Attention is another aspect of interest. It “may be broadly defined as an attitude of mind in which there is readiness to form new ideas” (8: p. 62). There are two kinds of attention--voluntary or forced, and involuntary or spontaneous. The latter is “far more desirable and fruitful,” for “forced attention does not suffice for instruction, even though it may be had through disciplinary measures” (8: p. 135). The involuntary attention is again divided into the primitive and the apperceiving. “Primitive or original attention depends primarily upon the strength of the sense impressions,” and the pleasure it affords (8: p. 64). This signifies the same thing as momentary interest. We must secure this in order to render instruction effective. “_Tediousness is the greatest sin of instruction_” (5: p. 82). Apperceiving attention feeds on the primitive attention; it is the outcome of cultivated or permanent interest, and the expression of our whole accumulated experience of the world and life. The function of instruction is, we have been told, to systematize the child’s thought as well as to enrich it. We are not only to pile up the materials in his mind, but to construct them into a solid, planful structure. Facts need a methodical treatment, Herbart claims, in order that they may ever enlarge the scope of our mental activity. This process of methodical treatment is called by the Herbartians “the formal steps of instruction.” The perception or the idea of a thing must be first made clear, then associated with the perception or the idea of other things; thirdly, systematized with the whole previous experience or stock of knowledge; and, lastly, made a living knowledge by practical application. In the process of instruction we may distinguish three modes or phases--the purely presentative, the analytic, and the synthetic instruction. The purely preservative or descriptive method aims to produce results akin to an extension of the pupils’ range of actual experience. Although it can only be applied to concrete matters, “skill in this direction is the surest means of securing interest.” Free oral presentation produces an effect that reading never does. To secure success in this, “a cultivated style of speaking,” “adaptation of the vocabulary employed, both to the subject-matter and to the intelligence of the pupils, and adjustment of the phraseology to the pupils’ stage of culture” and careful preparation are essential requisites. The aim “should be to make the pupil realize events and objects as vividly as if they were actually present to his eye and ear” (8: pp. 107-108). But without previous experience, or at least a sufficient basis for imaginative construction on the part of pupils, this would naturally fail. Therefore we must endeavor to enlarge his apperceptive mass by the aid of frequent excursions, by plentiful exhibitions of objects and pictures, by giving the child a wide acquaintance with sense material.