This paper discusses the education of people with blindness in China and India prior to the establishment of formal schools for the blind. Key people who advanced the education of people with blindness are highlighted, such as missionary teacher Mary Gutzlaff, who integrated Chinese orphan girls with blindness into her school at Macau. One of the girls, Agnes Gutzlaff, became the first trained person in China to teach people with blindness how to read, using first the Lucas system, then Moon's embossed script. Meanwhile, in the late 1840s, a class of adults with blindness received formal instruction from Reverend Thomas McClatchie at Shanghai. In 1856, Reverend Edward Syle opened an industrial workshop at Shanghai for older people with blindness. The section of the paper on India highlights the integration of William Cruickshanks, who was blind, into regular schools and his subsequent administration of several ordinary South Indian schools. The Bengal Military Orphan Asylum had orphans with blindness in its school and adopted the Lucas system by 1840. This was overtaken by Moon's system of script for blind readers, which was translated into several Indian languages from 1853 onwards. The work of missionary women in India is also described. (Contains 251 references.) (CR)