In the preface to this book, Berthold Lowenfeld expresses his hopes concerning this publication: basically, for students and novices in the work with the blind it should serve as an introduction; his philosophy should be adopted by them and function as a guideline for their work; and "Finally, I hope that the general reader will discover in the book the story of the ascent of one minority group as an example of advancing humanity, of which many find reason to despair." (p. Vi-VII) (The page numbers in this text refer to the Braille edition.) These certainly are important tasks, and I want to mention at this point already that I think the Book served its purpose well!
In his book "The Changing Status of the Blind" Berthold Lowenfeld examines the (socio-economic) status of the blind in Western civilization, from prehistoric times to the present. In the development of this status, he finds four phases: separation, ward status, self-emancipation and integration.
In the first part of the book, Historical Review, Lowenfeld describes the first three stages. It seems that in prehistoric times the aged and physically handicapped, although in some cases being lovingly treated by their tribes, in the majority of all cases had to face negative treatment which included abandonment, killing and cannibalism; the latter, however, as the author points out, might have been regarded as a favor by some tribes. The killing of new born infants, especially if they had a physical handicapped, prevailed even until the first centuries A.D., when it was still common among the poor classes of the Roman society. Although there were a few famous blind people in antiquity, mainly musicians or poets like Homer, the majority of the blind was forced to support themselves by beggary.
The Ward Status had its origin in the Judeo-Christian religion and its concept of love for one's fellowmen. However, with the increasing poverty at the end of the Roman empire and especially in the Middle Ages, the now powerful church could not support all the needy people any more and again beggary and even mockery became the lot of the wide majority of the blind. This slowly began to change with the formation of welfare services after the sixteenth century. Of special importance is the era of Enlightenment, when we find an increasing number of well renowned and highly educated blind people. Lowenfeld gives short biographies of quite a number of those individuals, which he regards as "self-emancipators". The beginning of general education of the blind in the late 18th century can be related directly to the influence and ideas of some of these men and women.
The topic of the second part of the book is Integration. Lowenfeld defines integration as "the mutual acceptance based on equality of opportunity and before the law, between and among groups and individuals who differ in some important character istic, may it be racial, religious, physical economic, or other wise." (p. 165) Although this ultimate goal has not yet been totally achieved by the blind, it can be stated that we are rapidly moving in that direction. The author examines the diffe rent forces influencing the lives of the blind today and catego rizes them into "forces favoring integration", and forces unfa vorable to integration"; there is also an ambiguous force. For each of these forces he gives the history and describes the current situation.
Forces favoring integration are education, rehabilitation, progress in reducing the effects of blindness, Public policy (coming from another country I have to add "at least in the USA"), and self-organizations, where the author clearly favors the National Federation of the Blind, as "a strong and uncompromising force." (p. 479) It is interesting to read how some of the early educators of the blind, like the Austrian Johann Klein, or Samuel Gridley Howe, the founder of the first school for the blind in the United States, already postulated an education of the blind in public schools.
As forces unfavorable to integration Lowenfeld lists attitudes, economic forces, and the agency system. The latter is most remarkable, since Lowenfeld before his retirement was the Superintendent of the California School for the Blind in Berkeley, California.
As the ambiguous force, Berthold Lowenfeld classifies Public Assistance, because "so far as integration is concerned - it has the potential to promote it but this has not or not yet been realized." (p. 616) - I agree with the author's opinion, that public assistance is an ambiguous force. The main reason for this, however, is that public assistance like special financial aid for the blind tends to create in many blind individuals and - at least in my home country, West Germany - unfortunately also in some of the self-organizations - an ideology of gratitude which we owe to the society who does all those wonderful things for us. This is the main danger of public aid to the handicapped, and although this might not be as obvious in the States as it is in West Germany, the author should have given this point more consideration.
In the final chapter of the book, Epilogue, Lowenfeld attributes the progress which has been made especially in this country "on the road from separation to integration" to the American Creed with its ideals of "Basic equality, dignity of the individual, liberty to manage one's own personal affairs, ... and certain inalienable rights to freedom, justice, opportunity, and the pursuit of happiness". (p. 617-618) Although there are similar ideals in other countries, this creed is more stead fast in the mind of the American citizens, and therefore the integration movement is that successful in this country.
This book has been written ten years ago; yet it can still be regarded as a timely publication. True, some changes have occurred during the last decade? technical development - especially on the field of (personal) computers - has made an enormous progress; on the other hand, economy has taken a development most unfavorable for the area of social services and welfare. But this proves even more that Lowenfeld's classification of forces favoring and those unfavorable to integration is correct.
I highly recommend this book to anybody who is interested in the subject of blindness. The novice in the field gets a profound introduction to all aspects concerning the work for and welfare of the blind. And even the advanced reader can still learn from this book, be it from its philosophy, or from the variety of information it supplies. How many people, for example, know that the first special assistance program for the blind was established in Athens more than 550 years B.C.?- Finally, I recommend this book to all blind people, especially to those in other countries, who could learn a great deal about integration and how we should go about in our struggle to achieve this goal. I have never read a book before which was written by a sighted author, and represented the topic that clearly from the point of view of self conscious blind individuals.
The book is generally well written, and although Lowenfeld's language sounds old fashioned at some times, it is easily understandable. One draw back, though, is the length of the book: it is not free of repetitions, of which the author is sometimes, but not always aware. It would definitely have been possible to get the same points across with less words. However, the most annoying factor for me concerns the Braille edition: although Lowenfeld regarded this book as an introduction to the specialty of blindness, the list of related literature used by the author has not been printed in Braille. This decision may have been made due to lack of space, but it defeats one of the purposes of an introduction: to encourage the reader to further study the subject.