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sions are not too long, the work too difficult or advanced, nor the physical strain too great.

"The attention will most likely be exerted along the line of the most favored function. The child will attend to those things that he likes best. A sensory-minded child will give attention most readily to practical things; he will notice their general aspects, but not details. The sensory-minded child is able to concentrate his attention. The motor-minded child is troubled with a vacillating attention."

In TALKS WITH THE TRAINING CLASS, Miss Slattery says: "One summer afternoon a young man sat under the pines on a sloping hillside thinking deeply. Two hours passed and suddenly he raised his eyes to the distant mountains, and said, 'I will.' That 'I will' sent him to an island in the southern Pacific to spend his life with a degraded, barbarous race, whose eyes he slowly opened until they saw their Creator and worshipped Him.

"Across the river sat another young man on a bench in a green and beautiful park. He seemed to be thinking earnestly. Suddenly he said aloud, 'After all, I will,' and sauntered off to join companions who had invited him to a game in the corner club-room. That 'I will' cost him in the end home and friends, and sent him to a prison cell-a thief.

"What a tremendous power it is which makes possible decision and resolution! One trembles in the presence of such a power as he realizes the consequences which may follow the 'I will' which, of all creation, only man can say.

"As we consider and try to analyze the pathway Will, we must remember that the deliberate 'I will' is the basis of man's character, and the 'I will' of the crises in life is being made by the 'I will' of each day. You will remember that the pathway Willing includes all the operations of the mind leading to action -Attention, the Will, and Habit being the special things we shall consider. The power to gain and hold attention is the one great desire of every teacher, for without it he cannot really teach.

"The other day when the sun was pouring light and heat upon the sandy playground, one of the boys took a burning glass and held it over his straw hat. When he removed it the place was badly scorched. He asked, 'Why,' and was much in

terested in the explanation. Attention is very much like that burning-glass; it gathers up and centralizes and brings to focus upon one thing all the mind power. Attention is not a distinct faculty, but rather a state of the mind."

"One means to secure attention is to secure its physical attitude. If sitting up straight and looking at the teacher has gone with attention oftener than has lolling back and wriggling, then the attention of a lolling class can be improved by having them sit up straight. If we need to study a book, we can at least open it and look at the words. Interest may come then which would fail to come so long as we sat thinking, 'I ought to study that lesson.' Teachers need to remember, however, that attention is measured by results and not some bodily attitudes, and on the other hand children readily learn to mimic the postures of attention, without having the reality."

Placing the Scholars.

Professor Adams remarks: "To see both ends of the front form, it is necessary that the teacher should sit at some little distance from his pupils. The exact spot for his chair is said to be at the apex of an equilateral triangle whose base is the front form. To find this spot, get two other forms the same size as the front one, and make the three into a triangle. Where the two extra forms meet, is the place for the teacher's chair. Often there is not enough space to allow of the teacher sitting so far back, and in any case there is usually a difficulty, because at that distance the teacher must speak more loudly than is consistent with the comfort of neighboring classes. If the class has a room of its own, this distance is a great advantage, but if there are several classes in the same room, the matter must be compromised by sitting nearer the class and making up for the disadvantage of position by increased vigilance. With regard to the loudness of the teacher's speech there must be no confusion between loudness and clearness. A man may often make himself quite distinctly heard by those whom he wishes to address, without speaking in anything like a loud voice. The teacher must do his best to discover how quietly he may speak without causing his pupils to strain in order to hear. Anything beyond this pitch is wasted effort which profits his class nothing, while it greatly interferes with the work of the others.

"Troublesome motor pupils should be placed to the teacher's right and left, at the ends of the seats next the teacher. Not only are these pupils thus brought near the teacher, but each of them has only one close neighbor, and thus has his opportunity of causing disturbance greatly lessened. The best place for a reserved, sly, tricky pupil is in the middle of the seat in front of the teacher, who is thus in the best position for observing. There is nothing so paralyzing to the energies of the mischievous still child as the unsympathetic but vigilant eye of the teacher. The hand may be needed occasionally to repress gently the exuberance of the motor children to the right and left, but the eye is what is required for the deeper plans of the self-contained trickster."

Native Variations of Attention.

