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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 801 



enee of the child. The further demand for 

 control over attention carries us back to the 

 conditions of attention. Here again we 

 find that traditional school practise de- 

 pends upon social consciousness for bring- 

 ing the wandering attention back to the 

 task, when it finds that the subjective con- 

 ditions of attention to the material of in- 

 struction are lacking, and even attempts 

 to carry over a formal self-consciousness 

 into attention, when through the sense of 

 duty the pupil is called upon to identify 

 the solution of the problem with himself. 

 On the other hand, we have in vocational 

 instruction the situation in which the stu- 

 dent has identified his impulses with the 

 subject matter of the task. In the former 

 case, as in the ease of instruction, our tra- 

 ditional practise makes use of the self- 

 consciousness of the child in its least effec- 

 tive form. The material of the lesson is 

 not identified with the impulses of the 

 child. The attention is not due to the 

 organization of impulses to outgoing ac- 

 tivity. The organization of typical school 

 attention is that of a school self, express- 

 ing subordination to school authority and 

 identity of conduct with that of all the 

 other children in the room. It is largely 

 inhibitive— a consciousness of what one 

 must not do, but the inhibitions do not 

 arise out of the consciousness of what one 

 is doing. It is the nature of school atten- 

 tion to abstract from the content of any 

 specific task. The child must give atten- 

 tion iirst and tken undertake any task 

 which is assigned him, while normal atten- 

 tion is essentially selective and depends for 

 its inhibitions upon the specific act. 



Now consciousness of self should follow 

 upon that of attention, and consists in a 

 reference of the act, which attention has 

 mediated, to the social self. It brings 

 about a conscious organization of this par- 

 ticular act with the individual as a whole 



—makes it his act, and can only be effec- 

 tively accomplished when the attention is 

 an actual organization of impulses seeking 

 expression. The separation between the 

 self, implied in typical school attention, 

 and the content of the school tasks, makes 

 such an organization difficult if not im- 

 possible. 



In a word attention is a process of or- 

 ganization of consciousness. It results in 

 the reenforcement and inhibitions of per- 

 ceptions and ideas. It is always a part of 

 an act and involves the relation of that 

 act to the whole field of consciousness. 

 This relation to the whole field of con- 

 sciousness finds its expression in conscious- 

 ness of self. But the consciousness of self 

 depends primarily upon social relations. 

 The self arises in consciousness pari passu 

 with the recognition and definition of 

 other selves. It is therefore unfruitful if 

 not impossible to attempt to scientifically 

 control the attention of children in their 

 formal education, unless they are regarded 

 as social beings in dealing with the very 

 material of instruction. It is this essen- 

 tially social character of attention which 

 gives its peculiar grip to vocational train- 

 ing. From the psychological point of 

 view, not only the method and material 

 but also the means of holding the pupils' 

 attention must be socialized. 



Finally a word may be added with ref- 

 erence to the evaluations— the emotional 

 reactions— which our education should 

 call forth. There is no phase of our public 

 school training that is so defective as this. 

 The school undertakes to acquaint the 

 child with the ideas and methods which he 

 is to use as a man. Shut up in the history, 

 the geography, the language and the num- 

 ber of our curricula should be the values 

 that the country, and its human institu- 

 tions, have ; that beauty has in nature and 



