one particular study that comes to mind, a study of
short-sightedness alone (published, however, some years ago) it was
shown that the increase was from practically none at all to
approximately 100%. In other words, the work of the schools had made
practically every child near-sighted. And the general tendency seems to
be in this direction. Indeed, I know of but one study in which a
contrary tendency has been observed. And that was in a rural
district--St. Louis County, Missouri--where a study was made about four
years ago. Under the conditions observed there, the frequency of
short-sightedness seemed to diminish with increasing age. And the
reasons for this local tendency, being so directly contrary to the
general tendency, men have been trying to understand. Various
suggestions have been made such as the atmosphere of the rural as
against the city districts being, in the main, more favorable from
hygienic points of view; or the fewer pupils in the classes in school,
thus enabling the teachers to give more personal attention so preventing
undue eye-strain; and the shorter school year maintained in the country
giving the children less prolonged periods of eye-strain. But whatever
be the explanation of this interesting exception, it yet remains true
that the regular work of the school, week in, week out, year after year,
causes the eyes of our children to deteriorate, or at least the two go
hand in hand with grounds for a very strong suspicion in the minds of
those who have expert knowledge of the general situation that the one is
the cause of the other.

With this point established, namely, that the work of the schools is but
ill-adapted to the structure the nature of the child's eye, resulting in
steady deterioration, let us try to see how widespread is such
deterioration and how serious. This can best be done briefly thru the
use of a few statistics taken from the results of investigations that
have been made as to the physical conditions of our school children.
From these results I disregard all figures save those that bear on the
matter of visual defects since that is our one topic of discussion.

In Cleveland, Ohio, in 1906-1907, a very exhaustive and illuminating
investigation was made under the general supervision of Dr. Wallin, one
of the most eminent authorities on the relationship of the physical and
the mental in the work of our schools. Dr. Wallin called to his
assistance many experts, both medical and phy