with large classes, there are quieting and relaxing exercises to be
practised sitting and standing, which will bring children to a
normal freedom, and help them to drop muscular contractions which
interfere with ease and control of thought and expression. Pictures
can be described,--scenes from Shakespeare, for instance,--in the
child's own words, while making quiet motions. Such exercise
increases the sensitiveness to muscular contraction, and unnecessary
muscular contraction, beside something to avoid in itself, obviously
makes thought _indirect._ A child must think quietly, to express his
thought quietly and directly. This exercise, of course, also
cultivates the imagination.

In all this work, as clear channels are opened for impression and
expression, the faculties themselves naturally have a freer growth.
The process of quiet thought and expression must be trained in all
phases,--from the slow description of something seen or imagined or
remembered, to the quick and correct answer required to an example
in mental arithmetic, or any other rapid thinking. This, of course,
means a growth in power of attention,--attention which is real
concentration, not the strained attention habitual to most of us,
and which being abnormal in itself causes abnormal reaction. And
this natural attention is learned in the use of each separate
sense,--to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch with quick and
exact impression and immediate expression, if required, and a in
obedience to the natural law of the conservation of human energy.

With the power of studying freely, comes that of dropping a lesson
when it is once well learned, and finding it ready when needed for
recitation or for any other use. The temptation to take our work
into our play is very great, and often cannot be overcome until we