The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Concentration of Purpose in Education

II.

"A bright girl, but she never sticks to anything."

"A clever boy, but has no application."

"Well meaning, but purposeless."

These and similar remarks are constantly made of the young people around us, and they all point to the same thing--i.e., deficiency in concentration of purpose. The difference between a child who succeeds and a child who fails is simply that the one does, and the other does not, possess the power of concentration. This quality is conspicuous by its absence in the majority of boys and girls--it is the one thing lacking in many a brilliant and talented mind; and yet it is the one thing most essential to success in life. Many a gifted lad has failed to do justice to his abilities either at school or home through this deficiency; many an intelligent girl has disappointed her friends by her aimlessness when thrown on her own resources. Take a not uncommon case.

A girl leaves the schoolroom, fired with zeal and full of pleasant sensible schemes. Mamma is to be relieved of household work and Dolly's lessons; papa will have a companion for his daily walks and botanising expeditions; Tom will teach her tennis, so that she may join the club next summer. The mind must not be neglected, so a list of solid books is made out, and a German play selected for daily translation. Music, of course, must be kept up, and the hour before breakfast is set aside for that--early rising being so healthy and invigorating! To ensure regularity, an imposing time-table is drawn up and hung in the bedroom. With what result? At the end of the month, mamma finds her jam-pots covered with dust, and her monthly bills in confusion; papa looks grimly at the smart new book which has lain unopened on his study-table ever since the first dozen specimens were gummed in; Dolly exults in the fact that sister never has time to hear her lessons; and Tom complains that Lily will not practise tennis regularly, though she is ready enough for a game with visitors. Moreover, it is wonderful how many good reasons arrive every day for omitting or curtailing the solid reading; and so far from enjoying the early morning hours at the piano, poor Lily can rarely be got down in time for prayers. How many girls must be forced to confess that this is no fancy picture!

A boy is left less to his own discretion, and is more tied down by rules and hours than a girl at the same age; yet with him, too, want of concentration is generally his bane, and if he is obliged to keep to work hours he does little good in them. Want of concentration in work keeps him back in the school class-room and college lecture hall; want of concentration in recreation makes him just fall short of a good cricketer, oarsman; sportsman, or artist as the case may be. More lives are wasted by this failing than by almost any other. Of two boys, one clever, brilliant but purposeless, the other dull but plodding and possessing concentration of purpose, the latter will invariably outstrip the former in the long run. Now, how is this concentration of purpose to be acquired?

Simply by habit, the foundation of which habit cannot be too early laid. Begin with small things. Do not allow you little ones to take out a dozen toys in the course of an afternoon, throwing them aside one after another. See that one game is continued for a reasonable time before another is begun. Suggest, if you will, enlargements and improvements, but do not let the butterfly fancy rove too quickly from object to object. Have the bricks been brought out? Encourage Willy to build two or three castles, a village and a church, before you allow him to set up his soldiers. Has Johnny asked for his scrap-book? Do not let him be tempted by the sight of his paint-box till a number of Christmas-cards have been pasted in, and even then propose that the paints should be employed to colour the prints in the scrap-book, so that the original purpose shall not be wholly abandoned. If Matty wishes to make her dolly a new frock, insist gently but firmly on that frock being finished before a bead necklace is undertaken. If a game of dolls is started, let each little mother put her child to bed tidily ere she departs on a voyage of discovery with her brother, or a gipsy fight in the empty garret. The task of instilling method and patience even in play will not be difficult, if loving imagination and tact go hand in hand with watchfulness and firmness. But the mother or teacher must be prepared to bestow much time and energy on this object, and must leave nothing to chance. Some may argue that "play should be play"--that children always do best when left to their own devices--that restraint and supervision may be overdone. I reply that in this matter a great deal more supervision is needed than is generally given, that restraint need not be made oppressive, and that if with our babies we wisely and gently forestall the work that must be done a few years later, we shall save ourselves and them much future trouble. Nay, I should go further and say that, unless the work is begun in infancy, there is little chance of future success.

Training, in fact, cannot be begun too early, and woe to that parent who attempts to put it off. It is cruel kindness to the child. While the tender mind is open to all impressions, while there is as yet no questioning or thought of rebellion, or weariness of brain and body to interfere, begin to inculcate the habits of method, of patience, of diligence, and of perseverance. Believe me, not time is more valuable than these earliest years, even though as yet your little darling seems scarcely more than a pet and a plaything on which to lavish your caresses. Is it not a notable fact that most stepmothers and guardians who take charge of a child as old as six or seven, find the task somewhat difficult even with lovable and docile children, simply because there has been no mother's watchful care, and so these first precious years have been wasted? Bad habits, even at that early age, have taken deep root, and the work of training has to be begun from the beginning--with this difference, that there is sturdy childhood instead of pliant infancy to work upon.

