Sight reading

“ The phenomenon is particularly striking at the sight of certain human figures and faces, especially when beholding certain eyes, certain facial expressions, certain gestures, when hearing certain words, when reading certain passages, by looking over when looking at certain aspects of life, the world and fate. ”

“ Every glance of the eye, every motion of the hands or limbs made to gratify its curiosity, as it is called, is only an indication of its desire for information:—Every sight or sound calls its attention; every portable object is seized, mouthed, and examined, for the purpose of learning its qualities. These operations at the instigation of Nature are so common, that they are scarcely observed ”

“ Our subject, the sense of sight, is adapted to light and its modifications, colour and shade, and render to the perception the surface, form, and position of objects through the medium of light.
Sight and hearing seem to bear the most important characteristics, being employed on those objects which form the basis of human knowledge, viz., time and space. ”

“ THE STRUCTURE OF THE EYE. Of all the senses, says an ardent admirer of nature, the sight is certainly that which furnishes the mind with the quickest and most widely-extended perceptions. It is the source of the richest treasures of the imagination, and of our ideas of the beauty, order, and unity of the world around us. How unhappy are those whom a hard fate has deprived of the sense of sight from their birth! ”

“ Sight is a greater wonder, over and above that. Seeing is this, that the picture which is printed on the back of the eye, is also printed on our brain, so that we see it. There is the wonder of wonders. ”

“ The sense of sight has been wonderfully endowed with a duplicate power which we have come to call the mind's eye. With this visual faculty we produce some very important mental operations. We must first become conscious of this faculty and learn to use it intelligently and then to broaden its scope and increase its power to deal with details.
Visualization is the mind's eye reproduction of an impression made by the sense of sight. ”

“ But books, however eloquent and heart-searching they may be, cannot produce an effect comparable to that of seeing and hearing—to the sight and sound of emotion in men's faces and voices and in their words. ”

“ LIMITATIONS of the Senses.—The senses, which have hitherto been regarded as infallible, are even more narrowly defined than the memory or the higher qualities of intellect. So narrow is the range of vision—and the sight is certainly the best of the five senses—that the retina can appreciate a few only of the rays that come from the sun. ”

“ Better Eyesight, September 1919 A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF IMPERFECT SIGHT WITHOUT GLASSES
THE FLASHING CURE Do you read imperfectly? Can you observe then that when you look at the first word, or the first letter, of a sentence you do not see best where you are looking; that you see other words, or other letters, just as well as or better than the ones you are looking at? Do you observe also that the harder- you try to see the worse you see? ”

“ Imagination or the mental perception of images, that is, being regarded as an inward sight, and sight as the most precious of the senses, was derived from the same root as light, because light is essential to sight. ”

“ All these facts illustrate the leading role that vision plays in mental life—or, to speak physiologically, the high development of the cortical sight-center in man and its associative dominance over other cortical centers—as well as the great variety of its development in different individuals. Next to sight, the intellectually most valuable sense is hearing; that it owes much of this importance to its function as the medium of spoken language goes without saying. ”

“ If attention be the reproduction of the sensation from within, the habit of reading not merely with the eye, and of listening not merely with the ear, but of articulating to one's self the words seen or heard, ought to deepen one's attention to the latter. ”

“ The long-sighted should accustom themselves to read with rather less light, and somewhat nearer to the eye than what they naturally like; while those that are short-sighted, should rather use themselves to read with the book as far off as possible: by this means, both would improve and strengthen their sight; while a contrary course will increase its natural imperfections. ”

“ Its aim is to teach the unscientific observer how to make use of his eye,—'how to look, and what to look at;' and to show him how much of wonder and beauty lies everywhere around him, if he could only recognise it. ”

“ Our prevailing eye-mindedness is further shown by the readiness with which the mind is impressed through the eye, and the ease with which visual images are retained. A teacher, wishing to impress some essential point, illustrates or even writes the same upon the blackboard. A child who has been told a hundred times, without result, to correct some fault, finally learns the new way at once when presented to him by sight or touch. ”

“ This longing--since its origin is our appetite for learning, and since the sight is the chief of our senses in the acquisition of knowledge--is called in the divine language “the lust of the eyes.” [63] For seeing is a function of the eyes; yet we also use this word for the other senses as well, when we exercise them in the search for knowledge. ”

“ Since small objects cannot be seen without central fixation, the reading of fine print, when it can be done, is one of the best of visual exercises, and the dimmer the light in which it can be read and the closer to the eye it can be held the better. ”

“ Although much of the pleasure which the world affords us comes through the other senses, the basis of almost all our accurate knowledge is reported by sight. It is true that what we have observed with our eyes may be set forth in words, and thus find its way to the understanding through the ears; also that in many instances the sense of touch conveys information which extends our perceptions in many important ways; but science rests practically on sight, and on the insight that comes from the training of the mind which the eyes make possible. ”

“ The seeing eye will find material in the street car, in the department store, in the dentist's waiting room, in college halls, on a lonely country road--anywhere and everywhere. And the seeing eye is cultivated by a perpetual process of comparing life as it is with life as it is portrayed in literature and in art. In other words, to get material to write about, you must cultivate alertness to the nature and value of your own life-experience, and to the nature and value of all forms of life with which you come into contact ”

“ There are three general methods of mind-reading—by the touch, by the eye, and by the ear. My article was devoted only to the method and modifications of the method introduced by Brown—by the touch. Mind-reading by the eye—that is, watching the movements and changes of the features, or of the hand or fingers—is done every day by all of us, and is frequently utilized with great success by mediums. ”

