Popular Education / For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes

by Ira Mayhew

Persons become near or long sighted as the objects to which they are accustomed to direct the eye are near or remote. This is illustrated in the case of students, watch-makers, and engravers, who are accustomed to examine minute objects near the eye, and, as a consequence, become near-sighted; and of surveyors, hunters, and sailors, who, being accustomed to view objects at a distance, become long-sighted. By a proper discipline of the eye, persons may attain and retain the power of viewing objects near by and at a distance, as is illustrated in the case of those gunsmiths who are accustomed to manufacture guns, and to try them in shooting at a mark at a great distance. The preceding principles being borne in mind in their various applications. I need, perhaps, state but one more rule.

He who would secure clear and distinct vision, must observe all those rules which are necessary to keep the body in health. The sympathy of the eyes with all the other organs of the body is wonderful and intimate. There is no other organ whose strength depends so much on the general vigor of the system. Strict temperance in eating and drinking may be regarded as an indispensable requisite for the preservation of healthy eyes. To this may be attributed the clear heads of the ancient philosophers, who, unlike most students of the present day, exercised their bodies and limbs as well as their minds. Their works are not the production of congested brains, for these were not oppressed with blood belonging to other parts of the body. They studied and thought, and exercised both body and mind in the open air, and thus observed the laws of health. But among the multitudes of close students of the present day, who complain of weakness of the eyes, the misfortune is generally attributable to an almost total neglect of the first principles of health.

While we reproach and loathe the man whose eyes are red and weeping with the effects of intemperate drinking, we cordially pity purblind students, as in some sense martyrs to the cause of learning. Dr. Reynolds, a distinguished American oculist, administers a rebuke to such which we fear is too often merited: "A closer examination of their history presents a very different result. Our sympathy may grow cool if we regard them with a physiologic eye. It is a love of the flesh, more than a love of the spirit, that too often clouds their vision. It is too much food, crowding with unnecessary blood the tender vessels of the retina. It is too little exercise, allowing these accumulated fluids to settle down into fatal congestion. It is positions wholly at variance with the freedom of the circulation, and various other imprudences, which are the results of carelessness or unjustifiable ignorance. 'The day laborer may eat what he will, provided it is wholesome, and his eyes will not suffer. But let the student, who is called upon to devote not only his eyes, but his brain, to severe labor, live upon highly nutritious food, and such as is difficult of digestion, and we shall soon see how his vision will be impaired, through the vehement and persevering determination of blood to the head, which such a course must inevitably occasion.' So speaks Beer, whose extensive opportunities of observation have perhaps never been exceeded. The daily practice of every observing oculist is filled with coincident experience."

Among the prevalent habits of students by which the eyes are injured, the same writer mentions the irritation produced by rubbing them on awaking in the morning, a practice which has in some cases occasioned permanent and incurable disease; reading while the body is in a recumbent position; using the eyes too early after the system has been affected with serious disease; exercising them too much in the examination of minute objects; the popular plan of using green spectacles, and the use of tobacco.

Light which is sufficient for distinct vision, and which falls over the shoulder in an oblique direction, from above, upon the book or study table, is generally regarded, and with great propriety, as best suited to the eyes. Some oculists prefer to have the light fall over the left shoulder.

The acuteness of this sense and the extent of its cultivation are very much greater in some individuals and classes of men than in others. This is a fact that has been remarked by observing persons. Its consequences should not be overlooked, for they are neither few nor unimportant. Those persons who have been long accustomed, either by the necessity of their situation, the example of those about them, or the judicious care of parents and teachers, to observe attentively the relations of parts, the symmetry of forms, or the shades of color, have eyes that are perpetually soliciting their minds to notice some beautiful or grand perceptions. Wherever they turn, they espy some new, and, therefore, curious arrangement of the elements of shape, some striking combination of light and shade, or some delicious peculiarity of coloring. The multiplicity and variety of their perceptions must and do increase the number of their thoughts, or give to their thoughts greater compass and definiteness. Such persons are likely to become poets, or painters, or sculptors, or architects. At any rate, they will appreciate and enjoy the productions of others who have devoted themselves to these delightful arts. And will not such persons be most readily awakened to descry and adore the power, the skill, and the beneficence of the Great Architect who reared the stupendous fabric of the universe, who devised the infinite variety of forms which diversify creation, and whose pencil has so profusely decked every work with myriads of mingling dyes, resulting all from a few parent colors? To an unpracticed eye, the beauties and wonders of creation are all lost. The surface of the earth is a blank, or, at best, but a confused and misty page. Such an eye passes over this scene of things, and makes no communication to the mind that will awaken thought, much less enkindle the spirit of devout adoration, and fill the soul with love to Him "whose universal love smiles every where."

