“Will you let me, as a parent, give you our explanation of these facts? For, with deference to Dr. Brenton, who justly claims so much for his craft, I think we parents deserve a pat, too. You may bring a horse to the well, but you can’t make him drink. The advance, I think, is not in intelligence, but in power of attention. This, the Fathers’ and Mothers’ Club and its agencies recognise as the practical power of man; that which makes all the difference between the able and successful man and the poor lag-last. And yet it is not a faculty, but is the power and habit of concentrating every faculty on the thing in hand. Now this habit of attention parents, mothers especially, are taught to encourage and cultivate in their children from early infancy. What you regard with full attention, if only for a minute, you know, and remember always. Think of the few scenes and conversations we all have so vividly fixed that we cannot possibly forget them. Why? Because at the moment our attention was powerfully excited. You reap some benefit from this early training directly the boy goes to school. The psychologists--not your craft, this time, Doctor--tell us that enormous curiosity, a ravenous appetite for knowledge, is as natural to children as bread-and-milk hunger. Put the two together; the boy has an eager desire to know--has the power of fixing his whole mind on the new thoughts set before him, and it’s as easy as A B C; of course he learns with magical quickness. The field has been ploughed by the parents, and you have only to sow your seed.”