I can recall when I was in early grade school - 3d or 4th grade (about 7 to 9 yrs old, recollection's a little fuzzy) it was announced that the school would conduct "vision screening" of all of the students - but they needed parents' permission to do so.

I was surprised that several of my classmates could not get their parents to allow them to be tested. Discussion my parents had with the "elder generations" of the family generally brought forth the opinion that "it's a bunch of damned fool nonsense;" with comments about "meddlesome bureaucrats oughta let parents take care of their own."

Such general testing was apparently something new - in the mid to late 40s!

By the mid 50s, in-school testing was pretty much replaced by the requirement for a "health certificate" from each student's own physician. The "certificate" really did nothing but verify that the kid had (maybe) seen a doctor - or that the parents had called the doc and said "the kid ain't sick and he needs that piece of paper."

The mimeo form used by most doctors had a check box to indicate that the doctor had checked "vision," but if the exams I got were any indication that meant the kid was capable of opening his/her eyes. (If the doc was conscientous, it might mean the pupils "were responsive.")

My CD-ROM dictionary notes that the term "eye chart" dates to 1940-1945.

John