In one of the public schools of New York, some years ago, was a boy about ten years old with a very unusual amount of freckles. He had one of those smiles which some care-free boys carry around with them all the time, in all places, and under all conditions. His teacher was a very nervous person wearing glasses. Every time she spoke I was annoyed, not so much by what she said as by the disagreeable way in which she said it. As soon as I entered the room she began to find fault with me for introducing my method of curing and preventing imperfect sight in children into the school. Pointing sternly at the freckle-faced boy she said:
"That boy is very nearsighted. He holds his book too close to his eyes. He cannot read the writing on the blackboard. He is all the time looking at the Snellen test card instead of studying his lessons. He talks about it to the other children in the class, and he encourages them to practice reading it. He tells them that he feels good when he reads it. Makes his eyes feel better. Helps him to learn his lessons. He is impertinent because he persists brazenly in advising me, his teacher, to practice reading those fool letters- which do not even spell a word and have no meaning whatever. I wish you Would insist that he get glasses for his own eyes and make him stop taking glasses off the eyes of other children. Really, Doctor, it is too absurd for anything. That boy has actually persuaded the other children that they cure their headaches and improve their sight by reading that card. If it were not for the princi~al, I would have thrown it away long ago."
She said some other things, too, which were even more uncomplimentary. The children became restless. \Vhen she stopped for breath I took the freckle-faced boy into a dark room, and examined his eyes with the ophthalmoscope. I found them perfect, with no trace of myopia or astigmatism. I asked him
"How is it that the teacher says you cannot read the writing on the blackboard?"
He replied, still with his wonderful smile: "Because she is such a bum writer that nobody can read it; she acts often as if she couldn't read it herself." "
"How is it," I continued, "that you hold the book so close to vour face?"
He answered apologetically: "Because I get tired of the scenery."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"Oil," he answered, "the teacher's face; I don't like it. She is always so cross; her face gives me a pain."
Then I took him back to the classroom and sent him to his seat. I asked the teacher if she could read the bottom line on the Snellen test card. She could not do so. Then I showed her an unfamiliar test card, which she saw even worse. She explained that her glasses needed to be changed. I asked the freckle-faced hov if he could read it. "Yes." lie said, and promptly (lid so.
The teacher exploded. It was impossible, she said, that he should have read the letters, he must have found out in some other way what they were. She pointed to the clock, "What time is it?" she asked.
The boy answered her correctly. Then she held up a hook with very large print, which the boy also read at five feet. She was finalty convinced by these and other tests that the boy's sight was better than her own. When she was through 1 pointed to some very small letters which nobody could see at the distance at which the boy was sitting. He smiled, and said he could not see them.
"But." I said, "you are not trying, you are making; un effort to see them."
At that the teacher unexpectedly struck the top of her desk with her ruler, and we all jumped. with the exception of the freckle-faced boy, who had learned how to protect himself from such influences. With a rasping voice she cried,
"Why don't you do what the doctor tells you to do?"
In a short time my nerves returned to something like the normal, and I turned to the boy and asked
"Why don't you try?"
He replied, still smiling: "No use tryin'."
With this as my text I talked for a few moments, and told the class that the boy was right and that your sight is never perfect when you try to see. You only make yourself uncomfortable by the strain, and it never benefits you. I then proceeded to have the pupils demonstrate some facts. I directed them to keep their attention fixed on the smallest, letter they could see from their seats, to stare at it, to try to see it better, to concentrate, to partly close their eyelids-in short, to (to everything they could to improve their si;h[. I noted that the teacher, who had previously walked to the back of the room, was listening to what I was saying. The children did as I suggested, and soon found that the effort made them very uncomfortable and lowered their vision. 1 now asked one pupil to tell me the smallest letter he could see. He answered:
"A letter O on the next to the bottom line." "When you saw it did you see it easily?" He answered: "Yes, without any trouble."
Then I said to him: "when you tried to see it, when you made trouble for your eyes by an effort, by a strain, what happened ?"
