ntricate; and passive
attention to natively interesting material requires no further
elucidation on this occasion. All that we need explicitly to note is
that, the more the passive attention is relied on, by keeping the
material interesting; and the less the kind of attention requiring
effort is appealed to; the more smoothly and pleasantly the classroom
work goes on. I must say a few more words, however, about this latter
process of voluntary and deliberate attention.

One often hears it said that genius is nothing but a power of sustained
attention, and the popular impression probably prevails that men of
genius are remarkable for their voluntary powers in this direction. _But
a little introspective observation will show any one that voluntary
attention cannot be continuously sustained,--that it comes in beats._
When we are studying an uninteresting subject, if our mind tends to
wander, we have to bring back our attention every now and then by using
distinct pulses of effort, which revivify the topic for a moment, the
mind then running on for a certain number of seconds or minutes with
spontaneous interest, until again some intercurrent idea captures it and
takes it off. Then the processes of volitional recall must be repeated
once more. Voluntary attention, in short, is only a momentary affair.
The process, whatever it is, exhausts itself in the single act; and,
unless the matter is then taken in hand by some trace of interest
inherent in the subject, the mind fails to follow it at all. The
sustained attention of the genius, sticking to his subject for hours
together, is for the most part of the passive sort. The minds of
geniuses are full of copious and original associations. The subject of
thought, once started, develops all sorts of fascinating consequences.
The attention is led along one of these to another in the most
interesting manner, and the attention never once tends to stray away.

In a commonplace mind, on the other hand, a subject develops much less
numerous associates: it dies out then quickly; and, if the man is to
keep up thinking of it at all, he must bring his attention back to it by
a violent wrench. In him, therefore, the faculty of voluntary attention
receives abundant opportunity for cultivation in daily life. It is your
despised business man, your common man of affairs, (so looked down on by
the literary awarders of fame) whose virtue in this regard is likely to
be most developed; for he has t