Of the many superstitions and misconceptions, which have barred the way to progress, perhaps none has been more firmly entrenched or has more stubbornly resisted the light of reason than traditional concepts about blindness. According to anciently honorable custom, the blind have been considered a group apart, a helpless and hopeless lot. They have been relegated to positions of social isolation, subjected to legal discriminations and denied that most fundamental right of all free men--the right to work for their daily bread and to earn their self-respect. They have been thought of not as unemployed but as unemployable.