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The Rescue, Care and Education of Blind Babies
Also known as [The Care and Education of Blind Babies]
(1912) United States of America
B&W : Short film
Directed by (unknown)
Cast: (unknown)
Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated, production; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated. / Released 14 September 1912. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / Produced in association with the International Sunshine Society. The production was shot at the Sunshine Home in Summit, New Jersey.
Educational.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? The Sunshine Ladies are shown going in search of defectives among the tenements, those dark seats of vice into which the rays of refined comfort so rarely percolate. They visit a poor family where one of the little children is blind and more or less of a nuisance to all the others, so restraining their freedom of action that they are forced to tie a sheet over its cradle during absence from the room. The mother of such a family has a thousand vexing problems to solve in the matter of maintenance alone, yet she will not send the helpless creature she has brought into the world where its opportunities will be still more limited, to a public institution. She rebels at the idea of parting with the tiny thing entrusted to her tender mercies even when the ladies give warm assurance of its safety and comfort in their hands; they are humanity’s foster mothers, but she finally yields, and the baby is taken to the Sunshine Home in Summit, New Jersey. We now see the blind children exercising in the kindergarten. Only those unable to act for themselves are assisted. The others go at it from natural inclination, though some falter and display so much caution that they seem to walk sideways. They are allowed to rest or play without coercion, and the pleasure of those able to use their own muscles unguided is manifest in the way they laugh and romp with one another. Some of the kids even play “Indians,” just like the motion-picture actors, and execute a highly creditable war dance. The Home provided by the Sunshine Ladies assumes many of the gentle and feminine attributes of that which the babies should have if their natural parents were in better circumstances. Its walls seem to embrace kindly welcome, and those entrusted with teaching the helpless human creatures pure guardians of all that men hold sacred. The house has a soul of its own, that of patient tolerance and sweet beneficence. Collective discipline is shown in a fire drill, and we are given a view of babies learning to feed themselves; it is not astonishing that these little blind creatures do so well with a spoon for a weapon and an open mouth for a target, making a bull’s-eye nine times out of ten, but they do not take so kindly to a smooth chute down which they slide. Here is a form of amusement calculated to excite distrust among those who can see where they are going, and the kids seem to balk at its uncertainties. Nothing is more apparent throughout the production than the desire of children to acquire knowledge, from that of keeping an equilibrium and moving about through the performance of useful acts to the spiritual awakening that prompts their communal sweetness of manner to one another. That they do not acquire grace of movement is not remarkable, there the eye is deeply concerned, but the hidden precepts of kindly natures are all the more attractive when they spring into bloom. They are fighting for a right to live, and seem to feel that they are aided in their unequal struggle by the Sisters of Sunshine, accomplishing slowly and steadily the complicated operations of keeping house and training one another under difficulties that only those who have been partially blind can appreciate. One “Little Blessing” by the name of Rachael is shown as she actually appeared before the Governor of the State when a bill was pending which allowed blind children under the age of eight to be placed in homes and training schools especially prepared for them. Rachael is one of those rescued from an institution for the feeble-minded, and she was only a few months old at the time. She appears in the hall of assembly in charge of one Sister of Sunshine and walks up bravely to the Governor’s platform. She is taken up to a seat by his side and allowed to remain there, a potent illustration of what can be done by enlightened methods of education, until the bill is passed. At the conclusion of the voting in its favor, she is given a gavel and permitted to pronounce the measure a law in the executive’s name. She is then escorted to his private withdrawing chamber, and there gives such eloquent expression to her gratitude that he is moved to tears.
Survival status: Print exists.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: USA: New Jersey: Summit
Listing updated: 12 October 2023.
References: Tarbox-Lost pp. 103, 105, 279 : Website-IMDb.
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