Education: The Seeing Eye

In Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel last week a small, pleasant-faced matron arose to receive a coveted honor. Together with Financier J. Pierpont Morgan (see p. 40), President William Edwin Hall of the Boys’ Clubs of America and Columbia’s Nicholas Murray Butler, Dorothy Harrison Eustis was given the National Institute of Social Sciences’ gold medal for “distinguished services to humanity.” Thus recognized by a public body for the first time was a unique educator. Founder and moving spirit of “The Seeing Eye” at Morristown, N. J., Dorothy Eustis for six years has been teaching dogs to lead blind men, blind men to follow dogs.

“The Seeing Eye,” Mrs. Eustis told the Institute last week, grew out of a breeding station for German shepherd dogs which she established in 1923 at Fortunate Fields, her comfortable estate near Vevey, Switzerland. At first, as a hobby, Mrs. Eustis and her friend,, Geneticist Elliott S. Humphrey, bred and trained dogs to patrol the Swiss borders for the customs office and the State police. So impressed was Mrs. Eustis by the “teachability” of German shepherds that in 1928 she wrote an article about her smart dogs for Saturday Evening Post, mentioned the fact that shepherds every day led several thousand blinded German War veterans through city traffic.

In Nashville, Tenn. a friend read her article to blind, young Morris Frank. He wrote to Mrs. Eustis and she promptly invited him to visit her at Fortunate Fields. There he was trained to use a German shepherd named “Buddy.” When he returned home he tested Buddy in congested traffic, enthusiastically cabled Mrs. Eustis that Buddy was a success, that she must come to the U. S. and start with his help a “philanthropic school” for training more dogs like Buddy. Next year the pair founded “The Seeing Eye” at Nashville. Three years ago it was moved to Morristown, N. J.

First and hardest job of “The Seeing Eye” is to train teachers. Only eight of the school’s original 25 hand-picked candidates have so far survived the three-year course given by Geneticist Humphrey, who used to break wild horses at the Kansas City Stockyards. At the school’s farm near Morristown, Mr. Humphrey and his staff keep prospective instructors following the dogs blindfolded for a month. From that point on the course becomes progressively more difficult. Most candidates, says Mr. Humphrey, have too little patience for the job.

“The Seeing Eye” has less difficulty finding patient dogs. Since 1929 the school has trained and distributed 200 German shepherds, reports that only 5% of the dogs brought to the farm turn out to be uneducable. The shepherds begin their training as soon as they are full-grown, are useful through a life span of ten years. Most breeders believe that bitches are steadier and more intelligent than dogs. The “Seeing Eye” has not found males markedly inferior to females, uses about three bitches to two dogs. “Seeing Eye” dogs do not, as many people suppose, memorize the blind man’s route. The blind man must know his own route. The dog’s function is to use his eyes, warn his master when the route is impassable.

All blind people who have received dogs from “The Seeing Eye” go to Morristown for a month’s course. Mrs. Eustis has found that most of the blind need a “mental housecleaning” before anything else. The eight members of each month’s class at “The Seeing Eye,” are first “built up” psychologically, encouraged to find their way in familiar surroundings. Then the blind student gets a dog whose harness, equipped with a semirigid, U-shaped handle, is sensitive to the slightest human touch. With an instructor at hand, the student tests his dog in Morristown traffic. When at month’s end the student can take his walk without the instructor, he is graduated.

To breed and educate a dog costs “The Seeing Eye” about $900. Since they bring $150 or less, sometimes are given away free, the School runs a sizable deficit each year. So far this has been met by Mrs. Eustis and her friends of “The Seeing Eye. Inc.,” aided by the proceeds of an annual semi-public appeal. Mrs. Eustis ‘ believes that there are 10,000 U. S. citizens who could use one of her dogs, that in six years “The Seeing Eye” has not even scratched the surface of the work it should do.