During the thirty-nine years of its operations, the Institution has had under its instruction something more than one thousand different persons, most of whom have been young. On January 1, 1871, its students numbered 129, though 157 names had been on the roll during the year, none of whom had been in the Institution over seven years. In 1834 the managers began to receive State pupils, i.e., the indigent blind, who have since been educated at the public expense. Only those are now received and educated as New York State pupils who are residents of the counties of Suffolk, Queens, Kings, and New York. Application for admission must be made to the Superintendent. Pay pupils are also received at $300 per year. About ninety-four per cent. of all received have been New York State pupils ; the remaining six per cent. have been pay pupils, and those admitted from New Jersey.

The total expenditures of the society during the first thirty-eight years amounted to $2,025,000. The managers thankfully acknowledge the generous aid received from the Legislature, which has amounted to over $20,000 per annum on an average ; yet to their credit be it remembered that sixty per cent. of all their expenditures has been obtained through their own management and liberality. The society was for many years encumbered with debt, which was at length removed, though the improvements of the last year, amounting to about one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, have again somewhat involved the Institution, which indebtedness the managers have secured by mortgaging the property. The annual expense of the Institution at present amounts to about $45,000, which appears at first view like a large sum; but when we consider the unavoidable expenditures of its triple instruction departments, literary, musical, and industrial, the extra service necessary to care for so many who walk in perpetual darkness, and the wastes of material in their instruction, our opinions are greatly modified. Books for the blind are expensive. The American Bible Society furnishes a Bible to those who have sight for forty-five cents, but the same society charges, for the cheapest Bible for the blind, $32.

A map of the charges, States, suited to an ordinary schoolroom, may be obtained for $3 or $4; but one of the kind adapted to the blind costs $75; and so on to the end of the chapter.

Books, however costly, are required in all branches of study. The literary department embraces a thorough English course, including higher mathematics, philosophy, chemistry, history, etc.

Particular attention is given to music, in which the blind often excel. In the Industrial department, mat, broom, and mattress making, and many kinds of fancy work, are taught. Much material is unavoidably wasted in the workshop, where so many clumsy fingers must feel their way to knowledge and usefulness. The course of instruction pursued by each pupil is the one for which he appears to be best adapted. Some pass through all three departments, others but one. The most gratifying results have crowned the thoughtful endeavors of this benevolent association. It has supplied the means of culture, of subsistence, in some cases of affluence and of great usefulness, to a large portion of the community who otherwise must have remained a burden to themselves and their friends. Among the students of former years may now be numbered merchants, manufacturers, life and fire insurance agents organists, teachers, farmers, and clergymen.

During the last two years, the use of the sewing machine has been introduced among the girls, some of whom have already proved themselves adepts in its management, performing the finest and most difficult tasks with great facility. Every encouragement to industry is afforded. As soon as one becomes a successful workman, he receives some wages, when he is encouraged to open an account with a saving bank, which many have done. The last year of their stay, they receive full journeyman's wages for all they do, to enable them to start business for themselves when they return to the outside world.

The Institution is under Protestant management, but persons of any creed are received, without designedly interfering with their religious faith. About one-third of the teachers in the Institution are blind, and have been educated within its walls. Among the number is Mr. Stephen Babcock, who is a cultivated Christian gentleman. The principal difficulty in the matter of educating the blind has been in the lack of a system of writing and printing adapted to the touch of all. Carefully compiled statistics show that, with the line-sign system mostly employed in this country, not more than forty-eight per cent. of the blind pupils have ever been able to read: with tolerable facility. The Superintendent of the New York Institution, Mr. William B. Wait, has had this matter for several years under examination, and after the most thorough analysis of the principles of the language, and of the wants and capacities of the blind, has finally invented, and introduced into his school, a new point-sign system, which all can readily learn, which may be written by the blind, and which. will greatly aid in their education.

At a convention of Superintendents of the various Institutions for the blind in the United States, held in Indianapolis in August, 1871, this system, after thorough discussion, was unanimously adopted as the system of point writing and printing for all the American Institutions. Mr. Wait is now engaged in adapting the system to the writing of music.