1911-12] USING one's eyes 49 



The next night he strolled into a political meeting, a caucus 

 of the party to which he did not belong, and denounced the 

 rogues and rascals face to face. And when the members of 

 his party read his speech, in the next morning's paper, they 

 nominated him for Governor of the State. And he was elected 

 Chief Executive of that Commonwealth. 



Well, I do not come to you, with my present theme, because 

 of any blunder on my own part. Intentionally, I choose a 

 topic of general interest. I am going to talk to you on the sub- 

 ject of ''Using One's Eyes". Isaiah, in one of his most interest- 

 ing passages, says, 'There are people who are asleep, not from 

 the slumber that comes from wine, but from the sleep that 

 comes from indolence." 



I 



The first thing I want to say, this afternoon, is that we are 

 most of us exceedingly blind. Now, I want to ask you if there 

 is anything that we consult more frequently, morning, noon and 

 night, than we do our watch? Yet if I should ask this company 

 to draw a diagram of that watch on paper, with the numerals 

 correctly represented, I am very sure that only a small percent- 

 age of the people gathered here would get one hundred per cent, 

 in such an examination. 



I have tried this experiment on a great many persons and 

 have only found one individual who could do it correctly. 

 Most people will tell you that for four o'clock there are the 

 Roman numerals IV, but if you will look at your watch, you 

 will find that there are four straight lines instead. They will 

 tell you that six o'clock is represented by VI, whereas a single 

 dot is printed underneath the second hand. 



I know of a man living in the Southern part of the city of- 

 Worcester, and in order to increase his power of vision, he has 

 made it a practice for several years, as he came up Main street, 

 to notice the various business signs along his route, and now 

 at the present time he can tell nearly every man engaged in 

 trade on this thoroughfare. 



A young man with whom I am acquainted came to Wor- 

 cester as a stranger and partly because he was homesick, and 



