The teachers in all classes and in all lessons throughout the school
made ceaseless efforts to win and hold attention. This was not
incidental or accidental, but was an integrate part of the educational
plan, intelligently designed and deliberately pursued, with intent to
train the pupils in the practice of concentrating their minds on the one
thing before them until it became a fixed habit.
Years after the Brook Farm School had closed its doors, I was called to
enter another school--the awful school of war. The first word I had to
learn in that school was the command, "Attention!"
Attention means life or death to the soldier; victory or defeat to the
army. In civil life it aids incalculably in promoting prosperity, the
ability to give instant attention to matters coming up for consideration
being one of the first qualifications of the successful business man.
And if he has not such ability originally it may be imparted to him as a
habit, by early training. Miss Morton did not begin too early; and the
teachers who followed her did not persist too earnestly in the endeavor
to impress this habit deeply on the minds of their pupils.
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