SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, 21 July 1921, Page 46

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

(By “Volt.”)

Age and Eyesight. The condition of the eyes has much to do with the health of the body. Hence, it is important that you should do your work in a good light, and that you should preserve your eyesight by wearing the proper glasses. When he is approaching fifty years of age, virtually every person with normal eyes needs glasses for reading. Many people then imagine that their sight is “failing.” Such a mistake is absurd. All that has happened is that the crystalline lens of each eye has grown gradually harder .with advancing life. In early childhood it is like jelly in consistency; now it is like wax, and the focus muscle, which controls its shape, needs the help that glasses can give.

Wooden Stockings. The popularity •of silk stockings has had an important influence on the shortage of paper, for these very different articles are both made from wood pulp (says London Tit-Bits).

A German professor invented an “imitation” silk made in this way, and the American stocking manufacturers were quick to see the possibilities of the invention, with the result that every year millions of pairs of “wooden” stockings are made in the United States. Crepe-de-Chine is another material that is often made from wood pulp, and some “weights” of this are made heavy by being “leaded,” or mixed with minute particles of lead during the process of manufacture*. Taffeta silk, or some qualities of it, is also made from wood pulp; in fact, most, if not all, of the cheap silks on the market owe their origin, not to the silk worm, but to the forest tree, and to the mixing of lead with the raw materials to make the different weights. Means have just been discovered of makii*; men’s felt hats from wood.

A Priest’s Discovery. Some interesting discoveries as to the causes of slow and rapid reading are disclosed in the report of an investigation conducted by the Rev. John A. O’Brien, Hi. D., Chaplain to the Catholic students at the University of Illinois. Father O’Brien,, working in conjunction v/ith the Bureau of Educational 'Research, studied the factors conditioning the development of speed in the silent reading of 1,400 pupils in ten cities in Illinois, U.S.A. As tlm result of phsychological experimentation, methods of training were devised which increased the speed of the /pupils’ reading from 30 per cent to 125 per cent without any impairment of the comprehension. The investigation discloses the striking fact that no reading occurs while the eyes are moving along a printed line, but only during infinitesimally brief pauses of which the reader is usually unconscious. A unique feature contained in the published work is a number of photographic records of the eye movements of the readers, which were taken in the psychological laboratory at the University of Chicago. The photographic records reveal that the readers who increased their speed, did so by lessening the number tind duration of tliGir eye-pciuses. The results which have just been published in Dr. O Bnen’s book, Silent Beading, have attracted wide attention from psychologists and educators throughout the country. An entire chapter of the Year-book of the National ' Society for the Study of Education was devoted to the J presentation of these findings. Professor Buckingham, former president of the National Association of Directors of Educational Research, styles the study the most significant contribution to methods of teaching silent reading that has yet been made. The work is expected to’ cause v, ; a -shift of emphasis from oral to silent reading and to stimulate markedly the teaching of the latter as the more ' economical. The work has been recommended by the educational authorities of several states for adoption in the reading || circles of the public school teachers in those states. In recognition of the scientific'character of the research and the important results obtained for the advancement of . educational methods, the University of Illinois has . conf erred, upon Father O’Brien the, degree of Doctor of Philosophy. * ' r