Betty, aged 13 years, usually found a convenient comer of our room where she could watch the patients having their eyes treated. She had no trouble with her eyes, but always came with her school chum who was under treatment. She listened attentively as I encouraged the patients, but was never troublesome nor did she ask any questions at any time. Somehow, she obtained a Snellen test card and helped some of her playmates recover their vision. She brought several of them to me to make sure that they could get along without their glasses.

One of the children was a boy, twelve years old, named John, who had worn glasses for five years and was very near-sighted. The school doctor had ordered glasses for him at the age of seven. Dr. Bates examined them and discovered that the boy was wearing far-sighted glasses for myopia, or near-sight. When they were changed the year before, the optician who sold them had made a terrible error. No wonder Johnnie was willing to have Betty help him! She told me that he could only see the fifty line of the card ten feet away without his glasses. When I tested Johnnie he placed himself fifteen feet away from the card and read every line of letters without a mistake. He told me how Betty spent an hour with him almost every day for three weeks, until he became able to read the card at any distance Betty desired him to read it. I am sorry she stopped coming to the clinic. Her parents moved away, and I lost a very good assistant.