This program opens with photos of famous American art museums and comments on their preservation demands. Lynn Poole shows an Egyptian bronze statuette that had become disfigured by bronze disease. Johns Hopkins chemistry professor Dr. Alsoph H. Corwin helped to develop a technique to reverse the corrosion on pieces like this and to restore the corroded coffer of the Dead Sea Scrolls. John Kirby, of Baltimore's Walters Art Gallery conservation department, briefly describes the Walters' collection and the job of the museum conservation staff. A film shows the conservation studio's equipment and procedures, such as the successive steps in relining the canvas of a painting. Another film shows how the wax immersion process reinforces and preserves deteriorating wood sculptures. Elisabeth Packard, also on the Walters staff, shows an example of the nineteenth century practice of piecing together unrelated fragments of sculptures and explains how conservators try to recognize and reconstruct the proper form. Mr. Kirby displays an ivory figurine from Crete whose fragments were reconstituted with gelatin and metal rods. Miss Packard discusses how paintings and other artwork are x-rayed and the damages, repairs, alterations, and brushwork that are discovered. Mr. Kirby demonstrates professional cleaning and restoring of a painting. Mr. Poole shows a painting of Maria Salviatti by Pontormo that was x-rayed and restored to reveal a child painted over by the mother's skirt. Miss Packard demonstrates retouching a painting to fill in breaks in paint by "in-painting," as opposed to "over-painting," which conceals the original paint. Mr. Kirby concludes by revealing two portraits beneath a painting of a lion presumably by Jericho to illustrate the mysteries conservators must solve.

Lynn Poole discusses reading comprehension and speed and how bad habits, such as moving one's mouth while reading, can be eliminated. He also shows a regressive reader, who lacks concentration and doesn't trust her comprehension. An ophthalmograph, which records every eye movement on film, is demonstrated along with the eye graphs of efficient and poor readers. A film, prepared by W. G. Perry, Jr. and C. P. Whitlock of Harvard University, simulates a reading clinic's tachistoscope, developed by Samuel Renshaw, to improve a student's precision of vision (length of time focused on a word and number of words in eye fixation) and peripheral vision. Dr. Milton S. Eisenhower, president of Johns Hopkins University, points out that the objective of all college courses is to increase reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. However, in 1955, only 17% of all U. S. adults were regularly reading books, and there was a disparity between reading levels and chronological ages.

An animated film details the parts of the eye. Lynn Poole compares the operation of an eye to that of a television camera. Eye prints reveal retinal detachment, glaucoma, and diseases of the body such as diabetes. A diagram traces the evolution of the eye. A history of sight-related research includes Galileo's telescope, Sir Isaac Newton's experimentation with prisms, Dr. Thomas Young's work with astigmatism, and Hermann von Helmholtz's development of the ophthalmoscope to look into the interior of the eye. Dr. Stewart Wolff, ophthalmologist at Johns Hopkins' Wilmer Eye Clinic, displays an electric ophthalmoscope, demonstrates a slit lamp, using Lynn Poole as a patient, and shows slides of cataracts. He also explains the test for tunnel vision with the tangent screen and peripheral field examination, the Snellen chart to test eyesight, and the tonometer to measure the intraocular pressure of the eye.

Thomas Schmid, of the Johns Hopkins University Press, displays some of the press's recently published books, such as "Soranus' Gynecology", the first English translation of this ancient Greek medicine book; and "Operations Research for Management", offering operations researchers' solutions to such problems as traffic jams. The Press's director, Harold Ingle, displays a map of the forty university presses in America and notes that Johns Hopkins University Press, established in 1878, is the oldest continuously publishing one. It is the responsibility of these presses to advance scholarly research and diffuse knowledge, and to that end, the Press produces books by scholars for scholars, books by scholars for intelligent laymen, and scholarly journals. Mr. Ingle shows examples of each. Additional featured examples include "Symposium on the Chemical Basis of Heredity", "Truxtun of the Constellation", "Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power", and "Ten Centuries of Spanish Poetry", an anthology in both Spanish and English. Editor John Kyle describes the acquisition and appraisal of manuscripts such as "Professional Public Relations and Political Power", by Dr. Stanley Kelley, Jr., who discusses his inspiration for the book. Dr. Malcolm Moos talks about the process of editing "A Carnival of Buncombe", a collection of 69 articles written by H.L. Mencken for the "Baltimore Evening Sun" between 1920 and 1936.

Lynn Poole and Malcolm Davies, a teacher at Baltimore Junior College, show two children, Marsha Southwick and Richard Tillman, how toys demonstrate basic science principles. For example, key wound spring toys with gears store potential energy. An animated cartoon shows the story of Luigi Galvani, who experimented with the "animal electricity" of severed frogs' legs, and Alessandro Volta, who realized animal tissue was unnecessary for conduction of electricity and built the first battery. The children compare draw, swing, arch, and cantilever bridge designs. They also consider the fulcrum/lever principle of the seesaw and an animation of the operation of a windlass. All of the scientific principles are demonstrated by a battery operated toy crane. Mr. Davies demonstrates how "Robert Robot" works using a Bendix cable and how other toys operate with little motors originally built as tiny fans for radios but made obsolete with the invention of transistors.

Dr. George Carter, a human geographer at Johns Hopkins University, studies man's relationship with the physical world and how civilizations developed. He explains the differences between independent inventionists, researchers who believe in indigenous cultures that developed independently, and diffusionists, scholars who maintain that there was early contact between civilizations. Pre-1492 contacts between the old world and the new appear impossible, but evidence shows similarities in games, instruments, tools, math, religion, etc. in both Asia and the Americas. The existence of domestic plants, such as the sweet potato, in both places and with the same name, seems proof that man crossed the oceans during pre-Columbian times. Evidence in art may support the diffusionists too, according to Dr. Gordon Ekholm, curator of archaeology at the American Museum of Natural History. He points to similar Mayan and Cambodian temples and parallel sculptural details such as trefoil arches in Mexico and in Asia.

Lynn Poole discusses x-rays for treatment and diagnosis of disease and displays a recent report from the National Academy or Sciences and National Research Council on the biological effects of radiation. Dr. Russell Morgan, Director of Radiology Dept. at Johns Hopkins University, fields questions from members of the press: Nate Hazeltine, a "Washington Post" science writer; Pare Lorentz, a film producer; and Earl Ubell, a reporter and science editor with the "New York Herald Tribune". Dr. Morgan explains that x-rays affect both individual cells and the whole body, making them more susceptible to premature aging. He discusses the research by John Lawrence on the effects of radiation on mice and their extrapolation to man. He also notes a study on radiation vs. non-radiation workers that showed no difference in life spans of the two groups. It is the amount of radiation exposure that determines the effects of the damage. For example, a chest x-ray only delivers about 1/20th roentgen, a unit of radiation. However, Dr. Morgan discusses the feasibility of a reporting system for patients' total x-ray exposure and the need for a set of standards. And he does admit that the complexity and amount of radiation exposure is increasing in diagnostic studies and could double by 1960-65. A film clip demonstrates that this radiation exposure can be reduced by filtration, distance from the x-ray machine, length of time of exposure, and protection of areas not being radiated. Mr. Poole points out that Dr. Morgan has developed a fluoroscopy machine reducing by up to ten times the radiation time. In conclusion, Dr. Morgan discusses whether the Atomic Energy Commission or the U. S. Public Health Services should be responsible for the public's radiation health problems.