Now gaze at the square again, introducing a change before your attention has wandered. Look at the square, then at the different sides, the corners and the space inside. See it in different colors, see the square frame of one color and the center of another, change the combinations. Let the center be formed of irregular shaped discs of different colors and see them change places, forming new figures. See the frame as a picture frame and with imaginary pictures in it. See the pictures change and the objects moving. Let it be a moving picture screen and imagine the pictures moving there. Let the square be the fence of a farm, set it all laid out in fields with the buildings, the stock and all the work that is going on there. While doing this make a continual change and attend to the different details of the picture at different times. Keep up this exercise as long as you can hold your attention without wandering. Then start again and try to prolong the period in which you can control the attention. Let the movement of the conscious attention be more rapid if necessary to hold it fixed upon the picture. Practice with the pictures on the wall and direct your attention from one detail to another, always changing before the attention wanders, keeping it absolutely under your control. Attention to be perfect must be directed to one thing at a time. It must be centered and not scattered. Perfect attention is a rifle, not a shotgun. You can best stimulate attention by use of one sense at a time. At the same time see to it that the other senses are relaxed and at rest. Divided Attention It is possible to divide the attention but then it can not be of the highest quality. Try the experiment of doing a simple problem in arithmetic and at the same time say a familiar verse, as "Humpty-Dumpty." Again try to write the lines of "Mary had a little lamb," while you say aloud the lines of "Humpty-Dumpty." While you did succeed in doing the first you do not succeed in doing the second. This experiment should be tried by all children to show them the effect of dividing the attention and of how it may be done when necessary, but only to a certain degree. The difficulty of the verse and problem can be accommodated to the age of the child. The attention may be divided between two objects or acts if they call for the use of two different senses or are different in their order. You can not divide your attention between two acts of the same order, as two arithmetic problems, one mental and the other written, or between two operations of the same sense. You can not listen to two quartets singing at the same time, but you can attend to one and smell some flowers at the same time and do both fairly well. While using one of the senses for fixed attention train the others to relax. The Degree of Attention