The following is chapter three of The Seven Laws of Teaching (unabridged) by JOHN M. GREGORY, LL.D. The Seven Laws of Teaching (Unabridged) is available at Logos School Materials for $10.00 along with our popular study guide Practical Applications for the 7 Laws of Teaching

CHAPTER III.

THE LAW OF THE LEARNER.

I. Passing from the side of the teacher to the side of the pupil, our next inquiry is for the Law of the Learner. Here the search must be for that one characteristic, if there be such, which divides and differentiates the learner from other persons — for that essential element which makes the learner a learner. Let us place before us the successful scholar, and note carefully whatever is peculiar and essential in his action and attributes. His intent look, his absorbed manner, his face full of eager action or of profound study, — all these are but so many signs of deep interest and active attention. This interest and attention, the inseparable parts of one mental state, make up the essential attribute of every true learner. The very power to learn lies in this interested attention. It is the one essential condition on which all learning is possible. It constitutes, therefore, the natural law of the learner, and may be stated in preceptive form as follows : The learner must attend with interest to the fact or truth to be learned.

2. The law thus stated will seem as trite as a common truism, but it is as really profound as it is seemingly simple. The plainest proof of its truth lies in the readiness with which every one will admit it. Its real depth can only be found by careful study. Attention Described.

3. Avoiding as much as possible all metaphysical discussion, we may describe attention as a mental attitude—the attitude in which the thought-power is actively bent toward, or fastened upon, some object of thought or perception. It is an attitude, not of ease and repose, but of effort and exertion. It means not merely position and direction, but action. It is the will-power marshaling all the faculties of the mind for some expected onset, or holding them with steady front in the midst of conflict and activity. It may be seen in the man who, standing with idle, vacant stare, gazing at nothing, is suddenly aroused by some sight or sound. At once a light comes into the eye, the look becomes alert, and the mind is put into conscious action. There is a felt strain of the thinking faculty, as of an appetite hungering for its food—an intent fastening of the intellect upon its chosen objects. This aroused activity of the mind — this awakened attitude of mental power, poised and eager for its work — we call ATTENTION.

Compelled and Attracted Attention.
4. We may somewhat loosely divide attention into two classes: compelled and attracted. The first is given by an effort of the will, in obedience to some command of authority, or call of irksome duty; the second springs from desire, and is given without conscious effort and with eager delight. The first is cold, mechanical, and powerless ; it is the child studying its lesson as a task, with slight interest and no pleasure. The second is living and full of power, the mind eager to grasp and possess its object. It is that of the boy reading a story full of wonder and delight. Compelled attention in adults is dull and dogged ; in little children it is partial even when possible. Generally it is not attention at all. The face may take on the look of attention, but the mind wanders to more winsome objects. It learns to hate lessons as slaves hate labor. Attracted attention is mental power alert with desire and eager for gratification. It is mental hunger seeking its food, and delighting itself as at a feast. Unconscious of exertion, it gathers strength from its efforts, and scarcely knows fatigue.

5. Compelled attention is short-lived and easily exhausted. Its very painfulness wearies the powers of body and mind. If urged too far, its tension breaks, and the child yawns and even sleeps with exhaustion, or cries with pain and anger. Attracted attention, on the other hand, is full of power and endurance. Its felt interest calls dormant energies into play, and the pleasure given by its efforts seems to refresh rather than weary the mind. The boy forced to study what he does not like feels thoroughly tired in half an hour. Give him now a story which he enjoys, and he will read without a sign of weariness for two or three hours longer, till the tired body rebels, and will not sit still any longer.

6. At times in the outset of a lesson or of a subject, there may seem a need of securing the attention of the class or of some members of it by a gentle compulsion, an appeal to the sense of duty, or other like means ; but the effort in such case should be made to transform this compelled attention into that which is fuller of spontaneity and power. We may be obliged to lift a sleepy child to his feet by main strength, but unless we can waken him soon to walk by himself, his progress will be slow and small. The same holds true in mental movements.

