274 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE.—IQI3. 
the eyes, either in school or elsewhere, for we see 
it arise after illness, we meet with it in illiterates, 
and we know that the predisposition to it is strongly 
hereditary. But it is everywhere most frequent 
among the most studious, and there is a mass of 
evidence to show that it depends very largely, 
both in its origin and in its progress, on over-use 
of the eyes in near work. 
A moderate myopia which does not increase 
may be regarded as an innocent, though somewhat 
inconvenient, over-development of the eye. <A 
high myopia usually involves serious stretching 
and thinning of the coats of the eye, and a liability 
to further trouble. A high myopia in a child is a 
very grave condition, for further deterioration 
always follows. In connection with myopia alone, 
to say nothing of other eye defects, the question of 
school-work in relation to eyesight deserves more 
attention than it has hitherto received. 
The subject has many sides: the lighting of 
school-rooms, the arrangement of the desks, the 
design and proportion of individual desks, the 
attitudes of the scholars, the amount of work 
required, are all factors of importance ; but they 
cannot be considered here. Our present effort is 
directed to the standardising of school-books, a 
very important step in the desired direction. 
Small print leads the young scholar to look too 
closely at his book. He is not yet familiar with 
the forms of the words, and ‘his attention is not 
easily secured unless he has retinal images larger 
than those which satisfy the trained reader. To 
obtain these larger images he brings the book too 
near to his eyes, or bis eyes too near the book, and 
this, for the reasons already given, is apt to be 
injurious. Hence the importance of establishing 
certain standards of legibility for school-books, 
