n
the slightest degree. Thus considered, these same sense organs, simple
as they seem to be, leap into importance that almost staggers one's
thought. The most priceless possession of any child, I often say to my
classes in education, is made up of their eyes, their ears, their noses,
their tongues, and their finger tips--simply because thru them is poured
the nourishment that sustains psychic life and ministers to the
development of the same.

Of these five sense organs, the eye is, par excellence, the one of
value. More psychic nourishment is poured into the laboratory of psychic
life thru this one channel alone than thru all others combined. Indeed,
one of our most eminent scientific psychologists after making most
careful investigation of the matter, estimates that the eye's
contribution is about 74% as against the other 26% that comes thru all
the other sources. If this relative value of the eye be even
approximately correct, how eminently important it is that it be studied
with close scientific accuracy, that it be guarded with the utmost and
intelligent jealousy, and that it be cared for with the most scrupulous
fidelity!

But what is the situation? The Optician and the Oculist have made the
most careful, scientific study of the eye. They know it thoroly, both
its possibilities of service and its limitations. And they have told the
rest of us all about it. But let us see how intelligent we are in the
use of the knowledge they have given us. They tell us that the eye of
the child is undeveloped and that in the undeveloped state it should not
be much used on small or close work. In other words, the child's eye is
far-sighted. But at the age of six years we place the child in the
school room, put a book in its hands, and compel its use, eyes or no
eyes, as long as the child remains in any institution of learning. Why,
gentlemen, we have gone mad on this book proposition. We act as tho we
think that it is only in the book that knowledge can be found. We act as
tho we think that it is only thru the printed page that psychic
nourishment can reach the inner life of the child, whereas, as a matter
of fact, both the knowledge and the nourishment that are appropriate to
the child in all its early years are better obtained thru direct contact
with the great outside world itself and by direct communication from the
lips of the teacher. If this fact were fully appreciated and acted upon,
we should, in two very definite ways,