94 Malt'iinls and Tlirir Handling 



the furniture, with the conveniences, and with th/ 

 means of getting in and out that he can steer him- 

 self around the place without any difficulty. B\ 

 and by, he finds that eyes arc not necessary in 

 order to have his usual freedom. Then the teach- 

 ers hegin to work upon his knowledge of sounds. 

 They train his observation through the ears, so 

 that he becomes sensitive to sound changes which 

 would not strike the ordinary person. By and by, 

 those blind folk are so developed that they can do 

 many kinds of work and go through their ordi' 

 social affairs without indicating, except under rare 

 conditions, that they are blind. 



In somewhat the same way, observation can IK' 

 developed by any individual. This development 

 comes through the process of knowing more about 

 the things in which we must become expert, and 

 thereby keeping the interest thoroughly alive, K) 

 that no detail is too small to catch our observation 

 and excite our curiosity. We cannot keep our in- 

 terest in all parts of our work, unless we deliber- 

 ately arrange to do so by watching and associating 

 each detail of the work with every other detail. 



It is always interesting to note how thoroughly 

 artists, actors, and musicians study the details of 

 their own vocation. Most of the spare time of 

 the actor is spent in hearing other actors; musi- 

 cians are always to be found in the audiences at 

 concerts; and artists haunt the art galleries. It is 

 not often that our interest in our own job irTbusi- 

 ness is so complete that we can find recreation and 



