Learning by Ear, Understanding by Heart: Education of Blind Children and Its Achievements in Ming and Qing China

In traditional Chinese society, the visually impaired face severe structural exclusion and occupational segregation. This article foregrounds the subjective agency of Ming–Qing blind children who achieved deep social inclusion through alternative education. In the absence of institutionalized special education, these children leveraged sensory compensation—specifically “ear‐learning” (auditory memorization and oral transmission)—supported by family capital and communal pedagogical networks. More decisively, the Confucian discourse of being “blind in the eyes but not in the mind” reconfigured physical blindness as a “heart‐mind advantage,” legitimizing non‐visual learning as a refined path to intellectual excellence. Accumulating cultural capital through literature, medicine, and divination, these individuals secured recognition from state officials and local elites, transforming from marginalized subjects into respected knowledge producers. These cases deconstruct the medical deficit model, demonstrating that social inclusion depends not on physiological normalization but on a society’s willingness to validate alternative epistemologies and redistribute cultural capital.