachers, forming a student/teacher ratio of 3.5. [2] Modern classrooms are augmented with technologically advanced tools including BrailleNotes and other computers with refreshable Braille displays and text-to-speech functions. [7] The physical location of the school has changed numerous times since it was founded, [8] but it has never closed. It remains in the city of St. Louis, fully operated by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). [1]

Campus

The school maintains boarding facilities. [9]

Adoption of braille

The braille system of writing had been slow to develop in the United States, but was introduced at the Missouri School in the late 1850s by a member of its board of directors, Dr. Simon Pollak. He had witnessed the promise of the braille system while he was in Europe, but the Missouri School's director, Dr. John T. Sibley, opposed the system because it could not be readily appreciated by sighted teachers. Eventually, however, the students themselves took up Pollak's cause and found an enthusiastic spokesman in the school's music department chairman, Henry Robyn. With him, the students finally overcame the administration's opposition and braille was officially adopted for use at the school in 1860. [10] [11]

Two years later, the school was able to report that "great advantage has been derived from the use of the system of point writing known as Braille." It further noted that "in music its excellency is especially manifest." [10] In a meeting of the Board of Trustees on 30 June 1863, singular praise was bestowed upon the music teacher Robyn: "This Institution is the pioneer of the Braille system in this country, and Mr. Robyn certainly deserves the honorable title of benefactor of the blind." [10]

The Missouri School was the first educational institution in the United States to recognize braille as the primary system for blind persons' instruction. [8] [10] The braille system had been popularized throughout Europe since soon after Louis Braille's death in 1852, but did not find widespread approval in America until much later. Despite the Missouri School's endorsement, the rest of the country's schools would take until 1916 before officially adopting braille. [12]

Early braille printing press

The teacher Henry Robyn supplied the school with his own custom-made braille printing press. The press functioned by means of metal slugs bearing braille dots in relief: the slugs were hand-placed in a flat frame, over which soft rollers were run to emboss the dots onto paper. The press first went to work in 1865 with Robyn personally handling its operation. [13]

Although more than one claim has been made regarding the title of "first braille printing press in the United States," some authorities have clearly awarded that title to the Missouri School. Harvard professor Gabriel Farrell states definitively, "The first real printing press for the blind in the United States was invented and operated by Henry Robyn, head of the music department at the Missouri School for the Blind, in 1865." [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Braille</span> French educator and inventor of the Braille system

Louis Braille was a French educator and the inventor of a reading and writing system, named braille after him, intended for use by visually impaired people. His system is used worldwide and remains virtually unchanged to this day.

Perkins School for the Blind, in Watertown, Massachusetts, was founded in 1829 and is the oldest school for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blindness and education</span> Education of students with vision impairment

The subject of blindness and education has included evolving approaches and public perceptions of how best to address the special needs of blind students. The practice of institutionalizing the blind in asylums has a history extending back over a thousand years, but it was not until the 18th century that authorities created schools for them where blind children, particularly those more privileged, were usually educated in such specialized settings. These institutions provided simple vocational and adaptive training, as well as grounding in academic subjects offered through alternative formats. Literature, for example, was being made available to blind students by way of embossed Roman letters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perkins Brailler</span> Braille embossing typewriter

The Perkins Brailler is a "braille typewriter" with a key corresponding to each of the six dots of the braille code, a space key, a backspace key, and a line space key. Like a manual typewriter, it has two side knobs to advance paper through the machine and a carriage return lever above the keys. The rollers that hold and advance the paper have grooves designed to avoid crushing the raised dots the brailler creates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Bell Wait</span> American educationalist (1839–1916)

William Bell Wait (1839–1916) was a teacher in the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind who invented New York Point, a system of writing for the blind that was adopted widely in the United States before the braille system was universally adopted there. Wait also applied the New York Point principles to adapt them for use in over 20 languages, created a form of New York Point to notate music, and invented a number of devices to better type and print embossed material for the visually impaired.

Education in Missouri is provided by both public and private schools, colleges, and universities, and a variety of public library systems. All public education in the state is governed by the Missouri State Board of Education, which is made up of eight citizens appointed by the Governor of Missouri and confirmed by the Missouri Senate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slate and stylus</span> Tool used by the blind to write text which can be read through touch

The slate and stylus are tools used by blind people to write text that they can read without assistance. Invented by Charles Barbier as the tool for writing letters that could be read by touch, the slate and stylus allow for a quick, easy, convenient and constant method of making embossed printing for Braille character encoding. Prior methods of making raised printing for the blind required a movable type printing press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education</span>

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is the administrative arm of the Missouri State Board of Education that works with school officials, legislators, government agencies, community leaders, and citizens to maintain a strong public education system. Through its statewide school-improvement initiatives and its regulatory functions, the department strives to ensure all citizens have access to high-quality public education. In addition to the commissioner of education, the department organization reflects functions under two divisions; Financial and Administrative Services and Learning Services.

