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But perhaps you think I am quite wrong in taking it 
for granted that you need to “learn to see.” What 
gives me the idea that you ought to learn any such 
lesson ? 
Well, nine times out of ten, if I hand a flower to a 
child and ask him to look at it and then to tell me about 
it, he will stare at it, oh, very hard indeed, for some 
moments, and then he will have nothing to say. 
Now, this cannot be the fault of the flower; for we 
have seen that the flower is made up of so many differ- 
ent things that to tell about them ail takes some time. 
Tt must be the fault of the child; or at least the fault of 
his eyes and brain, both of which are needed for really 
seeing, and which probably he does not know how to use. 
It must be that he has never “learned to see.’ Per- 
haps he has used his eyes well enough, and has really 
seen a great many things in the flower; but his brain 
may not be able to put them together in the right way, 
and to find the words that are needed. 
If this is the only trouble, a little practice will make 
it all right. He will find that his brain works better 
after each trial, just as a new pair of scissors works 
better after it has been used several times. 
But often the eyes do not seem to do their share of 
the work; and if they do not, there is no chance for the 
brain to come to their help. 
That is a sad state of affairs, because, if when we are 
young we let our eyes form bad habits, such as not 
seeing the things they ought to see, we are likely to be 
half blind all the rest of our lives. 
It would be a terrible thing, would it not, to be told 
