"He ain't, so to speak, bad, miss. He's just naturally ugly an' stoopid. Look at him now," and she directs the general attention to the writhings of her victim. "Would you think I just washed and combed him an' came around--leavin' my housework, too--to ask you to try him? He don't appreciate nothin' I do for him. Just naturally ugly and stoopid."
It may take a week to undo the effects of this introduction and to gain the little chap's confidence. Then the teacher wheedles him through the physical examination and seeks further speech with the mother.
"He's been botherin' you, too, most likely. Him and me will have a settlin' this afternoon----"
"No, not that, please. I hardly know how to tell you. I'm afraid you have--we all have--been misjudging him. But have you ever had his eyes examined?"
"His sight. He is--I hope you will be strong and brave about it--very nearly blind in his left eye, and the right is affected, too."
It has, on several occasions, been my unhappy duty to make some such announcement, and never has it been received twice in the same way. Some ladies entirely disbelieve, and set it down to the natural officiousness of teachers--"buttin' in where they ain't got no call." Others will fall away into hysterics. Yet others will remark that their own eyes were unsatisfactory in earlier stages: "It's just growin', I guess. I outgrew the trouble before I was twelve." One mother accepted the facts frankly, took the child to an oculist, bought the glasses he prescribed, and applied the drops he recommended, until she inadvertently used the dropper to fill her fountain-pen. Soon the boy lost his glasses, and the incident was closed.
Ears and teeth, tonsils and adenoids, frequently furnish stumbling-blocks to education, but the teacher who reports them to the home authorities does so at the risk of wasting her time, or of being accused of causing or inventing the conditions. Recently the boards of education in the larger cities have been legislating for appropriations to be applied to free glasses, free dentistry, free professional services of all kinds to the children of the public schools. And the gratitude of the parents--whose duties are being attended to--takes fearful and wonderful forms.