“ By cultivating the memory under these favorable conditions, it gradually becomes possible to retain it under unfavorable on that is, when the eyes are open and the mind conscious of the impressions of sight. ”

“ It is the eye of the mind that sees through the material eye, and thus discerns objects in nature.
The power of sight chiefly depends upon two things, the strength, clearness, and perfection of the lens of the natural eye, and the force and direction of mental light. The intelligence of vision, other things being equal, is in proportion to the quality of intellectual light. ”

“ Seeing and hearing are opposite functions; the first indicates the creation, the latter the return of the creation into chaos.
2911. Through sight we become acquainted with the universe, through hearing with the miniature universe, or man. Sight passes out of us, hearing into us; or through sight Man is posited in the world, through hearing among his fellow-men. Sight is the speech of the world, hearing that of the planet. ”

“ When the eye and the memory are sufficiently trained to easily recognize and name each letter and figure at sight, and when some knowledge has been gained of the power of letters and figures in combination, then the same forms in books will be at once familiar as old acquaintances, and may be studied without straining the sight. To train the hand without straining the sight presents a greater practical difficulty. ”

“ Added to such study, is the general training which gives us power to picture the unknown, interpreting a new scene through its relation to our old experience. The ready and trained imagination easily pictures the scene which the words conjure before the mind—makes real the homestead, snowbound and comfortfilled. Reading may be so taught as to develop this power, which takes hold on things unseen. No careful teacher omits such training.
Here, then, are different phases of teaching reading: mastery of the words as to form and sound ”

“ The context, of course, gives a general impression of what the poet intended, but unless experience has given the reader this bit of nature-lore, the color and vitality of the passage are greatly lessened. One of the priceless advantages to be gained from a habit of careful reading is the consciousness of the significance of small things, and in consequence the habit of observing them carefully. ”

“ We have now probably said enough to convince the attentive reader that the sense of sight, when brought under its own notice as a sensation, either directly, or through the ministry of the touch, or of the imagination (as it is when revealed to us in its organ) , falls very far, falls almost infinitely within its own sphere. Sight, revealing itself as a sense, spreads over a span commensurate with the diameter of the whole visible space ”

“ In the second-sight, the vision makes such a lively impression on the seers, that they neither see nor think of anything else but the vision as long as it continues, and then they appear pensive or jovial, according to the object which was presented to them. ”

“ We have before illustrated, by means of the pen and the ink-bottle, how one object is lost sight of when the other is attentively regarded, and a material picture or scene may be equally lost sight of, and a mental picture take its place in the eye, when we recall places or people we have seen or remembered. ”

“ Utterances of this kind illustrate the fact that perception of the ur-images of the world consists in a reading with the eye-of-the-spirit, which has been rendered so strong that for its action no support from the physical eye is any longer required. ”

“ Because imagination adds to the sight of spring the image of the seasons which are yet to come; the eye sees the tender shoot, the mind's eye beholds its flowers, fruit, and foliage, and even the mysteries they may conceal. ”

“ If we are ever poring over the same page, the sphere of vision is bounded by the four corners of our book; if we will never lift our eyes, we may shut out even the glories of Nature and the light of Heaven, until we come insensibly to forget them. ”

“ The large amount of information which has been combined with incidents of an interesting nature, to insure the pupil's earnest and thoughtful attention.
The length of the selections for reading,-the attention of pupils being held more readily by long selections than by short ones, though of equal interest. ”

“ Art, whether sculpture, painting, drama, music, is of sight or hearing. The reason is simple. Sight and hearing are the distant senses; sight is, as some one has well said, “touch at a distance.” Sight and hearing are of things already detached and somewhat remote; they are the fitting channels for art which is cut loose from immediate action and reaction. Taste and touch are too intimate, too immediately vital. ”

“ The consideration of these two senses, sight and hearing, with their appropriate objects, light and sound, sufficiently explain and illustrate our point. For what holds good with regard to them, holds equally good with regard to all our other perceptions. ”

“ All the information which we possess of the world around us comes to us through the use of the senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. Of the five senses, sight and hearing are generally considered the most valuable. In preceding Chapters we studied the important facts relative to light and the power of vision; it remains for us to study Sound as we studied Light, and to learn what we can of sound and the power to hear. ”

“ Also, human beings shut off sight with peculiar case, by closing their eyes or by the calamity of blindness. The information provided by mere sight is peculiarly barren — namely, external regions disclosed as coloured. ”

“ In fact, I am again taking interest in the world, I am testing my faculty of observation, and am trying how far I can go with my science and my acquirements, how far my eye is clear and sharp, how much I can take in at a hasty glance, and whether those wrinkles, that are imprinted upon my heart, are ever again to be obliterated. ”

“ We will return, for the sake of simplicity, to the sense of sight, which we chose as our example.The result of positing sensations and then constructing perception with them. Psychology has accustomed us to assume the elementary sensations corresponding to the impressions received by the rods and cones of the retina. With these sensations it goes on to reconstitute visual perception. ”

“ In SIGHT, the organ is very conspicuous, and has an appropriate name, the Eye.
In ordinary language, the object of sight is the body which is said to be seen. This is a similar error to those which we have detected in the vulgar language relating to the senses of smell and hearing. It is Light alone which enters the eye; and Light, with its numerous modifications, is the sole object on sight. ”