Mr. May speaks no less sensibly than eloquently when he says, "I may be extravagant in my estimation of the importance of the culture of the eye and the ear, but so it is, that while I have been reading the writings of the Hebrew Prophets, and of those other gifted bards who communed so intently with nature and with nature's God, it has seemed to me impossible that any one could enter fully into all the tenderness, beauty, and sublimity of their language, or receive into his heart all its peculiarity of meaning, unless his own eye had been used to trace the skill of that hand which framed and fashioned every thing that is, and to descry the delicacy of that pencil which has painted all the flowers of the field, nor unless his own ear has learned to perceive the melody and harmony of sounds."

We can discipline the sight directly, and to a very great extent; and we can have the satisfaction of perceiving the progressive improvement of the faculty. For this purpose, every school should be furnished with appropriate apparatus. A set of measures is indispensable. I will illustrate by an example. For the benefit of the primary department connected with a seminary of learning that was formerly for several years under my supervision, I constructed a set of rules for linear measurement. Their breadth and thickness were uniform, each being an inch wide and half an inch thick. The set consisted of nine rules, whose lengths were as follows: four were each one foot long; one, a foot and a half long; two, two feet; one, two and a half feet; and one, three feet. Every rule had a small hole bored through each end. I had also a number of small pins turned just the right size to fit these holes. I have since submitted to several hundred teachers, in institutes and elsewhere, my mode of combining and using these measures; and from the deep interest which a large number of intelligent parents and teachers in different localities have manifested in the subject, I venture to refer to it in this connection. I first tried the experiment ten years ago, with a class of about twenty children from four to seven years of age. Several of these could not read, and some of them had not learned the alphabet. The children were first led to observe carefully the length of these several rules, until they could determine at sight the length of each. For several of the first lessons some of them would misjudge. They would, for instance, call a two foot rule one and a half or two and a half feet long. In such cases their judgments were immediately corrected by the application of two one foot rules. They were then led to observe with care, tables, desks, etc., and to estimate their length, and were afterward permitted to measure them, and discover the degree of accuracy in their decisions. After obtaining the opinions of the children in relation to the length or height of an object, I would measure it myself in the presence of the class. When the class became a little experienced, we examined the length, breadth, and height of rooms, of houses, and of churches; and then the distance of objects less or more remote, correcting or confirming their estimates by the application of the rule or measure, which gave a permanent interest to the exercise. By exercising the class in this manner, not to exceed half an hour a day, they would, at the end of the first quarter, judge of each other's height, of the height of persons generally, of the length of various objects, of the size of buildings, and of the dimensions of yards, gardens, and fields, with greater accuracy than the average of adult persons, as was tested by actual measurement in some instances where there was a disagreement in opinion.

By holding these rules in different positions, the children readily became familiar with the meaning and practical application of the terms perpendicular, horizontal, and oblique. They would also tell which term is applicable to the different parts of the stove-pipe; to the different parts of the furniture of the school-room; to the floor, sides of the room, roof, etc.; and to all objects with which they were familiar.

But the reader may inquire, what is the use of the holes and the pins? By pinning two rules together, one resting upon the other, and then turning one of them around, the class will readily gain a correct idea of the use of the term angle; also of the terms acute angle, right angle, and obtuse angle. By pinning three of these rules together at their ends, the children not only see, but can handle the simplest form of geometrical figures. When this figure is defined, they are enabled permanently to possess themselves of the meaning of the word triangle, by the simultaneous exercise of three senses. By combining rules of the same and different lengths, they become familiar with equilateral, isosceles, scalene, right, and obtuse angled triangles. By combining, in this way, such a set of rules as I have described, the child readily becomes familiar with the names and many of the properties of more than half a score of geometrical figures, with less effort on the part of the teacher than would be required to teach the child the names of the same number of letters. These exercises, then, may well precede the learning of the alphabet, or, at least, proceed simultaneously with it. By this means the child's interest in the school is increased; his senses are cultivated; he is enabled better to fix his attention; he progresses more rapidly and thoroughly in his juvenile studies, and at the same time lays the foundation for future excellence in penmanship and drawing, and other useful arts.