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deprive them of their traditional consolation, and path to a healthy
self esteem—to excel in studies—will often pave the way to
unhappiness and a sense of inferiority.
"Perhaps the best course to adopt is to allow such children
to attend the ordinary schools for part of the time, but to devote
the rest to special instruction in the methods which may be adopted
to overcome their disability and prevent its progress so far as this
is possible.
"There are in Ealing 17 children who would benefit from
constant instruction of this kind, for a few hours daily, and 32
others who might attend intermittently as occasion arose. These
would form a convenient number for a myope class.
"Hypermetropia.—It is well known that hypermetropia is
the normal state of the eye of the savage and the young child, and
the inquiry into problems connected with defective vision in school
children showed that it is by far the commonest refractive condition
met with in normal children of school age, though it gradually
decreases in frequency from about 85 per cent. at the age of two
years to 50 per cent. at the age of fourteen. The eye of the child
is in a constant state of descent down the hypermetropic scale,
and if emmetropia is reached during the early school years the
probability is that it will pass on to myopia. This change was
observed in four cases during 1931.
"It is obvious that hypermetropia is nearly always symptomless,
and yet a fairly large number of children with this condition
are presented for examination annually, and spectacles prescribed
with apparent benefit. When the hypermetropia is of three or
more dioptres and there is some diminution of visual acuity this
result is not surprising, but examination of the records shows that
such a high degree of hypermetropia is by no means the rule in
the cases referred for examination. Thus during 1931 of 87 new
cases of hypermetropia only 16 were of three or more dioptres.
(Cases of squint are excluded from these figures for obvious reasons).