=Interest and Attention.=--In discussions upon educational method, it is usually affirmed that the attention will focus upon a problem to the extent to which the mind is interested. While this statement may be accepted in ordinary language, it is not psychologically true that I first become interested in a strange presentation, and then attend to it afterwards. In such a case it is no more true to say that I attend because I am interested, than to say that I am interested because I attend. In other words, interest and attention are not successive but simultaneous, or, as sometimes stated, they are back and front of the same mental state. This becomes evident by noting the nervous conditions which must accompany interest and attention. When one is attending to any strange phenomenon, say a botanist to the structure of a rare plant, it is evident that there are not only new groupings of ideas in the mind, but also new adjustments being set up between the brain centres. This implies in turn a lessening of resistance between the cells, and therefore the presence of the feeling tone known as interest. =Interest, Attention, and Habit.=--Since the impulse to attend to a presentation is conditioned by a process of adjustment, or organization, between brain centres, it is evident that, while the novel presentations call forth interest and attention, repetition, by habituating the nervous arcs, will tend to deaden interest and attention. For this reason the story, first heard with interest and attention, becomes stale by too much repetition. The new toy fails to interest the child after the novelty has worn off. It must be noted, however, that while repetition usually lessens interest, yet when any set of experiences are repeated many times, instead of lessening interest the repetition may develop a new interest known as the interest of custom. Thus it is that by repeating the experience the man is finally compelled to visit his club every evening, and the boy to play his favourite game every day. This secondary interest of custom arises because repetition has finally established such strong associations within the nervous system that they now have become a part of our nature and are thus able to make a new demand upon interest and attention. INTEREST IN EDUCATION