El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-06-25
TRAINING THE SIGHT.
Through Carelessness In Observing
We Miss Great Deal.

At the Society of Artists Mr.. Bru-
denell Carter read Q paper on the sight
of children in schools, in which he
took occasion to repeat advice which,
if we remember rightly, he has given
more than once before, namely, that
sight should not be regarded as q
power or faculty which may be trusted
to take care of itself, but that it should
be systematically trained by the aid of
ty should be tested from time to time
It has long be found necessary in the
public services and in some railways
to adopt q standard of vision which
must be possessed by candidates for
employment; and this standard rests
upon the power to decipher capital
letters of such a size and placed at
such a distance that they subtend
visual angle of five minutes at the
eye of the observer.
All conception of the size of an OBJ
of its retinal image, and partly on
what we conceive to be the distance of
the object itself. The power to see
the shape and outline of An object de-
ponds upon the image being of such q
size as to leave unaffected nerve fibres
in areas over which the outline OF the
object itself does not extend; in such q
way for example, that the image upon
the retins formed by . capital E must
be large enough for the two
spaces between its three horizontal
limbs to be each actually wider than
the diameter of q nerve fiber, and thus
to be occupied by hbers upon which no
part of the image falls. AS soon % the
image becomes so small that the spaces
referred to are smaller in diameter
than single nerve fbers, none of the
latter will be left unaffected, and the
spaces Themselves will cease to be re-
orgsnizsble by vision. The power to
distinguish letters under q visual angle
cepted as affording the standard of
normal vision, is constantly surpassed
by individuals, and even by races of
mankind.
Travellers have told marvellous stories
about the sight of many savage tribes,
and although some OF those stories may
be received with incredulity, while
others are applicable by the greater
clearness of the atmosphere in the
countries where they occurred, yet
there seems mo sufficient grounds for
like every other, is capable of being
improved by judicious exercise, and es-
its faithuess Indications. there is p no
reasonable doubt that the Siberian
Tartar, who, when looking at Jupiter,
told Arago that he had seen the big
star swallow q little one and spit it out
again, had really seen with his unaid-
ed sSrd eyes ssssi IL ocon'-sion T Of sae
Wood, in the discussion of the Society
of Arts. spoke of an Englishman who
could see some of the double stars: but
it must be remembered that the Eng
lishmsn could easily know what stars
were doubled; and could, Perhaps;
fancy that he saw their peculiarly,
while the Tar tar.could have had no
knowledge of the very existence OF the
satellite If he had not seen.
Mr.. Carter maintained that the ha-
bit of seeing as much as possible, of
earnest visual attention to the details
of the environment would certainly
have the effect of increasing the &C.
tivity of the visual function, and also,
in all probability, OF promoting the
growth Of finer fibers in the retina, by
the aid of which smaller images could
be appreciated. He gave reasons for
believing that the vision of town-bred
children is less acute than that of the
country-bred; the former seeing chiefly
large objects, such as houses and ON
nibuses, under large visual angles; the
latter habitually attending to smaller
or more distant objects, and using the
eyes under smaller visual angles. The
general moral of the discourse was
that all school teachers should be in
structed to test the vision of new pu-
pills and to record the facts in q regis
ter 1t seems certain that
there are positions in life in which the
power to see acuvely might be quite as
valuable than, the power to run swift
ly: and there seems no valid reason
why the recognition which is daily
given to the latter should not be ex-
tended also to the former.-London
Hospital.