The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1944-09-02

his column.
to which it has been accustomed.
These demands affect particularly
two organs-the eye and the ear
and, of course, a third-the brain.
Even in early childhood the par
ents usually can spot the situation
if the child for some reason or
other is more or less hard of hear
ing. But defects of vision may &C.
cur without anyone being aware
Of them.
In the playtime world Of baby
hood and early childhood, the re-
quirements of accuracy for vision
are not very exact. The toys, the
playmates, the food and eating
utensils are large and if they are
a little bury the child has no
awareness of it, because it has no
standards of comparison, and it
does not complain, and the parents
may be entirely unaware Of a gross
nearsightedness or astigmatism.
But as soon as it is necessary to
distinguish letters and figures the
blurring may amount to enough
so that confusion is constant.
Many of these children are regard
ed as stupid or inattentive, when
the real trouble is that they can
not see letters on the printed page
or on charts clearly and naturally
do not know what the demonstra-
ton is all about.
Real Problem
In one state where statistics OF
he preliminary examination Of
children before entering school
are we'll kept it was found a few
years ago that there were $4,000
children with defective vision and
1900 with defective hearing. So
the problem is real.
The far-sighted eye can accom-
modate and bring objects into TO-
Gus by strong muscular contrac-
ton of the muscles which thicken
the lens of the eye. But this i'm
poses strain more or less severe
and the far sighted child while not
accused Of stupidity like the near
sighted one, because he can by an
effort see the letters Of the lesson
clearly, will begin when school
tasks are imposed to complain Of
eye strain-aching eyes, rubbing
the eyes, headaches, burning SEN
sation in the eye lids, etc. He is
subject to styes because he rubs
his eyes so much with contaminat-
ed fingers.
The near-sighted eye cannot
make adjustments for distant OBJ
jects, because to bring q distant
image into focus on his retina he
has to relax the lens-the oppo-
site Of what the far-sighted child
does-and there are no muscles to
do this beyond a certain point. So
the near-sighted child guesses at
the images on the chart, and gets
into corresponding amounts OF diff
ficulty. The condition may be sus-
pected if the child is seen holding
a book very close to the eyes, but
there are all degrees Of near-sight-
edness and this test may not be
sufficiently positive to arouse the
suggestion that he is suffering
from a visual defect.
The near-sighted child may in
fact do close work better and with
less difficulty and strain than the
far-sighted scholar.
Astigmatism is another defect
for which the child may compen-
safe, but this compensation leads
TO eye strain.
An enormous amount Of sd-
vance has boan made in the public
hygiene Elects by modern
printers ting engineers.
wonder ,alize how much
work an, mt is behind the
type selec. or clarity and easy
reliability by your newspaper edi'
tor. As to lighting, the modern
engineer no longer aims at bright
ness alone, because that usually
brings on glare.