Train your little child from the first and in the smallest matters to concentration of purpose, and both you and the child will reap the benefit. Do not be afraid of harassing the wee mind or quenching the bright spirit. The habit of concentration will soon become second nature, while play will only be the sweeter and merrier for it. It is an undeniable fact that children really appreciate method, and enjoy the sense of "something attempted, something done," when once the habit has been insisted upon. A child who can point to some definite result of an hour's occupation, a "Tower of Babel" on the rug, or a dissected picture put up, will be far brighter than one who has turned out the whole toy-box and varied his play every half-hour.

Begin your training with play, and continue with lessons. Concentration of thought is essential to concentration of purpose, and, indeed, is part of it. It has equally to be taught. The average child hates nothing so much as being asked to concentrate his mind; in fact, he rarely does so unless he is forced. The teacher must not be deceived by an industrious exterior. Your pupil may write a page of his copy without once looking up, may add up long columns of figures and learn several verses of poetry at a sitting, while all the time his mind may be roving in a hundred directions. He will be placidly content as long as his work lies in the old grooves, but try to force his mind to work and he is perplexed and worried. Test him. Instead of asking questions which he can answer mechanically, having learnt the lessons almost by heart, make him narrate the substance. He will probably fail utterly, for his mind cannot concentrate itself on the subject sufficiently to put it in his own words. Instead of a copy, make him write an account of some even in English history, an event which he knows well. He will sigh and fidget, and nibble his pen in despair. On the other hand, give him a list of questions on the same event, and he will answer them freely and cheerfully, for you have then removed the necessity for him to use his own mind. I am convinced that the reason why so few boys and girls can write good essays, is not that they fail in powers of narration, but of concentration. Take another simple example. William I. Came to the throne in 1066, William II. in 1087--how long did the former reign? Your pupil stand with knitted brow and earnestly moving lips, till you lose patience, and spare him the painful necessity of concentrating his thoughts by telling him how to work the sum. Do you imagine he has been thinking all this time? By no means. He has been merely repeating your question over and over, unable to fix his thoughts sufficiently to find out how to solve the problem. A wise teacher, noticing these facts, will do all in her power to make the child acquire concentration. She will give him constant tests, and with firm patience will gradually teach him how to think. She will encourage him by getting him to take delight in a completed and unaided task, and also by letting him show father and mother the difficult sum worked "all by myself," or the essay finished in a given time. Here again concentration of purpose may be taught by refusing to allow a new book or piece of music to be begun till justice has been done to the old one. The acquiring of this quality is more important than any book knowledge. With young children it should not be so much a question of what they learn as how they learn; and if the wavering mind once learns to fix itself on the object set before it, all learning will become easy, and we shall not have to complain of idleness and aimless ways hereafter.

As your child leaves the nursery the need for watchfulness increases, since there are so many interesting occupations open to it that their very variety tends to promote instability. A plot of ground is generally the first thing demanded. Grant it, with the warning that it will be taken away if not rightly used. Visit it constantly yourself, and award praise or disapproval according to the presence or absence of weeds. If the interest flags, revive it with judicious presents of seeds or plants, and help the little gardener to arrange them in the very prettiest order. Perhaps the gardening craze may subside on the introduction of tame rabbits. Suggest then that one corner of the plot be devoted to the rearing of lettuces for the pets, and that a kitchen and flower portion should rival each other in utility and beauty. Allow the purchase (say) of a new cricketing set only if the rabbits have been well cared for, and take it away if the hutches are left dirty during the cricket season.

In all occupations take a personal interest yourself, let your child see that you enter into all his pursuits, and encourage him by all possible means to persevere with what he has undertaken, trying to make him regard this not as a burden, but as a duty and pleasure combined.

So with books. It is a sensible plan to make a rule that your voracious young reader shall finish one work before he begins another, and you should see that he does not gallop it through too quickly. It is surprising how easy it will be to him to persevere with what many children would call "a dull book" when once it has become a habit with him to finish what he begins. The habit of dipping into books is fatal to concentration of purpose in study.

But, lastly, if we would teach our children concentration of purpose, we must get them to regard it in the right light as a Christian duty. "In singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men" (Col. iii. 22, 23).

Any useful object, either for ourselves or for others, once undertaken belongs to God; and surely, when viewed in that solemn light, dawdling and idleness and frivolity become no longer "little sins," "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." If we wish our children to excel in virtue and in usefulness, we must teach them patiently, watchfully, prayerfully, by example and by precept, from their earliest years and in the smallest particulars, Concentration of Purpose.

Proofread by LNL, August, 2023