OF INTEREST TO SCOUTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 13, 6 April 1927, Page 5

OF INTEREST TO SCOUTS

THE POWERS OF PERCEPTION There are people who tread the earth as unobservant as the creatures that live beneath it, like the moles that dwell in darkness and know nothing of an interesting world. It is because they have never learned to cultivate the inner eye of perception or to make a mental catalogue of what they have seen while going their daily rounds. They have no “bump of locality” or sense of direction and frequently get lost when visiting strange places. These people miss the best of life for, bv looking neither to right nor left, everything that is worth while escapes them. Observation may become a habit and, once practised, may grow to be a sixth sense with us. You know the story of Kim and the tray of precious stones that, after his first glance, was covered with a cloth so that he could name as many as he could remember? We do not need precious stones to help us in the art of observation, for the most ordinary, everyday things will serve to encourage our powers of perception. It is an interesting game when passing a shop window to make a mental list of everything displayed, write it down a little later, and on the next visit to the shop compare the list with the wares on view. With practice it is astonishing how much can be remembered.

Do you know that on entering a room your eye first rests on the carpet or linoleum at your feet, takes in a mental impression of the pattern, then travels swiftly from right to left round the walls and so comes to the people or outstanding objects in the room? You will find that this is invariably the case and that it is almost impossible to make the eye travel from left to right. Quite naturally the glances

rise from the floor and sweep the room from right'to left.

Scouting has taught an army of boys to use the gifts of observation instead of letting them rust from disuse, for the keen eye and alert brain is of more value in the w T orld than the bemused gaze and shadowy mind of the unobservant dreamer.

People who walk with their eyes on the ground never see the thousand beauties of the surrounding world or the wonder of the sunset and the rainbow.