He answered: "Tire letter disappeared, the whole card became blurred, I got a headache, and I don't like it." "Close your eyes," I said, "and rest them Cove, your eyes with the Palms of ynnr hands and shut out all the light. Now tell me who discovered America."
"Columbus," he replied, "in 149?." "Can you spell Columbus," I asked. "Yes," he answered, "C-o-1-u-m-b-u-s."
All this time the teacher was standing with her eyes closed and covered with her hands.
"You spelled it correctly," I said. "How is your headache?"
"Gone," he replied, "and I feel good."
I noted that the teacher still had here eyes covered, and when the boy said his headache was relieved she nodded her head. I now directed the boy to take his hands down, open his eves and tell me how much he could see.
"Gee" he exclaimed, "I see better. The letter O is all right, and I can see some of the letters on the bottom line." With that he put both his hands in the pockets of his trousers, smiled at me, and turned around and grinned at the class. A little girl wearing glasses now timidly raised her hand, and when I told her to speak, said :
"Please, sir, I have an awful headache."
Her eves looked very much strained. I told her to take off her glasses and put them on the desk, to look at the card and read what she could see. At this point, the teacher at the back of the room removed her hands from her face, took off her glasses and placed them on the desk in front of her. I asked the little girl what she could see:
"I can only see the largest letter at the top of the card." She was told to close her eyes and cover them with the palms of her hands. The teacher did the same, and all the other children wearing glasses took them off, looked at the card, closed their eyes and covered them with the palms of their hands. Then 1 said to the little girl who had the awful headache.
"What is your first name?" "Margaret," she answered. "Can you spell it?" I asked, and she spelled it. "What is your last name?"
She told me, and at my request she spelled it also. Then she smiled.
"How is your headache?"
"I haven't any," she answered.
"Take down your hands, open your eyes and kindly read the letters for me on the card."
She promptly read four lines of letters, and looked very happy when she did it. Meanwhile the teacher and the other pupils who had been wearing glasses had been doing the same, and when they looked at the card the second time they smiled, evidently pleased with what they saw. I was surprised to observe that even the teacher smiled, and when, as I was about to leave the room, she came forward and threw her glasses into the waste-basket. I was quite shocked. Turning to me she said:
"Doctor, need 1 say anything?"
"You have said it, thank you" I replied.
As I went out of the door I heard the class call out in a chorus:
"Thank you, thank you."
After this the Board of Education condemned my method as "unscientific and erroneous," and forbade the use of the Snellen test card in the schools, except for the usual purpose of testing the children's sight. Thus my pleasant visits to the classrooms came to tii end. Some years later, however, I called on the teacher of the freckle-faced boy to ask about hint. She met me smiling and without glasses, and I noted that the Snellen test card was still on the wall. In response to my inquiry as to why it should be there after the Board of Education had forbidden its use, she replied:
"The Board of Education has not the power to make me take that card down."
Then I asked about the freckle-faced bov. "Graduated," she replied.
As he was below the age at which children usually graduate from the public schools, I expressed some surprise. "Rapid advancement class'," she said." Got through my class in a hurry and took a lot of my other children with him to the rapid advancement class. Must be half through high school now. Bright boy."
I have written a book on The Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasscs which contains several hundred pages. The freckle-faced boy told in three words substantially what is contained in that book.
Honestly if you don't have the time or will to read even one book (and study it), there's no way you're going to be able to recover your eyesight on your own.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Subject: It is always risky to simplify -- excessively.
But at this point I have read Bates extensively -- and believe his early work was VERY IMPORTANT.
Quote:hey can any one brief up the whole book into important points.. what to do and what not to do? shal we start by discarding glasses??
1. Read your Snellen. Confirm where you stand. If 20/20 you are OK. If you are
going down to 20/40 -- then wake up.
2. If you are seeing 20/60 -- then you must NOT get a minus lens, but must get 'busy" with Bates
and clear your Snellen back to normal -- so you NEVER NEED A MINUS.
If everyone was TAUGHT to do that -- and always kept their Snellens clear under THEIR control, no
one would ever wear a minus lens.
That was Bates goal, and that is how he thought it must be done.
can any one brief the verbose book ??
