The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-27
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON.

Did it ever occur to you how astonish-
| lngly little most of US see of all that we
| look at?
The other day was asked what was
the color of a house next door to the hotel
In which had stopped several days and
actually couldn't say.
And vet 1 must have looked at that
house at least hundred times.
Doubtiess am remarkably unobserving.
out fancy many people have similar, If
not as inexcusable, experiences.
/ read the other day that when a test of
| this sort was made to see how observing
school children are many of the children
questioned could not tell whether the
columns in the vestibule of the building
which they passed daily were round or
square. Some of them, furthermore, had
not even noticed the peculiar shape of a
triangular window in the wall above the
teachers head, although they must have
looked at this aperture half a hundred
times daily.
At a party which once attended one of
the games was for each person to pass
by table loaded with all kinds of OBJ
Jects and then write down the names of
as many of the articles as he could re-
member. There was a prize for the per-
son with the longest list. but although
there were fifty objects on the table I
remember that the prize winner had
named only about twenty. The rest of
US ranged from there down to ten or
twelve
Nor was this because it IS not possible
Tor even an observing human being to
take in so much in a short time. Why, it
Is related, of the celebrated HOudin that
he could run past a shop window in Paris.
cast INTO II a single glance and enumerate
correctly every one of a hundred different
articles displayed there.
The trouble is that most of US do not
train ourselves to see what we look at.
1t seems to me that the game mention
ed would be an excellent thing with which
to amuse the children some rainy after
noon and incidentally give them a sugar
coated pill of benefit.
And far that goes, do think it
would not do any harm for some of us
TO
After you pass shop window try to
recall as many articles as possible.
See ii you can tell what color all the
houses on your street or in your immedi-
ate neighborhood are.
Try to recall what are the objects of
furniture in some friends living room.
Look at your desk or your bureau for
few seconds and then shut your eyes and
see if you can correctly enumerate every
article upon it.
Another interesting experiment is to
and see if you cannot discover something
about it that you never noticed before.
In nine cases out of ten you can
The other day [ was obliged to wait for
a train in a very unpleasant spot where
. most interesting things to look at were
i Ii a dozen pigeons which were strutting
up and down the track, pecking up some
grain which had providentially overflowed
from freight car.
I looked at those pigeons as had never
looked at pigeons before and soon i
noticed the most peculiar concomitance
between the motion of the feet and the
motion of the head. 1t seemed as if they
ternal spring. Now I've carelessly looked
at pigeons a thousand times before, but
never noticed that because L never really
observed them intently.
We fret at monotony of scenes. We
complain that we cannot afford to travel
and see distant lands. But how few of US
town, our own street and neighborhood
with anything like seeing eyes