The teacher who fails to get the attention of his scholars, fails totally. The pupils may perhaps learn something, because they may give the lesson some study at home, under the direction of their parents. But they learn nothing from the teacher. He is really no teacher, though he may occupy the teacher's seat. There is, and there can be, no teaching, where the attention of the scholar is not secured. Gaining the attention is an indispensable condition to the thing called teaching. Not, however, the only indispensable thing. We have seen a class wrought by special tricks and devices to the highest pitch of excited attention,--fairly panting with eagerness, all eyes and ears, on the very tiptoe of aroused mental activity,--yet learning nothing. The teacher had the knack of stirring them up and lashing them into a half frenzy of excited expectation, without having any substantial knowledge wherewith to reward their eagerness. With all his one-sided skill, he was but a mountebank. To real, successful teaching, there must be these two things, namely, the ability to hold the minds of the children, and the ability to pour into the minds thus presented sound and seasonable instruction. Lacking the latter ability, your pupil goes away with his vessel unfilled. Lacking the former, you only pour water upon the ground. How shall the teacher secure attention? In the first place, let him make up his mind that he will have it. This is half the battle. Let him settle it with himself, that until he does this, he is doing nothing; that without the attention of his scholars, he is no more a teacher, than is the chair he occupies. If he is not plus, he is zero, if not actually minus. With this truth fully realized, he will come before his class resolved to have a hearing; and this very resolution, written as it will be all over him, will have its effect upon his scholars. Children are quick to discern the mental attitude of a teacher. They know, as if by instinct, whether he is in earnest or not, and in all ordinary cases they yield without dispute to a claim thus resolutely put. This, then, is the first duty of the teacher in this matter. He must go to his class with the resolute determination of making every scholar feel his presence all the time. The moment any scholar shows that the consciousness of his teacher's presence is not on his mind, as a restraining power, something is wrong. The first step towards producing that consciousness, as an abiding influence on the minds of the scholars, is for the teacher to determine in his own mind and bring it about. Without being arrogant, without being dictatorial, without being or doing anything that is disagreeable or unbecoming, he must yet make up his mind to put forth in the class a distinct power of self-assertion. He must determine to make them feel that he is there, that he is there all the time, that he is there to every one of them.