seem to have been more encouraged
by this practical demonstration of the infallibility of persevering
attention, than by any other methods which have been tried. When,
after a number of small successful trials, they have acquired some
share of confidence in themselves, when they are certain of the
possibility of their performing any given operations, we may then
press them a little as to velocity. When they are well acquainted with
any set of ideas, we may urge them to quick transition of attention
from one to another; but if we insist upon this rapidity of
transition, before they are thoroughly acquainted with each idea in
the assemblage, we shall only increase their timidity and hesitation;
we shall confound their understandings, and depress their ambition.

It is of consequence to distinguish between slow and sluggish
attention. Sometimes children appear stupid and heavy, when they are
absolutely exhausted by too great efforts of attention: at other
times, they have something like the same dulness of aspect, before
they have had any thing to fatigue them, merely from their not having
yet awakened themselves to business. We must be certain of our pupil's
state of mind before we proceed. If he be incapacitated from fatigue,
let him rest; if he be torpid, rouse him with a rattling peal of
thunder; but be sure that you have not, as it has been said of
Jupiter,[21] recourse to your thunder only when you are in the wrong.
Some preceptors scold when they cannot explain, and grow angry in
proportion to the fatigue they see expressed in the countenance of
their unhappy pupils. If a timid child foresees that an explanation
will probably end in a phillipic, he cannot fix his attention; he is
anticipating the evil of your anger, instead of listening to your
demonstrations; and he says, "Yes, yes, I see, I know, I understand,"
with trembling eagerness, whilst through the mist and confusion of his
fears, he can scarcely see or hear, much less understand, any thing.
If you mistake the confusion and fatigue of terror for inattention or
indolence, and press your pupil to further exertions, you will
confirm, instead of curing, his stupidity. You must diminish his fear
before you can increase his attention. With children who are thus,
from timid anxiety to please, disposed to exert their faculties too
much, it is obvious that no excitation should be used, but every
playful, every affectionate means should be employed to dissipate
the