These few preliminary remarks are apropos to what is to follow in the subject which I have selected as the topic for discussion this evening.

Vision is the most useful of all the senses.  It is the one gift which we should cherish and guard the most.  And at no time in one’s life is it more precious than in infancy and youth.

In infancy, when the child is developing, the one great avenue to the unfolding, or more properly speaking, the development, of the intellect is through the eye.  The eye at this period holds in abeyance all the other senses.  The child, when insensible to touch, taste, smell or hearing, will become aroused to action by a bright light or bright colors, or the movement of any illuminated object, proving to all that light is essential to the development of the first and most important sense.  Again, the infant of but six days of age will recognize a candle flame, while its second sense and second in importance to its development—­hearing—­will not be recognized for six weeks to two months.  Taste, touch and smell follow in regular sequence.  Inasmuch as light makes thus early an impression on the delicate organ of vision, how necessary it behooves us to guard the infant from too bright lights or too much exposure in our bright climate.  Mothers—­not only the young mother with her first child, but also those who have had several children—­are too apt to try to quiet a restless child by placing it near a bright flame; much evil to the future use of those eyes is the outgrowth of such a pernicious habit.  Light throws into action certain cells of that wonderful structure of the eye, the retina, and an over stimulus perverts the action of those cells.  The result is that by this over-stimulation the seeds of future trouble are sown.  Let the adult gaze upon the arc of an electric light or into the sun, and for many moments, nay hours, that individual has dancing before his vision scintillations and phosphenes.  His direct vision becomes blurred, and as in the case of a certain individual I have in mind, there may be a permanent loss of sight.  Parents should take the first precaution in the child’s life, and not expose it to a light too bright or glaring.  When in the open air let the child’s eyes be protected from the direct rays of the sun.  While it is impossible to give all children the advantage of green fields and outdoor ramblings, yet nature never intended that civilization should debar the innocent child from such surroundings.

An anecdote is related of a French ophthalmic surgeon, that a distinguished patient applied to him for relief from a visual defect; the surgeon advised him to go into the country and look out upon the green fields.  The green color with its soothing effect soon brought about a restoration of vision.  What I wish to illustrate by this anecdote is that children should be allowed the green fields as their best friend in early life.  It tones up the system and rests the