Degrees of Attention.
7. These two classes of attention melt into each other by almost insensible degrees. The compelled sometimes rises into true or attracted attention by some kindling of interest in the subject; and not unfrequently the latter sinks into the former with the disappearance of novelty in the lesson. Of these degrees or grades in attention, the first and lowest is that in which the physical senses, the eye and ear especially, are lent to the teacher, and the mind almost passively receives what the teacher is able to impress forcibly upon it. This grade of attention is too common to need description. It may be seen in nearly all schoolrooms, and in most classes at the beginning of the lesson. The pupils sit at ease waiting to be aroused.

8. From this lowest grade the intellect lifts itself by successive steps to higher activity and power under some impulse of duty, of sympathy, of emulation, or of hope of reward, or other motives addressed to it it by the skillful teacher. But the highest grade of attention is that in which the subject interests, the feeling is enlisted, and the whole nature attends. Eye, ear, intellect, and heart concenter their powers in a combined effort, and the soul sends to the task all its faculties roused to their utmost activity. Such is the attitude of the true learner, and such is the attention demanded by this law of the learner in its perfect fulfillment. Every experienced teacher knows how easy is the teaching, and how rapid the learning, when the law is thus fulfilled.

The Philosophy of the Law.
9. However much teachers may neglect it in practice, they readily admit in theory that without attention the pupil can learn nothing. One may as well talk to the deaf or the dead* as to teach a child who is wholly inattentive. All this seems too obvious to need discussion; but a brief survey of the psychological facts which underlie this law will bring out into clearer and more impressive light its vital force and its irrevocable authority.

10. Knowledge can not be passed, like some material substance, from one person to another. Thoughts are not things which may be held and handled. They are the unseen and silent acts of the invisible mind. Ideas, the products of thought, can only be communicated by inducing in the receiving mind action correspondent to that by which these ideas were first conceived. In other words, ideas can only be transmitted by being rethought. It is obvious, therefore, that something more is required than a passive presentation of the pupil’s mind to the teacher’s mind as face turns to face. The pupil must think. His mind must work, not in a vague way, without object or direction, but under the control of the will, and with a fixed aim and purpose ; in other words, with attention. It is not enough to look and listen. The learner’s mind must work through the senses. There must be mind in the eye, in the ear, in the hand. If the mental power is only half aroused and feeble in its action, the conceptions gained will be faint and fragmentary, and the knowledge acquired will be as inaccurate and useless as it will be fleeting. Teacher and text-book may be full of knowledge, but the learner will get from them only so much as his power of attention, vigorously exercised, enables him to shape in his own mind. Knowledge is inseparable from the act of knowing. If the power of knowing is small, the actual knowledge acquired will also be small.

11. The notion that the mind can be made merely recipient — a bag to be filled with other people’s ideas, a piece of paper on which another may write, a cake of wax under the seal—is neither safe nor philosophical. The very nature of mind, as far as we can understand it, is that of a self-acting power or force — a force with a will within it, and full of attractions and repulsions for the objects around it. It is among these felt attractions or repulsions that the self-moving mind finds its motives. Without motive there is no will; without will no attention ; without attention no perception or intelligence. The striking (flock may sound as loud as ever in the portal of the ear, and the passing object may paint its image as clear as light in the open eye, but the absorbed and inattentive mind hears no voice and sees no vision. What reader has not sometime read a whole page with the eyes, and when he reached the bottom found himself unable to recall a single word or idea it contained ? The sense had done its work, but the mind had been busy with other thoughts.

12. The vigor of mental action, like that of muscular action, is proportioned to the feeling which inspires it. The powers of the intellect do not come forth in their full strength at the mere command of a teacher, nor on the call of some cold sense of duty. Nor can the mind exert its full force upon themes which but lightly touch the feelings. It is only when we “work with a will,” that is, with a keen and stirring interest in our work, that we bring our faculties of body or mind out in their fullest energy. Great occasions make men great. Unsuspected reserve powers come forth as soon as the demand is large enough. In the heat of a great battle, common men become heroic, and weak men strong. So, with deepening interest, attention deepens, and the mind’s reserve powers come into work. Sources of Interest.

