(d) Have someone place five articles on a plane surface while your back is turned. Look at the objects for ten seconds; then look away and describe fully their appearance and position. 2. In regard to the power and habit of listening,— (a) Have someone read aloud to you three sentences capable of being understood by a person of ordinary intellect. Try to repeat in your own words every idea given in the reading. This is not a memory exercise. (b) The next time you find yourself interrupting someone, check yourself at once, and try to repeat in your own mind the substance of what the speaker has last uttered. (c) The next time you find yourself a part of an audience to which a sermon or lecture is being delivered, say to yourself, “I am going to get at least for practice’s sake every idea this speaker has to offer.” Then note how short a time it is before you miss a phrase. 3. In regard to the power of exposition,— (a) With your hands behind your back, try to describe in a sentence each one of the following articles: A barrel, a scabbard, a tea kettle, a potato, a billiard cue, a chrysanthemum, a dumb-bell, your shoes, a fox terrier, a grand piano. (b) Give the shortest complete description you can of the parts and working of a rifle. CHAPTER VI THE FIELD ORDER, THE ESTIMATE, THE DECISION, THE EXPRESSION “Upon the information of the enemy and of the terrain obtained by reconnaissance, and, as far as time will permit, upon the study of the terrain made by the leader in the field of probable operations, the plan of action is based.” So state our Field Service Regulations.[4] Decision, then, is built upon the amount of material that the observation and attention of a commander can collect. And it is only _his_ observation and attention which count. It is only what he himself has fixed in his own mind which is going to do the troops harm or good. He may receive dozens of excellent messages, or may view the battle-field for twenty miles; yet it is only what he himself appropriates to his own straight thinking, which can influence the outcome. The reports or the visions of others cannot enter into the decision, unless he has transferred those reports or visions to his own calculations. How can he weigh what he has not handled—consider what he has not absorbed? _The decision of a leader issues from the door of his own observation and attention._ The most pertinent facts may be laid at that threshold only to be shut out because he has not increased his capacity to take them in. And no one else can enter there in order to do the work for him unless the intruder becomes virtually, if not actually, the leader. THE ESTIMATE