estion at the present time to
have the majority of children given a more thorough test than that
provided by the Snellen card. Where eye strains escape this test
teachers will find evidence in complaints of headache, nervousness,
sick stomach, chorea, or even epilepsy. The constant strain may also
cause red or inflamed lids. Parents and teachers must be on the
constant lookout for these symptoms of good sight persisting in spite
of imperfect eyes.

An epidemic of eyeglasses is usually the consequence of eye tests. So
naturally do we associate eyeglasses with eye defects that some people
assert that the eye tests at school originate with opticians more
intent upon selling spectacles than upon helping children. In fact,
even among educators who proclaim the need for eye tests there has been
far more talk of eyeglasses than of removable conditions that cause eye
strain. The women principals of New York City have sounded an alarm,
and urge more attention to light and to reading position, more rest,
more play, more hand work, less home study and less eye work at school,
rather than more eyeglasses to conceal temporarily the effect of
abusing children's eyes. Putting glasses on children without changing
causal conditions is like giving alcohol to consumptives. The feeling
of relief is deceptive. The trouble grows worse.

For some time to come eye tests will find eye troubles by the wholesale
in every industrial and social class, in country as well as city
schools. In 415 New York villages 48.7 per cent of school children had
defects of vision,--this without testing children under seven,--while
11.3 per cent had sore eyes.

There are three possible ways of remedying defects: (1) changing the
eye by operation; (2) changing the light as it enters the eye by
eyeglasses; (3) decreasing the demands made upon the eye. To change
eyes or light requires a technical skill which few physicians as yet
possess. It will be remembered that it is but thirty years since the
medical profession in America first began to understand the relation of
eye defects to other defects. Until a generation of physicians has been
trained by medical colleges to learn the facts about the eye and to
apply scientific remedies, it is especially necessary that teachers and
parents reduce the demands made upon children's eyes; oral can be
substituted for written work, manual for optical work, relaxed and
natural movement for discipline, outdoor exercise for less