CONTENTS:

Attention and Interest.

The Basis of Attention.

Training the Attention.

Classification.

Definition.

Dissection.

Reconstitution.

Figures.

The Memorization of Figures.

Attention and Interest.

We have seen in preceding lessons how we acquire knowledge, and the process channels through which that knowledge must come in order to insure its recollection.

We have also seen that this knowledge is brought to the mind through the senses, which are the means of communication in both directions, for sensation and for perception.

They are a sort of double-track railway, and it must be obvious that anything that can be done to improve the service, the speed and reliability, of this line of communication, must enormously increase its carrying power.

If the line is in perfect working order, the traffic moves with freedom and dispatch, and you can handle twice or three times the business.

Now, the road-bed on which the senses run, the rails which hold them to their work, is the attention, and the foundation upon which the attention rests is interest. All attention is based on interest.

It is not necessary in these lessons to go into the scientific details of the psychology of attention, except to distinguish between two principal kinds: spontaneous, and artificial or voluntary.

Spontaneous attention is a gift of Nature; everybody has it. Voluntary attention is a matter of education and habit. The first is common, but the second must be acquired by proper mental training, which is the purpose of these lessons to give.

It is difficult to convince those who have never studied experimental psychology that the attention cannot possibly be held steadily on one thing for a single minute.

Hold a ticking watch at the right distance from the ear, so that it can just be heard, and you will find that, in spite of your efforts, some of the ticks will drop out of consciousness, as if the teeth of the wheels were better oiled at some places than at others. The reason why you miss some of the ticks is that you become relatively inattentive every few seconds.

The exact time for these fluctuations of attention in both seeing and hearing has been determined by experiment to be between three and four seconds, and Professor Ladd assures us that the images of the memory have been found to oscillate in the same way.

But such details, while they may be interesting, are not important for the purpose of these lessons. What the pupil should observe is, that the attention can be trained to stand long sustained efforts, just as any muscular exercise can be sustained by practice.

Spontaneous attention is that in which a person pays, without effort, to anything which interests him. Many examples of it will readily suggest themselves, such as a man looking at a house on fire, a woman in a bonnet shop, a boy at a game of football.

Voluntary attention is a development of spontaneous attention: it is a cultivated variety, differing from it only in degree. For all purposes of memory, this voluntary attention is invaluable.

The ability to hold the attention by a mere act of the will is one of the marks of a well-trained mind. It is the key to success in life.

The greatest reproach that can be brought against any man is that he does not attend to business, does not pay attention. The want of attention which people complain of never refers to the spontaneous form, but to the voluntary, and the inability to control it is generally spoken of as mind-wandering.

The Basis of Attention.

But, as we have already said, attention is based entirely upon interest. You can never pay attention, in the true sense of the word, to anything which does not interest you. You may fancy that you are paying attention at the time, but twenty-four hours later will demonstrate that you did not, because you will have forgotten it.

If you have no interest, you must be able to create interest; because, if there is no interest, there is no attention, and, if there is no attention, there is no memory.

The mark of the expert in any calling which demands the attention of others is his ability to arouse their interest; to connect what he has to say with something in which they are interested.

The ability to arouse interest is the secret of the story-writer’s success. It does not matter much what he writes, so long as it is interesting.

The advertiser who catches the public is the one who knows how to say what he has to say in an interesting way, to make his proposition fit in with the interests of the daily life of those whom he expects to read his advertisements.

The successful salesman is the one who can get his customers interested in his goods or in himself, it does not matter which.

The successful lawyer is the one who can interest the jury; they listen to him because he makes his plea fit into the thread of their life and thoughts.

The successful preacher and lecturer is the one who can interest his audience.

The minister who can make his influence the most widely felt is one who can talk to the hearts of his congregation and not over their heads.

Make anything interesting, and the attention must follow surely as night follows day.

If you are a young man trying to make your way in the world, do not follow a calling which does not interest you, because you will never pay to it the attention that commands success. But, having made your selection, study above and before everything the interesting side of your business.

If you are selling goods, for instance, store your memory with interesting facts about them. These are the things that hold the customer’s attention and make him remember you and come to you again.

Nothing sticks in the memory so long, or makes friends so surely, as an interesting personality.

The seeking out of differences and agreements awakens the interest upon which all attention is based. The great secret of teaching children lies in arousing their interest, and this can be best accom-plished by comparing the things you wish them to learn with the things they already know, the things in which they already have some interest.

If you want to awaken a boy’s interest in the stars, you should not take him out on a clear night and point out the constellations of Cepeus, Corona Borealis, and Cassiopeia. What does he care about them?

They are meaningless names, in which he has not the slightest interest, and no matter how carefully you point out to him where they are, he does not pay any attention to them, and cannot find them on the following evening.

But if you ask him whether he knows that there is a soldier in the sky, with a belt round his waist and a dagger in the belt, he is all attention in a moment. For a week afterwards you will find him pointing out the constellation of Orion to his friends, and asking you to tell him some more about the stars.