THE HABIT OF ATTENTION.--Finally, one of the chief things in training the attention is _to form the habit of attending_. This habit is to be formed only by _attending_ whenever and wherever the proper thing to do is to attend, whether "in work, in play, in making fishing flies, in preparing for an examination, in courting a sweetheart, in reading a book." The lesson, or the sermon, or the lecture, may not be very interesting; but if they are to be attended to at all, our rule should be to attend to them completely and absolutely. Not by fits and starts, now drifting away and now jerking ourselves back, but _all the time_. And, furthermore, the one who will deliberately do this will often find the dull and uninteresting task become more interesting; but if it never becomes interesting, he is at least forming a habit which will be invaluable to him through life. On the other hand, the one who fails to attend except when his interest is captured, who never exerts effort to compel attention, is forming a habit which will be the bane of his thinking until his stream of thought shall end. 7. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION 1. Which fatigues you more, to give attention of the nonvoluntary type, or the voluntary? Which can you maintain longer? Which is the more pleasant and agreeable to give? Under which can you accomplish more? What bearing have these facts on teaching? 2. Try to follow for one or two minutes the "wave" in your consciousness, and then describe the course taken by your attention. 3. Have you observed one class alert in attention, and another lifeless and inattentive? Can you explain the causes lying back of this difference? Estimate the relative amount of work accomplished under the two conditions. 4. What distractions have you observed in the schoolroom tending to break up attention? 5. Have you seen pupils inattentive from lack of (1) change, (2) pure air, (3) enthusiasm on the part of the teacher, (4) fatigue, (5) ill health? 6. Have you noticed a difference in the _habit_ of attention in different pupils? Have you noticed the same thing for whole schools or rooms? 7. Do you know of children too much given to daydreaming? Are you? 8. Have you seen a teacher rap the desk for attention? What type of attention was secured? Does it pay? 9. Have you observed any instance in which pupils' lack of attention should be blamed on the teacher? If so, what was the fault? The remedy? 10. Visit a school room or a recitation, and then write an account of the types and degrees of attention you observed. Try to explain the factors responsible for any failures in attention, and also those responsible for the good attention shown. CHAPTER III THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM