consciousness. This selective action of consciousness is mechanical, due to the inborn tendencies toward attention possessed by human beings. The situations which by their very nature occupy the focal point in consciousness are color and brightness, novelty, sudden changes and sharp contrasts, rhythm and cadence, movement, and all other situations to which there are other instinctive responses, such as hunting, collecting, curiosity, manipulation, etc. In other words, children are born with tendencies to attend to an enormous number of situations because of the number of instinctive responses they possess. So great is this number that psychologists used to talk about the omnivorousness of children's attention, believing that they attended to everything. Such a general attention seems not to be true. However, it is because so many situations have the power to force consciousness to a crest that human beings have developed the intellectual power that puts them so far above other animals. That these situations do attract attention is shown by the fact that individuals respond by movements which enable them to be more deeply impressed or impressed for a longer time by the situations in question. For example, a baby will focus his eyes upon a bright object and then move eyes and head to follow it if it moves from his field of vision. Just what the situations are, then, which will arouse responses of attention in any given individual will depend in the first place upon his age, sex, and maturity, and in the second place upon his experience. The process of learning very quickly modifies the inborn tendencies to attention by adding new situations which demand it. It is the things we learn to attend to that make us human rather than merely animal. The fact of attention or selection must of necessity involve also inhibition or neglect. The very fact of the selection of certain objects and qualities means the neglect of others. This fact of neglect is at first just as mechanical as that of attention, but experiences teach us to neglect some situations which by original nature attracted attention. From the standpoint of education what we neglect is quite as important as what is selected for attention. The breadth of a person's attention, _i.e.,_ the number of lines along which attention is possible, must vary with age and experience. The younger or the more immature an individual is, the greater the number of different lines to which attention is given. It is the little child whose attention seems omnivorous, and it is the old person for whom situations worthy of attention have narrowed down to a few lines. This must of necessity be so, due to the interrelation of attention and neglect. The very fact of continuing to give attention along one line means less and less ability and desire to attend along other lines.