According to James: "One more point, and I am done with the subject of attention. There is unquestionably a great native variety among individuals in the type of their attention. Some of us are naturally scatter-brained, and others follow easily a train of connected thoughts without temptation to swerve aside to other subjects. This seems to depend on a difference between individuals in the type of their field of consciousness. In some persons this is highly focalized and concentrated, and the focal ideas predominate in determining association. In others we must suppose the margin to be brighter, and to be filled with something like meteoric showers of images, which strike it at random, displacing the focal ideas, and carrying association in their own direction. Persons of the latter type find their attention wandering every minute, and must bring it back by a voluntary will. The others sink into a subject of meditation deeply, and, when interrupted, are 'lost' for a moment before they come back to the outer world.

"The possession of such a steady faculty of attention is unquestionably a great boon. Those who have it can work more rapidly, and with less nervous wear and tear. I am inclined to think that no one who is without it naturally can by any amount of drill or discipline attain it in a very high degree. Its amount is probably a fixed characteristic of the individual. But I wish to make a remark here which I shall have occasion to make again

in other connections. It is that no one need deplore unduly the inferiority in himself of any one elementary faculty. This concentrated type of attention is an elementary faculty: it is one of the things that might be ascertained and measured by exercises in the laboratory. The total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex a being for any one of them to have the casting vote. If any one of them does have the casting vote, it is more likely to be the strength of his desire and passion, the strength of the interest he takes in what is prospered. Concentration, memory, reasoning, power, inventiveness, excellence of the senses, all are subsidiary to this. No matter how scatterbrained the type of a man's successive fields of consciousness may be, if he really care for a subject, he will return to it incessantly from his incessant wanderings, and first and last do more with it, and get more results from it, than another person whose attention may be more continuous during a given interval, but whose passion for the subject is of a more languid and less permanent sort."

Fatigue.

It is important that even the Sunday School Teachers learn to recognize the manifest signs of fatigue in the class and not spoil the good effect of a lesson by "overdoing it." There are two recognized kinds of fatigue (a) normal, and (b) abnormal. (a) Normal Fatigue is the proper result of all work, mental or physical. It is the bending of the bow-string, which springs back again on release. Rest, sleep, and food correct normal fatigue. (b) Abnormal Fatigue is snapping and cracking the bow, pushing the expenditure of energy beyond recovery. Then a diseased condition usually ensues.

Signs of Fatigue.

(a) Normal.-(1) A definite weakening of Attention. After half an hour few adults can pay attention well. (2) An increasing unreadiness and inaccuracy of Judgment. It is unwise to endeavor to solve difficult problems at night time or to worry over an unpleasantness in the evening. The best plan is steadfastly to refuse to consider such things when weary, to determine to rest and sleep. In the morning the clouds will have

passed away and not only will your judgment be clearer, but many of the shadows which were caused merely by fatigue will have disappeared. (3) Loss of Self-Control, Temper, etc. When the husband comes home tired at night, cross and irritable, the wise wife says nothing, but "feeds the brute" and lets him rest. Soon the irritation has passed away, and many a family jar is avoided in this common sense manner. (4) Lessened Work-rate. Not only is it difficult to do work when fatigued, but it literally does not pay, for less work is accomplished than would be if proper rest and recuperation were taken. Note, that the concentrated attention of Adults can be held for fortyfive minutes only with useful results; that of children of adolescent age not over thirty minutes; small children of the Primary age not over fifteen minutes.

(b) Abnormal-(1) Depression of the Mouth Angles. (2) Presence of Horizontal Forehead Furrows: These horizontal forehead furrows are a characteristic expression of the weak minded and the insane, showing the result of abnormal fatigue in their lives. (3) Eye-wandering and positive inability to preserve fixation of the eyes. Note, this does not mean ordinary restlessness. One of the tests of insanity is dancing eyes where the pupil cannot be held and concentrated. It may also occur with ordinary abnormal fatigue. (4) Dull, dark color under the eyes. These signs are of value only because a Sunday School Teacher may have children in the class abnormally fatigued during the week from either (1) overwork (2) unwholesome confinement in unsanitary homes (3) injurious shocks or bad treatment.

No one should draw a positive conclusion from only one of these signs, as for example, a "black eye." Taken all together, however, they form a clinical picture of which there can be no doubt. Just as we have a typical face that is pathonomic of consumption, so we have one that definitely proclaims Abnormal Fatigue.

QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 1. What is the Psychological Basis of all Attention?

2. What two kinds of Attention are there?

3. What is needful to "hold Attention"? Why?

4. Give concrete examples of proper plans for gaining Attention. 5. What faults have you noted in your Class Methods here?

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