Eyes Were Made to See With 



Do you know how to use yours? Read this 

 erticle and then test them with the picture 



ONE of the fundamentals of life, to 

 which comparativeK- little attention 

 has been given, is the ability to see 

 straight. \'ory few of us see what is placed 

 before us or what goes on under our very 

 noses. Fortunately this faculty of observ- 

 ing correctly ma>' be improved by practice, 

 but first we must be made to realize that 

 we are deficient in it. To prove this 

 to classes of young engineers, Mr. W. 

 H. Blood, Jr., performs a very simple 

 experiment. 



Hs has found it interesting to test his 

 classes to see how far they have culti\-ated 

 thoir powers of observation. On a board 

 arc mounted twenty objects, ten of thcni 

 b. ing ordinary' household articles and ten 

 of them simple mechanical or electrical 

 objects. This is reproduced in the accom- 

 panying photograph. The numbers are 

 not on the board itself but are used in the 

 illustration for the sake of iflenlificalion. 

 The board is displayed before the class and 

 the obser^■ers are allowed to look at it for 

 a predetermined time; then theexhibil iscov- 

 ered and they are asked to write down the 

 articleswhich they ha\'c seen. While thistest 

 in psycholog>- does not prove much of any- 

 thing, an analysis of the answers obtained 



certainly does give us food for thought. 

 A recent experiment of this kind, tried 

 on a large group of technical students, gave 

 some startling results. Here was a group 

 of educated young men who for half a 

 minute gazed intently at these twenty 

 articles. Several saw only three or four of 

 the articles; the a^•crage for an entire cla?3 

 was but eight. What was the matter with 

 these boys? Half awake, you say? Oh no, 

 they were all wide awake, none more so. 

 The test simply shows that these students 

 have not been taugiit to obscr\e. How can 

 they make clear deductions if they are 

 unable to tell what thc>- have seen? Some 

 of the men said the color of the Inirlap 

 which co\ered the board was white, while 

 others said it was black, yellow; onl\- few 

 said it was brown or bufT. A curious fact 

 brought out by this test was that nine out 

 of ten put down on their list articles which 

 were not on the board at all; they drew on 

 their imaginations, but their guesses were 

 not right. Of this entire class the best 

 observer had but fourteen out of the twenty 

 correct, — eciuixalcnt to 70 per cent; the 

 average was 40 per cent, and the poorest 

 was 15 per cent correct. A prett\- poor 

 showing for a group of technical men. 



879 



