children are given instruction in hygiene,
taught to properly care for the nose, throat, eyes and teeth. These
lessons begin as early as the second grade, and are illustrated with
charts showing how perfect teeth and eyes should look. These lessons
include the harmful effect of enlarged tonsils and adenoids, and the
children are very anxious to be in as perfect condition as those shown
in the pictures. A teacher of one of these classes in Boston took her
children to a museum, where they spent a morning studying statuary. The
next day, wishing to see how they had been impressed by what they saw,
she asked, among other questions, "What do you remember about
Aphrodite?" One little boy held his hand up, saying, "She has adenoids."
"What makes you think so?" asked the teacher, wonderingly. "Why, she had
her mouth open all the time." The children learn just how far from the
eyes a book should be held, and often call attention to a companion
whose myopic condition makes it necessary to hold the book very close.
And so the outlook for the children is very promising. With conservation
of vision classes, classes in hygiene, with school nurses and clinics,
with medical inspection of schools, and with the public aroused as never
before to its responsibility towards its boys and girls, we should have
less need for oculists and schools for the blind, and fewer persons
should be obliged to go through life deprived of the light, which was
God's first gift to the world.

Before discussing the prevention of blindness in adults, I wish to say a
few words concerning the attitude of oculists toward patients suffering
from eye diseases which, in all probability, will result in loss of
vision. If, for some special reason, the oculist fears it would be
unwise to tell the patient that blindness is imminent, he should at
least urge him to conserve his remaining vision, and advise him to do as
many things as possible by touch, and warn him of the consequences of
eyestrain. But, whenever possible, it is kinder to prepare the patient
for oncoming blindness, so that he may shape his life accordingly, and
may be induced to learn to read raised type, and use a writing device,
before the light is entirely gone. Most of us exclaim over our trifling
hurts, the mosquito bites of life, but when the real trial comes, when
we know we must face a great crisis, we square our shoulders, take a
long breath, and meet the inevitable with courage and fortitude. I w