hat has been covered, we see that a number of
important subjects have been only lightly touched upon, while we have
been altogether silent regarding others equally as vital. This is
doubtless inevitable in any work upon the kindergarten which does not
aim to be encyclopaedic in character, but a few of the more serious
omissions may be supplied before we close our consideration of the
gifts and enter upon that of the occupations.

First, then, a word on the subject of attention.

Difficulty of holding Child's Attention.

It is not uncommon, when discussing any exercises with kindergarten
materials which require dictation or guidance, to hear complaints of
the difficulty of holding the children's attention. It may generally
be said, doubtless, that when little children fail to give attention
it is because they are not interested, and if the teacher finds the
majority of her pupils listless, indifferent, and vagrant-minded, she
may reasonably conclude that something is amiss either with the
subject or with her presentation of it. The child is as yet too young
to command his mental powers and "drive himself on by his own
self-determination," and if we enforce an attention which he gives
through fear, we lose the motive power of interest which Froebel
sought to utilize in the plays of the kindergarten.

Dr. George P. Brown in a late article on "Metaphysics and
Pedagogics"[81] says, "Every one admits that there is much that must
be done by the child in his elementary education which is a task, for
the reason that his ideas of its worth to himself cannot be
sufficiently appreciated to arouse a lively and impelling interest in
the doing of it," and he adds, "Garfield once complained that he had
done so long those things in which he was interested that he was
losing his power to do that which did not interest him, which suggests
the danger of relying entirely upon interest as an incentive to
learn."

[81] _Public School Journal_, July, 1895.

That there is a danger here cannot be denied, but it is one which need
hardly be considered at the kindergarten age, when that interest which
comes from continued agreement between the work in hand and the
child's inner wants is absolutely essential to the gaining of
knowledge. Mr. W. N. Hailmann puts the whole matter in a nutshell when
he says: "If the kindergartner has the penetration to discover these
inner wants, and the skill to adapt the circumstances and her own
purpose