The Waynesville R-VI Reorganized School District is a school district in the Missouri Ozarks and the largest school district in Pulaski County. The school district current provides education services to the communities of Fort Leonard Wood, St. Robert, and almost all of Waynesville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Printing House for the Blind</span> Non-profit organization in the U.S.

The American Printing House for the Blind (APH) is an American non-for-profit corporation in Louisville, Kentucky, promoting independent living for people who are blind and visually impaired. For over 150 years APH has created unique products and services to support all aspects of daily life without sight.

A sighted child who is reading at a basic level should be able to understand common words and answer simple questions about the information presented. They should also have enough fluency to get through the material in a timely manner. Over the course of a child's education, these foundations are built on to teach higher levels of math, science, and comprehension skills. Children who are blind not only have the education disadvantage of not being able to see: they also miss out on the very fundamental parts of early and advanced education if not provided with the necessary tools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand Boulevard (St. Louis)</span>

Grand Boulevard is a major, seven to five-lane wide, north-south thoroughfare that runs through the center of St. Louis, Missouri. It runs north through Carondelet Park in the south portion of the city to the Mississippi River north of the McKinley Bridge, about midway between Forest Park and the Mississippi River. Neighborhoods that it runs through include Dutchtown, Tower Grove East, Tower Grove South, Compton Heights, Tiffany, Midtown, Jef-Vander-Lou, Fairground, and College Hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Education in Greater St. Louis</span>

Education in Greater St. Louis is provided by more than two dozen public school districts, independent private schools, parochial schools, and several public library systems. Greater St. Louis also is home to more than thirty colleges and universities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Haven Hall</span>

Frank Haven Hall was an American inventor and essayist who is credited with inventing the Hall braille writer and the stereographer machine. He also invented the first successful mechanical point writer and developed major functions of modern day typography with kerning and tracking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">School for visually impaired in Peja</span> Special needs school in Peja

The Special School for the Blind and Visually Impaired is located in Peja.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">L. Braille Special Educational Centre for Blind Children, Bydgoszcz</span> School in Poland

L. Braille Special educational centre for blind children is a specialized educational institution located at Krasinski street 10 in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Pollak</span>

Simon Pollak was a St. Louis doctor who helped to found the Missouri Institute for the Education of the Blind in 1850 and who was involved in the development of the Western Sanitary Commission during the American Civil War. The Missouri Institute for the education of the Blind was the first institute to adopt the Braille System in the United States and the Western Sanitary Commission provided military camps with trained nurses, hospitals, and sanitary conditions.

The Illinois School for the Visually Impaired (ISVI), located in Jacksonville, Illinois, is a state-operated pre-kindergarten, elementary and high school for the blind and visually impaired. The school provides educational instruction and other resources for not only its school-aged students but also for persons up to age 21.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lydia Young Hayes</span>

Lydia Young Hayes was an American educator, and the first director of the New Jersey Commission for the Blind.

References

  1. 1 2 Missouri School for the Blind (2014). "MSB Welcomes New Superintendent" (PDF). Msb.dese.mo.gov. Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 9, 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  2. 1 2 Wolfram Alpha (2011). "Missouri School for the Blind". Wolframalpha.com. Archived from the original on 9 February 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2011.
  3. 1 2 Missouri School For the Blind (2011). "MSB History: Earliest Days". Msb.dese.mo.gov. Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Archived from the original on 14 October 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
  4. Missouri; Thomas. H. Parrish; Benjamin F. McDaniel; Daniel Harrison McIntyre (1879). The revised statutes of the state of Missouri, 1879. Carter & Regan, state printers and binders. p. 1149. Retrieved 7 November 2011.
  5. Harrah, Madge (2004). Blind Boone: Piano Prodigy . Minneapolis: Lerner Publ. p.  29. ISBN   978-1-57505-057-7 . Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  6. Hyde, Gene (2000). "Iconoclastic New York musician Moondog had Arkansas roots". Radford.edu/~wehyde/. Archived from the original on 20 January 2013. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  7. Missouri School for the Blind (2012). "MSB News & Updates". Msb.dese.mo.gov. Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Archived from the original on March 28, 2012. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  8. 1 2 Montesi, p. 117.
  9. "Residential Life". Missouri School for the Blind. Retrieved 2022-07-23.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Farrell, p. 110.
  11. Perkins Museum (2011). "Reading and Writing". Perkins.pvt.k12.ma.us. Perkins School for the Blind. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 5 December 2011.
  12. Reynolds, Cecil R.; Fletcher-Janzen, Elaine (2007). Encyclopedia of Special Education: A-D. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN   978-0-471-67798-7.
  13. 1 2 Farrell, p. 125.

Bibliography