There are men and women on islands in the Pacific Ocean who look as if they thought their ears were made on purpose to hold flowers or tobacco pipes. They prick a hole through the flesh of the ear, stretch it and pull it, and put one small rolled-up leaf after another into it until the hole is large enough to hold their pipe or their flowers. Sometimes, indeed, it is so large that a man may slip his hand and arm through it to his elbow.

These people feel very fine when they look like that. He is in the height of fashion, and other people envy him. Many women in America used to be almost as foolish. But earrings are not the fashion now, so these women go without them.

Look around at the ears in the room where you are and see what each one is like. Just a piece of flesh and gristle with ridges in it, and a hole in the middle,—that is all you will see. It is not always beautiful, but it is useful, and if you did not have any ears on the sides of your head you would look queer enough.

Yet ears have different shapes. Some are large and some are small; some are long and some are short; some grow close to the head and some stand off like little sails. If you want your ears to be flat against your head, be careful not to sleep with them doubled over; be careful also not to press them out of place either with your bonnet strings or by crowding them down with your cap. For the sake of our friends who have to see us, it is well to do what we can to have bodies that are pleasant to look at.

To tell the truth, a well-shaped ear improves the looks of any one. It also helps to catch sounds from every direction and send them into the hole in the middle of the side of the head. This hole is indeed far more important than the rim itself.

Poke your finger in and see how small it is; cover both ears at once with your hands and notice how little you can hear. If you should stop it up entirely you would hardly hear anything at all, for it is the outside end of the tube that carries sound from the world for us to hear.

It is about one inch long, and the deeper it goes the narrower it gets. Wax and a few hairs do what they can to keep the insects out; yet it is this very wax that troubles us sometimes. The best way to get rid of it is to use a soft, damp cloth over the end of the finger.

Never use anything sharper or harder than that, for the drum itself is at the opposite end of the hole,—the smallest drum and the busiest drum in the world.

The hole is so small and the tube is so narrow that you see no sign of this drum, even if you put your eye close to the opening and look in as far as you can. Doctors know another way, however. First goes in a silver tube; then a reflector. This sends light to the bottom of the tube and shows the bit of skin that we call the eardrum. It is stretched across the round bottom of the tube and fastened tight on every side.

A man may use the brightest light he can get; he may send it down as far as it will go; yet he will see nothing beyond the eardrum, for it hides everything on the other side. It never opens unless something enters and breaks it, or unless some disease injures it. Thousands of people do not know how easy it is to break the eardrum.

Yesterday I saw a full-grown man put a pointed pencil into his ear and turn it slowly round and round. He acted as if he were giving himself a good scratching. Some day his hand may not be steady, or a neighbor may hit his elbow; the hard point may then break its way through his eardrum and damage it forever.

Strangely enough, boxing the ears may do the same thing. You know how it is when you hit a paper bag full of air: the paper is sure to split from end to end with a bang. Quite in that way it happens sometimes with an eardrum. An angry man brings his hand down hard on a boy's ear; more air crowds in than the ear can hold, and the drum splits like a paper bag. Shouting in the ear may do it, too; even a kiss on the hole of the ear may break the drum.

Avoid all these things. Think how careful men are to keep dust out of their watches. Remember that ear machinery is more precious than any watch machinery that was ever made, and that dust may damage it through a hole in the eardrum.