s so simple and effective as this one, of depriving the
children of their immediate cash value." [4]

{83}

Another hindrance to the proper education of the children is the habit
of keeping them from school to run errands, to carry their fathers'
dinners, or to help with the housework. The girls are often taken away
from school very early for trivial reasons.

Recent developments in child study show that many of the moral and
mental obliquities of children may be traced to physical defects. In
dealing with wayward and dull children, the visitor should bear this
fact in mind, and, either by observation or by the help of a physician,
discover wherein the child is defective. The sooner a defect is
discovered, the easier it will be to cure it, and for this reason the
visitor should learn to apply simple tests for defective sight and
hearing.

In a very instructive article, which every visitor should read, on
"Child Study," [5] Professor Krohn says that "dull" children suffer
from defective hearing in ninety-nine out of one hundred cases. He
tells of one girl in a class who failed to answer correctly, and was
said by the teacher to be the most stupid child in the {84} school.
"After the class was dismissed, I told the teacher that I did not
believe that the little girl was intellectually stupid; that there was
probably some physical defect clogging the pathway to her active little
brain; and I requested an opportunity to talk to the child at recess,
when I found that she could not hear my stop-watch tick until it was
within nine inches of her right ear, and eleven inches of her left ear.
The average child, under the same local conditions, can hear the same
watch tick at a distance of twenty-one feet. How could the poor child
answer correctly when she could not hear what was asked? Every answer
was a mere guess. After a time any child would become stupid under
such conditions, believing it of no use to attempt to answer at all.
This little girl was, at my suggestion, given a seat not far from the
teacher's desk and especial pains was afterward taken to speak
distinctly to her. . . . She has since manifested such marked
improvement that, at the close of the last school year, she ranked
second in her class."

In puzzling cases of waywardness, the visitor {85} should seek the
advice of the agent of the local children's aid society, who is often
an expert, and glad to help one who is in earnest in such work. The
R