Short sight in relation to education : an address delivered to the Birmingham Teachers' Association, November 2nd, 1880 / by Priestly Smith.
- Smith, Priestley.
- Date:
- 1880
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Short sight in relation to education : an address delivered to the Birmingham Teachers' Association, November 2nd, 1880 / by Priestly Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)
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![therefore, very feeble as compared witli tliat presented by black letters on white paper. As a matter of fact the writing on a slate is almost invisible in the darker parts of some school-rooms, or only visible vdien held very close to the eyes. I have seen a row of little boys, standing their faces directed towards the window, their slates luigged against their chests and within a few inches of their eyes, striving with greasy pencils to unravel the mysteries of arithmetic. Surely the subject is hard enough without unnecessary difficulties. It would be well, if it were possible, to abolish slates entirely in favour of some kind of permanent-pointed pencil and cheap paper. Economy will probably forbid. But at least it is possible to provide that children using slates shall do so when light is brightest and not wdien it is worst, and that they shall be so placed that the light may fall upon their slates and not upon their faces. The same remarks apply to needlework, perhaps even more forcibly than to slates, for the contrast between the stitches and the stuff is feebler still than that presented by the writing on the slate, and stitches are, or ought to be, smaller than any w^ritten letters. I cannot help sur- mising that it is needlework which explains the fact that among the Board-school children examined by me, short- sight was in each of the three schools more frequent among the girls than among the boys. This is hardly the place to refer to the excessive devotion to fancy needlework which is sometimes met with in a higher class of life. I will only say that it is hardly less injurious than an excessive devotion to study. Our third requirement was that the object looked at shall he so ]jlaced as to he vieived ivithout stooping. If I desire to read, standing as I do now, with head erect, I instinctively hold my book in a sloping position and on](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21637453_0032.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