13. The sources of interest, which are the approaches to the attention, are as numerous as the faculties and desires of man and the different aspects of the subjects to be studied. Each organ of sense is the gate-way to the pupil’s mind, though these gate-ways differ much in the ease of approach and in the volume and variety of ideas admitted. The hand explores a field limited each moment by the reach of the arm, and takes in only the tactual qualities of matter; but the eye admits the visible universe to its portals with the swiftness of light, and takes note of all of its phenomena of form, size, color, and motion. To command all these gate-ways of the senses is ordinarily to control the mind. Infants in the cradle may be lured to attention by a bit of bright ribbon, and they will cease feeding or crying to gaze upon some strange object swung before their eyes. The orator’s gesturing hand, his smiling or passion- laden look, and his many-toned voice,—all mere addresses to the senses, — often do more to wake the minds and hold the attention of his auditors than all the meanings of his speech. The mind can not refuse to heed that which appeals with power to the senses. Whatever is novel and curious, beautiful, grand, or sublime in mass or motion ; whatever is brilliant, strange, or charming in color or combination, — the eye fastens and feeds upon these, and the mind comes at its bidding to enjoy and protract the feast.

14. The teacher has not the orator’s opportunity for free and grand gesticulation, nor for his commanding use of the voice; but within narrower limits and in finer, because more easy and familiar, play, he has within his power all that face, voice, or hand can do to arrest attention; and has, besides, jjll that nature and art can afford to address the senses and awaken the intelligence. A sudden pause, with lifted hand, as if listening, will silence all noise in the class and put the pupils to listening also. The sudden showing of a picture, or of some object illustrating the lesson, will attract the most careless and awaken the most apathetic. It is the shock of change, as well as the novelty of a new sensation, which helps to produce the effect. The sudden raising or dropping of the voice arouses fresh attention, as also does a quick and unusual movement of the hands, head, or body. A person who has fallen asleep amid noise wakes when the noise suddenly ceases. The shock of silence awakens the senses put to sleep by monotonous sounds. So, on the contrary, the shock of sudden noise awakens those who are sleeping amid silence.

Effect of a New Idea.
15. The influence of shock extends also to the mind. A sudden appeal made to any mental faculty awakens us like the sudden shaking of a sleeper by the shoulder. It drives away all dreaminess and apathy. When we see a careless and listless pupil suddenly become alert and attentive, we say to ourselves : ” He has been struck with a new idea.” He rouses like one who has felt a blow. The shock of a new thought has sometimes had the power to change the entire course of a life, as in the story of the Prodigal Son, and as in less degree all lives change with the changes of thinking.

Questions that Startle.
16. The awakening and stirring power of a skillful question lies largely in this principle of the shock. It startles the intelligence as with an impinging blow. The ordinary questions read from the book, where the pupils have already seen and answered them, may have their uses, but they lack all power to startle and stir the mind. They simply call for the repetition of thoughts already studied and known. To produce its highest effect, the question must have the element of the unexpected in it. It must surprise the mind with some fresh and novel view of the subject, and must call sharply for new thought. The common style of Sunday-school questions asked with the book open before the pupil, such as : ” What did Nicodemus say to Jesus ? What did Jesus answer?” has little power to stir or teach. The mind feels no shake of the shoulder — no stimulating call to wakeful effort. They are sham questions — questions in form only, asking for what is well known and in plain sight. The true question implies the uncertain. It asks for the unseen and unknown. Like bugle blasts, such questions summon all the faculties into the field of action.

The Mental Appetites.
17. Passing within to the field of the mind’s own powers, other sources of interest and springs of attention appear. There lurks the imagination ready to take wing with delight at any picturesque, beautiful, or sublime aspect which the lesson may present. There sits the intelligence quick to stir, with its intense curiosity to see and know the hidden and unknown; and there stands the reason, restless till it shall array its facts, construct its theories, collect proofs, and demonstrate its solutions of the problems and questions which the lesson involves. These are the mental appetites, and each has its objects of search, its joy in action, and its pride of achievement.

