SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 862 



arrangement of clearness. The change 

 may be partial or complete, depending 

 vipon the operating causes and upon the 

 condition of the mind. 



The educational problem is to secure 

 attention for certain ideas which make for 

 growth, and the difficulty in solving this 

 problem is that these ideas, intended, as 

 they are, to prepare children for the future 

 rather than the present, are likely to repre- 

 sent types of experience beyond the chil- 

 dren's stage of development. One can not 

 avoid a certain sympathy with the eleven- 

 year old girl who refused to try to find 

 how many times a bucket must be filled to 

 empty a circular well, the height and bot- 

 tom radius of which were given, together 

 with the height and radii of the bucket, on 

 the ground that no one but a fool would 

 try to empty a well in that way. To give 

 attention to ideas whose value is a future 

 asset requires rejection of those of present 

 significance, and the mind refuses to make 

 this sacrifice unless convinced of a more 

 deserving claim. This is the reason for 

 our unwillingness to listen to a friend when 

 we are hurrying to a train. 



If active attention differs from passive 

 in the number of applicants for the limited 

 accommodations in the focus of conscious- 

 ness, the very practical question arises con- 

 cerning the part the educator may play in 

 this contest. It looks as though he enters 

 the competition so heavily handicapped as 

 hardly to be able to show his wares. 



The feelings have been thought to be the 

 strategic base of operations from which a 

 successful flanking movement could be 

 started. The innumerable and disorderly 

 mental processes of youngsters could then, 

 it was believed, be driven into a narrower 

 line of march, and finally, as they became 

 more restricted, be compelled, in sheer self- 

 defense, to give heed to the interesting 

 ideas which the skillful teachers always put 

 at the head of their attacking column. 



Unfortunately, however, for this theory, 

 a little observation shows how imreliable 

 are the feelings after we have marshalled 

 our forces for the attack. A college stu- 

 dent recently told the writer that, after an 

 eloquent exposition by his professor of 

 English history of the period of George 

 III., it was mentioned, as an instance of 

 that monarch's abstemiousness, that he al- 

 ways had boiled mutton and turnips for 

 dinner. Now, if there are any articles of 

 diet which this student abhors, it is boiled 

 mutton and turnips. Consequently, all 

 the deserving ideas related to the period 

 of George III. were forced to yield, for the 

 time, to the domination of turnips and 

 mutton, and when, the following year, 

 George III. was reached in American his- 

 tory, all other ideas were driven from the 

 consciousness of this young man while he 

 breathlessly waited again for mutton and 

 turnips. Evidently the feelings are an 

 unsafe educational guide, if hateful ob- 

 jects and ideas may be as attractive as 

 those which are pleasant. 



Again, rewards and penalties have 

 seemed to some to be the effective means 

 of winning the attention. The first fails 

 on account of uncertainties regarding the 

 sort of knowledge which will secure the 

 reward, and the second is unproductive 

 because the teacher and the implied pun- 

 ishment are too prominent in the conscious- 

 ness of the learner for efficient concentra- 

 tion. Further, both of these incentives 

 divide the attention. The prerequisite of 

 a productive state of consciousness is that 

 all diverting ideas and objects, including 

 the teacher himself, pass out of conscious- 

 ness and leave the field free for the com- 

 petitive interaction of the mental processes 

 created by the work in hand. Ideas may 

 be forced upon children while the native 

 impulses are restrained by penalties, much 

 as one may be compelled to eat what does 

 not suit his taste, but the mind refuses to 



