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pains in the eyes, owe these ills largely or wholly to such defects. Generally neither they nor their parents nor their teachers are aware of the cause of their troubles. The examination of hundreds of thousands of school children has demonstrated that from twenty-five to thirty-five per cent, of them need the services of an oculist or of an aurist or of both; these handicaps can be removed and the children be able to receive the full benefits of instruction. In Utica, New York, an examination of over 6,000 pupils showed that about thirty-five per cent, were defective, and the report says "Our tests revealed many sad and critical cases which were remediable because discovered at this stage of development. Many parents could not strongly enough express their gratitude to the teachers. Cases of what had been considered dullness or willful inattention on the part of pupils were shown to have been due to inability to see or hear." In Chicago it was found that on entering school at the age of six years thirty-two per cent, of the pupils had defective eyes. In the schools thirty-seven per cent, of the girls and thirty-two per cent, of the boys, or an average of thirty-five per cent., were defective and these tests were made by an expert. In Minneapolis out of 25,696 pupils examined 8,166, or thirty-two per cent., had defective eyesight. Similar conditions differing only in degree, have been found wherever tests have been made.

In New York City Dr. Cronin finds that over 30 per cent, of the school children are suffering from the gross forms of defective eyesight. It must be remembered that the worst defects are not included in these statistics.

Lastly, the greatest of the misfortunes which may be traced to this cause are those connected with intellectual progress, the literary workers being those who suffer most. In direct and indirect ways the advances of civilization are most frequently conditioned upon use of the eyes in writing and reading. Certainly one half or more of the great writers and thinkers of the world have had their lives turned into tragedies of personal affliction by this unsuspected cause. The biographies of Swift, Nietzsche, Parkman, George Eliot, the Carlyles, Whittier, Darwin, Wagner, Taine, Symonds, Heine, De Quincey, Huxley, Lewes, Margaret Fuller, Jules Verne, de Maupassant, Balzac, Berlioz and many others are filled with pathetic evidences of the truth. It is noteworthy that in the monumental 'Life of Wagner' Dr. Ellis, who is at once physician, musician and biographer, after exhaustive research, confirms the theory that eyestrain was the chief cause of the poignant physical sufferings of that great genius. And what influences such afflictions have on the character of the men and of their works only the discerning can surmise. The large majority of the men and women mentioned above have a striking likeness as regards a certain harshness, even bitterness, and a peculiar and pitiless insistence on logical distinctions; all but one or two were pessimistic and unreligious. Only art saved Wagner from an acerbity and skepticism, illustrated by his enemy-friend Nietzsche and his philosopher, Schopenhauer. It does not require a great mind to recognize the profound influence of disease upon character and philosophy.