The Portland daily press., 1895-07-10

trouDle TO prepare himself for an exam
lntul0n the results of which might affect
ms Whole lie, without the faintest appre-
henslon or his disability.
remember to have heard of a naval
Officer. who went through the war and
was afterwards disc harged the service for
a long unsuspected color blindness which
was almost total; yet for years he had
been dealing with color signals and COL
ored hags and ensigns. 1t is well known
tnat the color tests introduced by Boards
of Railroad Commissioners in several
States have resulted in throwing out not
a few locomotive engineers of large expe-
rlence who had never discovered or sus-
pected their deficiencies
Take another instance A gentleman
came to my office to introduce his son as
an applicant for admission to the Insti-
tute of Technolgy. The young man had
received an appointment to the Naval
Academy at Annapolis; hadsspassed the
textbook examination; had passed the
ordinary physical examination; had gone
through the test for color blindness; and
then it was found that an object which
he could see distinctly with one eye at
the distance of twenty seven feet had to
be brought within eight feet to be seen
at all with the other eye. During all his
childhood and boyhood he had never for
moment suspected the existence of this
defect.
Let me recite still another case. A lady
of my acquaintance had very charitably
taken into her household as servant, a
young woman who was subject to ner-
youS disorder which went almost, if not
quite, to the point of epilepsy She could
get employment under no ordinary cir
cumstances; and the lady 1 refer to had
undertaken to carry part of her burden
by employing her. After the lapse of
xyaalyS thjC la6u ~ ha6 off oh
served the servant very closely and curl
ously while engaged at her work, es-
pecially while sewing, broke out with an
exclamation, Jane do you really see
anything?' The young girl looked up in
great surprise. why, yes, see perfectly
WELL" Her mistress rejoined, ~ do not
believe that you see anything as we see
it, An examination by an oculist fol-
lowed; and it was ascertained that the
girl entire disorder proceeded from eyes
that were simply mass of defects and
distortions. With treatment of her eyes
the nervous affection in time entirely
ceased. I related this to one of the most
distinguished medical men in New York,
for many years professor in the College
of Physicians and Surgeons, who re-
joined, ''There are many such cases. My
son, a captain in the United States army,
for years suffered the greatest agony from
pains in his head and the back of his
neck, before he discovered that the whole
trouble was due to defects of vision. I
might go on for a long time enumerating
instances which have come under my OBJ
servation of a similar character; but what
has been said will suffice to Justify the
inquiry, whether, if such defects, in such
degrees, can exist in respect to matters so
objective and so completely open to obser-
vation and to examination, is it not prob
able that defects of mental constitution
and organization, of the gravest nature,
are found in every school room and in
every large family and that much of
what the parent or the teacher takes to
be the result of indifference or wilfulness
or neglect, is due to mental distortions,
perversions, obliquities, LESSONS and
breaches of continuity, which have as dis
t1nct and decided an effect in preventing
the proper and normal action of the
child's mind upon what is sought to be
presented to it, as would the most objec-
tive Deficiencies and injuries in the organs
of sense. Ii parents and teachers and
playmates and SchoOlmates can fail,
through years, to see, or even to suspect,
the existence of color blindness, for ex-
ample, is it not possible, and even highly
probable, that defects more deeply seated
and of more obscure character are the
cause of no small part of the failures of.
the schoolroom2 Here is a child whose
oGlSC VI 'lCdllAS 10 lllpotlICO IL ID hDUWu
that such deficiencies have existed for
years without being suspected. In con-
nection with the preparation of this pa
per, Boston physician has told me OF a
case recently coming under his knowledge
where young man had gradually be-
come almost totally deaf throughIthe slow
process of the disease called adenoids,
without his father, practicing physi
clan, suspecting the existence of the
trouble until a late stage of the deafness
had been reached Now, in the case of
such a child. whatever is said loudly and
distinctly is heard. The moment lhe
teachers voice drops below certain
point, or her back is turned, or her
speech becomes hurried and confused, the
child loses all or q part of what is said
Something he makes out; perhaps by sug-
gestion from what he has caught perhaps
oy observation of the teachers lips or aes-
lures; some other thing he drops entirdy
a third thing, still, he gets wrong. The
result is partial failure in his work He
does not understand the true cause. His
teacher does not suspect it. In the same
way, there must be instances of mental
defects where more than usual effort
ON the part of the teacher, more than
usual degree of attention on the part of
the pupil, enables the currend of thought
to jump the broken wire and pass to it's
object; but any slackening of effort on
the part of the teacher, or of attention on
the part of the pupil allows the current to
become dispersed and to remain without
effect.
1t is not for the moment supposed that
the thought above presented is not fanil-
lar to all students of the mind and all
teachers of youth. The only contribution,
if any, which can hope to make, is in
urging the consideration that such mon
tai defects as correspond to the defects in
the organs of sense of which illustrations
have been given, are vastly more freqrpnt
than we have been accustomed to believe
and demand greater attention from u: in
dealing with individual pupils; and sec-
ondly, that we have in manual training
an agent for diagnosis of some at least,
of these defects and, though doubtles. in
a lower degree, for treating them. We go
into an orthopedic hospital and our yery
souls are torn with the spectacle of disor-
tion and peryersion and defor1nity which
we there witness on every hand but we
comfort ourselves by saying, "Thank
God! it is only one child in hund,ed
who is thus afflicted" For my part I
believe that the cases of mental distor
tion, perversion and deformity are far.
far more frequent; and cannot help be-
lieving that it is to such unsuspected dis
abilities and inflrmities of the pupil that
we owe a very large part of the fail ures
of the school room which pass for insan-
ces of heedlessness, wilfulness and even