is worth infinitely more than all that vague,
floating kind of knowledge sometimes sought after, which seems to be
imbibed somehow from the atmosphere of the school-room, as it certainly
evaporates the moment a boy enters the atmosphere of men and of active
life.

XXVII.

GAINING THE ATTENTION.

The teacher who fails to get the attention of his scholars, fails
totally. The pupils may perhaps learn something, because they may give
the lesson some study at home, under the direction of their parents. But
they learn nothing from the teacher. He is really no teacher, though he
may occupy the teacher's seat. There is, and there can be, no teaching,
where the attention of the scholar is not secured. Gaining the attention
is an indispensable condition to the thing called teaching. Not,
however, the only indispensable thing. We have seen a class wrought by
special tricks and devices to the highest pitch of excited
attention,--fairly panting with eagerness, all eyes and ears, on the
very tiptoe of aroused mental activity,--yet learning nothing. The
teacher had the knack of stirring them up and lashing them into a half
frenzy of excited expectation, without having any substantial knowledge
wherewith to reward their eagerness. With all his one-sided skill, he
was but a mountebank. To real, successful teaching, there must be these
two things, namely, the ability to hold the minds of the children, and
the ability to pour into the minds thus presented sound and seasonable
instruction. Lacking the latter ability, your pupil goes away with his
vessel unfilled. Lacking the former, you only pour water upon the
ground.

How shall the teacher secure attention?

In the first place, let him make up his mind that he will have it. This
is half the battle. Let him settle it with himself, that until he does
this, he is doing nothing; that without the attention of his scholars,
he is no more a teacher, than is the chair he occupies. If he is not
plus, he is zero, if not actually minus. With this truth fully realized,
he will come before his class resolved to have a hearing; and this very
resolution, written as it will be all over him, will have its effect
upon his scholars. Children are quick to discern the mental attitude of
a teacher. They know, as if by instinct, whether he is in earnest or
not, and in all ordinary cases they yield without dispute to a claim
thus resolutely put.

This, then, is the first duty of the teacher in