r a dramatic situation, by virtue of the
concentration of attention given, than they would in reciting many
lessons in which they seek to remember the paragraphs or pages which
they have read. The boy who gives his attention to the production of a
story for his school paper will work harder than one who is asked to
write a composition covering two pages. Children who are allowed to
prepare for the entertainment of the members of their class a story with
which they alone are familiar will give a quality of attention to the
work in hand which is never secured when all of the members of the class
are asked to reproduce a story which the teacher has read.

It is necessary at times to have children give forced attention. There
are some things to be accomplished that must be done, regardless of our
success in securing free attention. It is entirely conceivable that some
boy or girl may not want to learn his multiplication tables, or his
words in spelling, or his conjugation or declension in French, and that
all that the teacher has done may fail to arouse any great amount of
interest or enthusiasm for the work in question. In these cases, and in
many others which might be cited, the necessity for the particular habit
may be so great as to demand that every pupil do the work or form the
habit in question. In these cases we may not infrequently hope that
after having given forced attention to the work of the school, children
may in time come to understand the importance of the experiences which
they are having, or even become interested in the work for its own sake.
It is not infrequently true that after a period of forced attention
there follows a time during which, on account of the value which
children are able to understand as attached to or belonging to the
particular exercise, they give free derived attention. Many boys and
girls have worked through their courses in science or in modern
languages because they believed that these subjects would prove valuable
not only in preparing them for college, but in giving them a wider
outlook on life. Their attention was of the free derived type. Later on
some of these same pupils have become tremendously enthusiastic in their
work in the fields in question, and have found such great satisfaction
in the work itself, that their attention might properly be characterized
as free immediate attention.

The importance of making children conscious of their power of
concentrating their att