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LABOUR AND CHILDHOOD

up the coloured substance in the retina of the eye. He experimented with mice-eyes—kept the mice in a darkened room, then exposed them suddenly in face of objects in a strong light. Then he destroyed the mice and examined the eyes. There he found optograms of the things they had last gazed at printed off like negatives—or rather they formed original negatives in the optogram, or eye photograph.

Within the seeker or worker there is something that always awaits the inventor when he reaches the goal. The really original thing in him is something that was gained in the free period when he used his powers as a child, as a primitive man, and also as an artist.

From all this it appears first that instruments, like tools, should not be made very early in life.

And also that when a boy or girl really begins to require instruments, he or she should make them himself or herself—make, that is to say, rude and simple instruments, which are true projections; should grind his own lenses, when he needs eye-instruments, like Galileo or Herschel, and make the tools he needs like Newton. This seems to be the order of progression followed by the race, and no doubt it will be followed by the individual