The value of this improvement is apparent to you, but not to the child. The benefits to be derived will be largely dependent upon your leadership and encouragement in making the effort. While the children are seeking amusement, see that they combine it with these games and exercises which will accomplish some improvement that will be permanent and valuable to them later on. The Faculty of Visualization The sense of sight has been wonderfully endowed with a duplicate power which we have come to call the mind's eye. With this visual faculty we produce some very important mental operations. We must first become conscious of this faculty and learn to use it intelligently and then to broaden its scope and increase its power to deal with details. =Visualization is the mind's eye reproduction of an impression made by the sense of sight.= When the name of Abraham Lincoln is mentioned you can see his face in your mind's eye. Hesitate a moment and become really conscious of this reproduction of Lincoln's face in your mind. See the details of the picture, the deep set eyes, the furrowed skin, the sad expression, etc. Another Visual Test In the same manner your mind can reproduce an unlimited number of pictures. Anything which you have once seen with the physical eye can be reproduced again in the mind's eye. Make a few tests of this fact, if it is not well known to you. For example,-- See a pasture with a creek flowing through, willows hanging over the water, the green grass on the banks, and the stock grazing there. See several different kinds and sizes of animals, note their color, what they are doing. Add to the detail of the picture. To close the eyes and thus to eliminate the more distinct impressions of the physical eye, will assist you in visualizing any picture. Visual Process Natural We are all born with this ability to visualize or see imaginary mental reproductions of things which we have seen before. By the use of the imagination we combine parts of these pictures into new ones and thus are able to construct a mind's eye picture which may never have existed in fact. Children possess this faculty in a marked degree; they use it continuously and unconsciously. They can also see their visual picture much more clearly than their parents can, unless they have continued to use the faculty consciously. Many children amuse themselves by the hour in playing with imaginary playmates, and will talk to them as interestedly as if they were really present. To the child they are present, he actually sees them and also visualizes the conditions under which he is playing. The child should be given a conscious understanding of the mind's eye picture and what is meant by visualization. Teach him that when you ask him to visualize, you mean for him to see clearly the mind's eye picture of the thing referred to. The first exercises in visualization are for the purpose of developing a clear visual picture. Training the Mind's Eye