18. Another source of genuine interest may be found in the connection of the lesson with something in the past life and studies of the learner; and a still richer one in its relations to his future duties and employments. We may add to these the sympathetic interest inspired by the teacher’s manifested delight in the theme, and by the generous emulation of fellow-learners in the same field. All these touch the pupil’s personality. They appeal to his selfhood. They stir the hopes or fears, which are quick to color every truth with some bright promise of good to be gained or shade it with some menace of evil to be escaped. The mind will brave and undergo the most fatiguing efforts, and persistently study the most tiresome lessons, to secure some high advantage or to avoid some threatened trouble. Self-love, the strongest and most persistent of human feelings, sways the scepter of a monarch over all faculties and feelings. When it bids, they wake and work with sharpest energies. Such are the great sources of the mind’s interest in its objects, and when the appeal can be made to several of them the effect is deep and intense. The teacher who knows how to touch all these keys whose vibrant chords thrill mind and heart may command all the resources of his pupil’s soul. But he should note that any one element of interest felt in its greatest fullness may be stronger than several only partly awakened.

Interest varies with Age.
19. The sources of interest vary with the ages of learners and with the advancing stages of growth and intelligence. This fact is important. The child of six feels little interest and gives no genuine attention to many of the themes which engross the mind of the youth of sixteen. In general, the lower motives are felt first; the nobler and finer come only with years and culture. The animal appetites awaken long before the spiritual. Children and adults are often indeed interested in the same scenes and objects, but it does not follow that they are interested in the same ideas. The child finds in the object some striking fact of sense or some personal gratification; the adult mind attends to the profounder relations, the causes or consequences of the fact. As attention follows interest, it is folly to attempt to gain attention to a lesson in which the pupil can not be led to feel any genuine interest. The assertion that children ought to be compelled to pay attention because it is their duty denies the fundamental condition of attention. If the duty is felt by the child, it is an element of interest; but if it is felt simply in the teacher’s mind it only repels. In the little child, affection and sympathy take, in part, the place of conscience, and through these he may be made to feel the claims of obligations which he can not fully understand. The mother’s horror of wrong-doing and her delight in well-doing are felt through sympathy in the heart of her boy; and so, too, the little pupil may be led to feel an interest in studies which the teacher loves and praises, before his intelligence has come to fully appreciate their importance.

20. The power of attention increases with the mental development, and is proportioned nearly to the years of the child. It is one of the most valuable products of education. Idiots and infants are almost destitute of it; even short lessons wearying and exhausting the attention of young children. ” Little and often ” is the rule for teaching very young pupils. The power of steady and prolonged attention belongs only to strong minds, and to those trained by long education. Said a man of noted intellectual distinction : ” The difference between me and ordinary men lies in my ability to maintain my attention — to keep on plodding.”

21. Attention is not a separate faculty of the mind, but rather an active attitude of some or all the faculties. Its power, therefore, must depend upon the number and strength of the faculties involved. Attention will be steadiest when the appeal is made to the strongest faculty. One person can give steady attention to objects of sense, another to objects of the imagination, and a third to processes of reason. A lawyer reads and remembers law case’s with great facility ; a physician is at once interested in the reports of medical cases, and a clergyman in a new treatise on theology. These are fruits of education; but there are also native diversities of tastes and powers which appear even in childhood. Kriisi, the pupil of Pestalozzi, and himself one of the noblest and most sagacious of teachers, tells of two children. The one, six years old, ” sees God every where as an omnipresent man before him. God gives the birds their food ; God has a thousand hands ; God sits upon all the trees and flowers.” The other child, he says, “has an entirely different view of God. To him he is a being afar off, but who from afar sees, hears, and controls every thing.” So differently do the minds of children work. One student is successful in mathematics, another in history, a third in language. To teach in the line of the strongest faculties is to teach with the highest success. Nature itself favors such teaching.

Hindrances to Attention.
22. The two chief hindrances to attention are apathy and distraction. The former may arise from constitutional inertness, from lack of taste for the subject under consideration, or from weariness or other unfavorable bodily condition of the hour. Distraction is the division of the attention between several objects. It is the common fault of undisciplined minds, and is the foe of all sound learning. The quick senses of children are caught so easily by a great variety of objects, and they find in each so little to interest them, that their thoughts flit as with the tireless wing of the butterfly. Memory holds with loose grasp the lessons learned with apathy or distraction, and the reason refuses such poor materials for its work. If the apathy or distraction come from fatigue or illness, the wise teacher will not attempt to force the lesson. Better to let it go for the time, and cheer and lift up the pupil by a kindly sympathy, diverting and arousing him by some unexpected talk or story, or leaving him to rest in quiet.

