[...]

A teacher forty years of age was first treated on March 28, 1919. She
was wearing the following glasses: O. D. convex 0.75 D. S. with convex
4.00 D. C., 105 deg.; O. S. convex 0.75 D. S. with convex 3.50 D. C.,
105 deg. On June 9, 1919, she wrote:

I will tell you about my eyes, but first let me tell you other things.
You were the first to unfold your theories to me, and I found them
good immediately - that is, I was favorably impressed from the start.
I did not take up the cure because other people recommended it, but
because I was convinced: first, that you believed in your discovery
yourself; second, that your theory of the cause of eye trouble was
true. I don't know how I knew these two things but I did. After a
little conversation with you, you and your discovery both seemed to me
to bear the ear-marks of the genuine article. As to the success of the
method with myself I had a little doubt. You might cure others, but
you might not be able to cure me. However, I took the plunge, and it
has made a great change in me and my life.

To begin with, I enjoy my sight. I love to look at things, to examine
them in a leisurely, thorough way, much as a child examines things. I
never realized it at the time, but it was irksome for me to look at
things when I was wearing glasses, and I did as little of it as
possible. The other day, going down on the Sandy Hook boat, I enjoyed
a most wonderful sky without that hateful barrier of misted glasses,
and I am positive I distinguished delicate shades of color that I
never would have been able to see, even with clear glasses. Things
seem to me now to have more form, more reality than when I wore
glasses. Looking into the mirror you see a solid representation on a
flat surface, and the flat glasses can't show you anything really
solid. My eye-glasses, of course, never gave me this impression, but
one curiously like it. I can see so clearly without them that it is
like looking around corners without changing the position. I feel that
I can almost do it.

I very seldom have occasion to palm. [1] Once in a great while I feel
the necessity of it. The same with remembering a period. [2]  Nothing
else is ever necessary. I seldom think of my eyes, but at times it is
borne in upon me how much I do use and enjoy using them.

My nerves are much better. I am more equable, have more poise, am less
shy. I never used to show that I was shy, or lacked confidence. I used
to go ahead and do what was required, if not without hesitation, but
it was hard. Now I find it easy. Glasses, or poor sight rather, made
me self-conscious.  It certainly is a great defect, and one people are
sensitive to without realizing it. I mean the poor sight and the
necessity for wearing glasses. I put on a pair of glasses the other
day just for an experiment, and I found that they magnified things. My
skin looked as if under a magnifying glass. Things seemed too near.
The articles on my chiffonier looked so close I felt like pushing them
away from me. The glasses I especially wanted to push away. They
brought irritation at once. I took them off and felt peaceful. Things
looked normal.

I see better in the street than I ever did with glasses. I can see
what people look like across the street, can distinguish their
features, etc., a thing I could not do with glasses, or before I wore
them. I can see better across the river and further into people's
houses across the street. Not that I indulge, but I noticed an
increase of power while looking out of the window in school.

Speaking of school, I corrected an immense pile of examination papers
the other day, five hours at a stretch, with an occasional look off
the paper and an occasional turn about the room. I felt absolutely no
discomfort after it. Two weeks previous to this feat I handled two
hundred designs over and over again, looking at each one dozens and
dozens of times, to note changes and improvement in line and color.
Occasionally, while this work was going on, I had to palm in the
mornings on rising.

I use my eyes with as much success writing, though once in a while
after a lot of steady writing they are a little bit tired. I can read
at night without having to get close to a light. I mention this
because last summer I had to sit immediately under the light, or I
could not see.

From the beginning of the treatment I could use my eyes pretty well,
but they used to tire. I remember making a large Liberty Loan poster
two weeks after I took off my glasses, and I was amazed to find I
could make the whole layout almost perfectly without a ruler, just as
well as with my glasses. When I came to true it up with a ruler I
found only the last row of letters a bit out of line at the very end.
I couldn't have done better with glasses. However this wasn't fine
work. About the same time I sewed a hem at night in a black dress,
using a fine needle. I suffered a little for this, but not much. I
used to practice my exercises at that time and palm faithfully. Now I
don't have to practice, or palm; I feel no discomfort, and I am
absolutely unsparing in my use of my eyes. I do everything I want with
them. I shirk nothing; pass up no opportunity of using them. From the
first I did all my school work, read every notice, wrote all that was
necessary, neglected nothing. Everything I was called upon to do I
attempted. For instance, I had to read President Wilson's "Fourteen
Points" in the assembly room without notice in a poor light - unusual
wording, too - and I read it unhesitatingly. I have yet to fail to
make good.

Now to sum up the school end of it, I used to get headaches at the end
of the month from adding columns of figures necessary to reports, etc.
Now I do not get them. I used to get flustered when people came into
my room. Now I do not; I welcome them. It is a pleasant change to feel
this way. And - I suppose this is most important really, though I
think of it last - I teach better. I know how to get at the mind and
how to make the children see things in perspective. I gave a lesson on
the horizontal cylinder recently, which, you know, is not a
thrillingly interesting subject, and it was a remarkable lesson in its
results and in the grip it got on every girl in the room, stupid and
bright. What you have taught me makes me use the memory and
imagination more, especially the latter, in teaching.

Now, to sum up the effect of being cured upon my own mind. I am more
direct, more definite, less diffused, less vague. In short, I am
conscious of being better centered. It is central fixation of the
mind.  I saw this in your latest paper, but I realized it long ago and
knew what to call it.

[1] By palming is meant the covering of the closed eyes with the palms
of the hands in such a way as to exclude all the light, while
remembering some color, usually black.

[2] Bates: Memory as an Aid to Vision. N.Y. Med. Jour., May 24, 1919.

[...]