ptimist, and should exercise common sense in guiding the
adult over the first lap of the unfamiliar road. I have advised the
volunteers who are now in France, and those preparing to go there, to
take writing boards, games, bright, pithy stories, and a lot of nonsense
verse. I have told these Red Cross workers that they themselves must
know how to laugh, must be able to rise above the horrors about them,
for they are there to serve heroes, not cowards, heroes who will laugh
with a sob in their throats; heroes who, after a short respite, will
reach for a new sword with which to resume the battle of life. God grant
we may have the new swords ready for them--swords of hope, swords of
confidence, swords from which all the old prejudice and misconception
have been removed--swords of occupation and independence!

Of this readjustment period, Clarence Hawkes, the well-known blind
naturalist who lost his eyesight at the age of fifteen, says: "the loss
of eyesight seems, for a time, to upset the perfect working of the
nervous system. The nerves have to adjust themselves to new conditions,
and rearrange the channels of communication. On first losing one's
eyesight, one is impressed with the fact that all noises sound much too
loud, and it takes several months for sounds to get toned down to their
normal volume, and one never quite overcomes the tendency to jump at
sudden sharp noises."

As to the blind child the senses of touch, hearing and smell prove
efficient carriers of knowledge, so these senses come to the rescue of
the blind adult, and compensate, in large measure, for the loss of
eyesight. Training does not increase the sensitiveness of a sense organ.
It merely puts this capacity to better use. So the blind adult does not
suddenly come into possession of wonderful powers, but, in time, his
"acquired sense perception" enables him to do many things hitherto
considered impossible of accomplishment. But to the casual observer,
anything done without eyesight is considered little short of marvelous.
The adult soon learns to recognize voices and footsteps, to measure
distance with a fair degree of accuracy, and, in many cases, to go about
alone, with only the friendly cane for company. Many of the blind have
what is defined as a "sense of obstacles," and it is sometimes called a
sixth sense. Dr. Illingworth defines this sense as "an exceedingly
subtle kind of instinct that enables a blind individual to detect the
presence or pro