Rules for Teachers. Out of this Law of the Learner, thus expounded, emerge some of the most important rules for teaching :

1. Never begin a class exercise till the attention of the class is secured. Study for a moment in silence, the face of each pupil to see if all are mentally, as well as bodily, present.

2. Pause whenever the attention is interrupted or lost, and wait till it is completely regained.

3. Never exhaust wholly the pupil’s power of attention. Stop when signs of weariness appear, and either dismiss the class or change the subject to kindle fresh attention.

4. Fit the length of the exercise to the ages of the class : the younger the pupils the briefer the lesson.

5. Arouse, and when needful rest, the attention by a pleasing variety, but avoid distraction. Keep the real lesson in view.

6. Kindle and maintain the highest possible interest in the subject itself. Interest and attention react upon each other.

7. Present those aspects of the lesson, and use such illustrations, as fit the ages, characters, and attainments of the class.

8. Watch to learn the tastes and strongest faculties of each pupil, and as far as possible address the questions to those tastes and faculties. To do this is to hold the very heart-strings of the pupil.

9. Find out the favorite stories, songs, and subjects of each scholar. In these will be found the keys to their mental powers and habits and the ready means to arouse their interest and attention.

10. Watch keenly against all sources of distraction, such as unusual noises and sights, inside the class and out; all contacts and motions discomforting or diverting.

11. Prepare beforehand some questions which will awaken thought, but not beyond the powers and knowledge of the pupils.

12. Address the instruction to as many of the senses and faculties as possible, but beware of drawing the attention from the subject to some mere illustration.

13. Let the teacher maintain in himself and exhibit the closest attention and the most genuine interest in the lesson. True enthusiasm is contagious.

14. Study the best use of the eye and hand. These are the natural instruments of mental command. No pupil can help feeling the earnest gaze fixed upon his face; and none will fail to watch and interpret the lifted hand, the working fingers, the clenched fist, or any of the eloquent movements of these five-fingered monitors.

Violations and Mistakes.
The violations of the Law of the Learner are many, and they constitute the most fatal class of errors committed by ordinary teachers.

(1) Lessons are commenced before the attention of the class is gained, and continued after it has ceased to be given. As well begin before the pupils have entered the room, or continue after they have left. You can not pour water into a jug while the stopper is in place, nor get sight from the eye when the lids are closed.

(2) Pupils are urged to listen and learn after their limited power of attention is exhausted and when weariness has sealed their minds against any further impression. I remember seeing a teacher of good reputation try to teach a large class the use of the possessive case. She began with all eyes fixed upon her; but, as she went on one after another lost interest and ceased to attend, at the close of her explanation, only one pupil was carefully following, and to this one she addressed her closing question.

(3) Little or no effort is made to discover the states of the pupil or to create a real interest in the subject studied. The teacher, feeling no fresh interest in his work, seeks to compel the attention he is unable to attract, and awakens disgust by his dullness and dryness where he ought to inspire delight by his intelligence and active sympathy.

(4) Not a few teachers nearly kill the power of attention in their pupils by neglecting to call it out and give it vigorous exercise. They drone on through dull hours and dreary routine, reading commonplace questions from the books, without a single fresh inquiry or startling and interesting statement; and without any keen and stirring demand for all the power of the pupils to rush to action. The children in such schools seek some attitude of lazy ease as soon as they enter the room.

What wonder that through these and other violations of this law of teaching our schools are often made unattractive, and their success is so limited and poor ! If obedience to these rules is so important in the common schools, where the attendance of the children is compelled by parents, and where the professional instructor teaches with full authority of law, how much more is it necessary in the Sunday-school, where attendance and teaching are voluntary, and where attraction must do the work of authority ! Fortunately the Sunday-school holds, in the interest of its associations, in the surpassing sacredness and divine grandeur of its themes, in the variety and splendor of its truths and facts, and, above all, in the tender and immortal relationship which these truths establish between the Christian teacher and his pupils, advantages which may amply compensate for the lack of the authority and of the professional experience of the common school. But let the Sunday-school teacher who would win the richest and best results of teaching give to this Law of the Learner his profoundest thought and his most patient following. Let him master the art of gaining and keeping attention, and of exciting genuine and stirring interest, and he will wonder and rejoice at the fruitfulness of his work.