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Professor James says: "There is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time. What is called sustained voluntary attention is a repetition of successive efforts which bring back the topic to the mind. The topic once brought back, if a congenial one, develops; and if its development is interesting it engages the attention passively for a time. This passive interest may be short or long. As soon as it flags, the attention is diverted by some irrelevant thing, and then a voluntary effort may bring it back to the topic again; and so on, under favorable conditions, for hours together. During all this time, however, note that it is not an identical object in the psychical sense, but a succession of mutually related objects forming an identical topic only, upon which the attention is fixed. No one can possibly attend continuously to an object that does not change."

The subject of attention is well illustrated by Professor Loisette in his system for cultivating the memory. He says: "You may have seen a shoemaker putting nails into the sole of a boot. With his left thumb and finger he pricks the point of the nail into the leather just far enough to make the nail stand upright. It is so feebly attached that at the least shake it falls on the floor. Then down comes the hammer and drives the nail up to the head. Now the sensations that are continually pouring in upon us by all the avenues of sense-by the eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin -as well as the ideas streaming into our minds, are on their first arrival attached as feebly as the nails to the boot. But then down comes the attention like a hammer, and drives them into consciousness, so that their record remains forever."

The degree of attention that we can give to an object will

depend upon our habitual methods of study and thought. Professor Joseph Stewart offers the following suggestions: "The habits of thought should be rational. Vagaries should be avoided. The mind must be trained to hold its concepts clearly without obliquity or blur. Therefore, innuendo, indirectness, and slackness of thought and expression should be guarded against. The processes of the mind should be carried on logically. Avoid irrelevancy. The habit of the mind should be selective. Choose the order and kind of thought you put into your mental house."

Rule a square of cardboard in columns and place therein a series of symbols or characters, with each of which there is to be associated in the mind a particular thought. Place the board where it may be conveniently seen, and, beginning with the first symbol, go over the series in regular order, holding in mind for a particular time the special concept or thought, and that alone, associated with each symbol. The student may elaborate this plan as to symbols, the associated concepts, or the order of viewing them, and make it as complex as he desires. The principle of concentration is the persistent but gentle calling back of the mind to the original thought, and is effected by merely substituting it for the intrusive one.

Concentrate without using muscular force. The clearest mind dwells in the healthiest body, and this is the best condition for concentration.

EXAMPLES

1. On a sudden the field of combat opens on his astonished vision. It is a field which men call "glorious." A hundred thousand warriors stand in opposed ranks. Light gleams on their burnished steel. Their plumes and banners wave. Hill echoes to hill the noise of moving rank and squadron, the neigh and

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tramp of steeds, the trumpet, drum, and bugle call. There is
a momentary pause,—a silence like that which precedes the fall
of a thunder-bolt,-like that awful stillness, which is precursor
to the desolating rage of the whirlwind. In an instant, flash suc-
ceeding flash, pours columns of smoke along the plain. The
iron tempest sweeps, heaping man, horse, and car, in undistin-
guished ruin. In shouts of rushing hosts,-in shock of breasting
steeds, in peals of musketry, in artillery's roar,-in sabres'
clash, in thick and gathering clouds of smoke and dust, all
human eye, and ear, and sense, are lost. Man sees not, but the
sign of onset. Man hears not, but the cry of-"Onward!"
"The Field of Battle.”

2. The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon, large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm, sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick, sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Then the two hearts beating each to each!

"Meeting at Night."

HALL.

BROWNING.

3. When the mind loses hold of its object, whether devotional or intellectual—as it will do, time after time-it must be brought back, and again directed to the object. Often at first it will wander away without the wandering being noticed, and the student suddenly awakes to the fact that he is thinking about something quite other than the proper object of thought. This will happen again and again, and he must patiently bring it backa wearisome and tiring process, but there is no other way by which concentration can be gained.

"Thought Power."

ANNIE BESANT.

4. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church-I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honor, the liberties, the religion-the Protestant religion-of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practises are let loose among us to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage-against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war-hell-hounds, I say, of savage war!

My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.

"On American Affairs."

LORD CHATHAM.

SPONTANEITY

"All art must be preceded by a certain mechanical expertness," says Goethe, and this is particularly applicable to the subject of elocution. There should be long and patient practise of mechanical exercises for developing accuracy, flexibility, and facility in the use of the voice and vehicles of expression. The highest art is to conceal art, however, and a time comes when the student should abandon his "rules" and "exercises" and yield himself wholly to the thought and feeling to be expressed. If he has been well-trained, the members of expression will perform their work promptly and correctly with little conscious effort on his part. The speaker must test and criticize over and over again the work of his voice, gesture, and expression, until he is thoroughly satisfied as to its accuracy and dependableness. To produce his effects spontaneously there must be freedom from restraint and external force, tho the will should so dominate as to promptly check any violations of harmony or naturalness.

The essential qualities of spontaneity are expression instead of repression, freedom rather than restraint, unity, earnestness, concentration, and naturalness.

EXAMPLES

1. Give us, oh, give us, the man who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation in its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous, a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.

CARLYLE.

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