THE ART OF SEEING THINGS 



Power of attention and a mind sensitive to outward 

 objects, in these lies the secret of seeing things. 

 Can you bring all your faculties to the front, like a 

 house with many faces at the doors and windows; 

 or do you live retired within yourself, shut up in 

 your own meditations? The thinker puts all the 

 powers of his mind in reflection : the observer puts 

 all the powers of his mind in perception; every 

 faculty is directed outward; the whole mind sees 

 through the eye and hears through the ear. He 

 has an objective turn of mind as opposed to a sub- 

 jective. A person with the latter turn of mind sees 

 little. If you are occupied with your own thoughts, 

 you may go through a museum of curiosities and 

 observe nothing. 



Of course one's powers of observation may be 

 cultivated as well as anything else. The senses of 

 seeing and hearing may be quickened and trained 

 as well as the sense of touch. Blind persons come 

 to be marvelously acute in their powers of touch. 

 Their feet find the path and keep it. They come to 

 know the lay of the land through this sense, and 

 recognize the roads and surfaces they have once 

 traveled over. Helen Keller reads your speech by 

 putting her hand upon your lips, and is thrilled by 

 the music of an instrument through the same sense 

 of touch. The perceptions of school-children should 

 be trained as well as their powers of reflection and 

 memory. A teacher in Connecticut, Miss Aiken, — 

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