The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-02-10
How We Injure the Sight of Our
Little Ones.

| From Ainslec's Magazine
| A child's eyes are far-sghted, and it
| is only for q few moments that it
| should look at anything nearer than
| seventy-one yards. And yet from the
| time it begins to take notice we are
| forever trying to get it to see things
close to it, playthinSs, our own fool
ish faces, and 1 don't know what not.
in to teach it to read AS soon as
ever we can, we pack it off to kinder
garten, there to be instructed in the
health-givng arts of braiding colored
paper and working at such tasks as
would make grown persons eyes
ache.
Then we send it to the public school.
/ have seen school, buildings in New
York city that the builder ought to go
to states prison for, dark insanitary
holes. We put the child in the pub
lie school and tell it to sit right still
with it's nose in book and be nice ana
not make a noise, when we know that
its nature clamors to run and play and
jump and halo, so as TO grow up to be
made of meat and not of putty. In
some public schools the great truth
that play is a wicked waste of time
has been recognized to the extent of
abolishing even the stingy fifteen min
utes' recess doled out in most instances.
When there are Fairgrounds they are
neatly paved with artificial srone. and
almost big enough to swing cat in.
Sometimes the play room is IN Il nice,
dark cellar, where the toilet room is.
But the child may play after school
hours Oh, bless your heart, we have
fixed that all right, Home work We
give them home work to addle their
brains over by artificial light. And II
the child is II girl we plan how we can
make her suffer the most prolonged
agony possible i'm her adult life. We
choose the critical time and set her at
the piano Paper can be cut to play
better than she ever will, but that isn't
it, We want TO come as near as pos
sible to killing her without actually
doing so. No, your hour isn't up yet,
Dorothy. You march right back and
don't you come out of that parlor again
till you have practiced full hour, do
you hear me?
all hours, excite them with novels and
theaters, feed them on stimulating and
relatively innutrtious foods, and en-
courage them TO poison themselves
with candy, crunched and gulped down
before cane sugar has been digested
in the mouth We give them coffee
and tea to set their nerves on a tWlt-
ter. Good Lord! What don't we do to
kill them? We act like pack of fools,
we parents, and If any of our young
ones live to be twenty, are tolerably
sound of mind, aren't sick more than
half the time and have at least seven
teeth that don't ache, ii Is more by
good luck than good judgment Is it
any wonder that the eyes suffer along
with the rest of the body?
But most OF all, ii is the crazy no.
tion that the child's mind Is developed
by reading that is 10 blame for what
we call the degeneracy of the eye. OBJ
serving and comparing are what de-
Nelop the mind, but you can't beat
that into teachers head. One of
them told me the other day how much
better the schools We're in Germany
than in this country. Little children
there, she said, do sums i'm long diVis-
ion much faster than American chill
dren. | wanted TO shake her. They
keep the German children in school
almost all the waking day, and the
barbarous type they print books in in
creases the -sightedness from 20
to 70 per cent. in the lower grades to
60 and even 20 per cent. in the upper
grades. No wonder Germans are so
prone to suicide They had rather go
to the Bad Place forever than live a
little While in Germany.