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more worthy of a bat than of a well-made child, the 
more useless and bat-like will their eyes become. 
It is really more natural for a child to use his eyes 
constantly than it is for an older person. The grown-up 
man or woman is likely to have so many things to think 
about, that eyes and brain do not always work together, 
and so the surroundings are not noticed. 
For every boy knows that if his head is full of the 
ball game he is going to play, he runs along without 
eyes or thoughts for other things. 
And every girl knows that if she is on her way to 
some friend to whom she has a secret to tell, she is in 
such haste to reach her journey’s end, and is so busy 
thinking what her friend will have to say about it all, 
that of course there is no time to pay attention to any- 
thing else. Her eyes may be in good working order, 
yet they are not of much use unless her brain is ready 
to help them; and that little brain just now is too 
busy with its secret. 
No, by the people who are half blind I mean only 
~ those who much of the time use neither eyes nor brain, 
who can neither tell you what they have seen nor what 
they have been thinking about. Sometimes it seems as 
if such people were not only half blind, it seems as if 
they were only half alive. 
