182 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WI8CON8IN. 



fectives in the highest grades. In Rochester, New York, 31 per 

 cent, of the children in the high schools have defects of vision 

 which could be detected without any expert examination. And 

 so it goes. Prentice, 1 Cohn, 2 and others have recently shown 

 beyond a doubt that no individual can afford to go through life 

 without ascertaining the condition of his eyes ; and yet 40 per 

 cent, of our students report that they have never had their eyes 

 examined. It would indeed be a remarkable circumstance if 

 there was not stealthy thievery of nervous energy taking place 

 constantly in a number of these cases. 



Because one is not conscious of a defect is not conclusive evi- 

 dence that he does not possess it. I take my vision to be the 

 standard, the normal, unless somebody has shown me better. If 

 I am born with a myopic eye and can scarcely see my hand in 

 front of me, I have no way of telling that I am not as other peo- 

 ple are. The only safe course is to 'have my vision measured 

 up to a norm or standard ; and if it does not fulfill requirements 

 to call to my aid the skill of the oculist and of the optician. 



For the most part the eye has been used throughout racial his- 

 tory in discerning relatively large objects and those at a distance. 

 It has been only within the most recent period that such visual 

 co-ordinations have been required as are necessitated in our day 

 in the reading of print. Authorities agree that a child of five 

 or six, for instance, has not developed the visual capacities to 

 read ordinary print with safety. 3 When a child of this age is 

 set to studying a primer, printed in the type that such books 

 usually are, or at least have been in the past, he not only suffers 

 great strain, but injury is apt to result to the visual organ. Now 

 it is probable that even in adult life the reading of fine print 

 requires co-ordinations of ocular muscles which result in dissi- 



1 The Eye in Its Relation to Health. 



*Op. cit. 



8 See, for instance, Oppenheim, The Development of the Child, Chapter V; also 

 Dewey, The Fetisch of Primary Education, Forum, May, 1898. Indians are Baid 

 to have difficulty in accommodating their vision to print. 



