All during my days at school, I went on acquiring knowledge, learning to see many things, scarcely realizing the handicap of blindness, because every help was given me, and I was surrounded by those whose condition was like my own. But when I went out into the world, I found that many seeing people, so called, had very little vision, although their eyesight was perfect. I found, too, that, although I knew many things, and was well equipped to earn my own living, my lack of eyesight was responsible for a corresponding lack of confidence upon the part of the public. This was a great disappointment, for I knew I could succeed, if only some one would give me the opportunity. After waiting twenty years, the State Library gave me the opportunity. This lack of confidence upon the part of the public is one of the most depressing features of adult blindness. Thus far, I have considered the subject from the point of view of one who has been blind from early infancy, but now I shall view it from the standpoint of one deprived of eyesight in adult life, who is taking his first step in the dark. M. Diderot says: "The help which the senses reciprocally afford to each other hinders their improvement," and so the adult whose movements are no longer directed by his eyes, feels utterly helpless and bewildered, as one who finds himself on a strange road, very late at night, with no ray of light to guide him. As the blinded soldier is uppermost in our thought today, I am considering the mental condition of an adult suddenly deprived of eyesight, not that of the man whose blindness has come on gradually.