William Horatio Bates

“ LYING AS A CAUSE OF MYOPIA I may claim to have discovered the fact that telling lies is bad for the eyes. Whatever bearing this circumstance may have upon the prevalence of defects of vision, it can easily be demonstrated that it is impossible to say what is not true, even with no intent to deceive, or even to imagine a falsehood, without producing an error of refraction.
If a patient can read all the small letters on the bottom line of the test card, and either deliberately or carelessly miscalls any of them, the retinoscope will indicate an error of refraction. ”

“ When one has a headache or a pain in the eyes or in any part of the body the optimum swing is always wider and more difficult to imagine than when one has less strain of the eyes. Under un-favorable conditions the long swing is the optimum swing, but under favorable conditions when the sight is good, the normal swing of the normal eye with normal sight is the optimum swing. The long swing brings a measure of relief when done right and makes it possible to shorten it down to the normal swing of the normal eye. ”

“ The extraordinary memory of primitive people has been attributed to the fact that, owing to the absence of any convenient means of making written records, they had to depend upon their memories, which were strengthened accordingly; but in view of the known facts about the relation of memory to eyesight it is more reasonable to suppose that the retentive memory of primitive man was due to the same cause as his keen vision: namely, a mind at rest. ”

“ A third patient with normal sight in the right eye and vision of one-tenth in the left could remember a period twelve seconds with both eyes open and only two seconds when the better eye was closed. In other words if the right eye is better than the left the memory is better when the right eye is open than when only the left eye is open.
Under the present educational system there is a constant effort to compel the children to remember. These efforts always fail. They spoil both the memory and the sight. The memory cannot be forced any more than the vision can be forced. ”

“ But when asked to look at objects which aroused an intense interest her vision became normal.
When one is not interested, in short, one's mind is not under control, and without mental control one can neither learn nor see. Not only the memory but all other mental faculties are improved when the eyesight becomes normal. It is a common experience with patients cured of defective sight to find that their ability to do their work has improved. ”

“ If nothing else can be remembered you can imagine part of the test card and when you imagine some of the letters with your eyes closed and imagine the form of each letter, not trying to remember any particular letter any length of time, because that is a strain, your mind will be relaxed when you get out of bed.
After arising, practice the sway. Always blink while swaying. After the sway do the long swing; let your head and eyes alone, allow your body to do the moving. Pay no attention to stationary objects which appear to be moving as you swing. ”

“ The primitive memory as well as primitive keenness of vision have been found among civilized people, and if the necessary tests had been made it would doubtless have been found that they always occur together, as they did in a case which recently came under my observation. The subject was a child of ten with such marvelous eyesight that she could see the moons of Jupiter with the naked eye, a fact which was demonstrated by her drawing a diagram of these satellites which exactly corresponded to the diagrams made by persons who had used a telescope. ”

“ When writing for practice always place your small black card to the right or to the left of your desk and after writing a sentence or two, raise your head and look over to the card at any letter that you see easily without straining. ”

“ Betty Smith's interest in winning a prize, for instance, or in merely getting ahead of Johnny Jones, may have the effect of rousing her interest in lessons that have hitherto bored her, and this interest may develop into a genuine interest in the acquisition of knowledge ”

“ It is not spontaneous but has to be produced by a conscious movement of the eyes and head from side to side and is usually wider than the width of the letter, faster than the normal swing, and not so easily produced. ”

“ Bates to devote more time to the writing of new books an treatment alone for which there has been a very great demand during the past year. Subscriptions for the remaining months, however, are being received. We request that all those who desire to be notified upon the publication of new books kindly send us their names and addresses, which will be kept on file. ”

“ From all these facts it will be seen that the problems of vision are far more intimately associated with the prob-lems of education than we had supposed, and that they can by no means be solved by putting concave, or convex, or astigmatic lenses before the eyes of the children. ”