A Brief Guide to Concentration in Speech

The practice of being interested is recommended as the best means of developing concentration. We are most in­terested in those subjects that give us pleasure, arouse our expectation, or possess some degree of familiarity. To be able to focus the attention upon a single subject and single objects belonging to it, is a rare accomplishment and of great advantage to a public speaker. It can be acquired only through long and patient study and exercise. No great mental achievement is possible without this power of con­tinued attention. There is an inseparable connection be­tween attention and memory, it being impossible to develop one without the other.

Professor James says: "There is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few second at a time. What is called sustained voluntary attention is repetition of successive efforts which bring back the topic to the mind. The topic once brought back, if a con­genial one, develops; and if its development is interesting it engages the attention passively for a time. This passive interest may be short or long. As soon as it flags, the at­tention is diverted by some irrelevant thing, and then a voluntary effort may bring it back to the topic again; and so on, under favorable conditions, for hours together. Dur­ing all this time, however, note that it is not an identical object in the psychical sense, but a succession of mutually related objects forming an identical topic only, upon which the attention is fixed. No one can possibly attend contin­uously to an object that does not change."

The subject of attention is well illustrated by Professor Loisette in his system for cultivating the memory. He says: "You may have seen a shoemaker putting nails into the sole pf a boot. With his left thumb and finger he pricks the point of the nail into the leather just far enough to make the nail stand upright. It is so feebly attached that at the least shake it falls on the floor. Then down comes the hammer and drives the nail up to the head. Now the sensations that are continually pouring in upon us by all the avenues of sense-by the eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin -as well as the ideas streaming into our minds, are on their first arrival attached as feebly as the nails to the boot. But then down comes the attention like a hammer, and drives them into consciousness, so that their record remains forever."

The degree of attention that we can give to an object will depend upon our habitual methods of study and thought. Professor Joseph Stewart offers the following suggestions:

"The habits of thought should be rational. Vagaries should be avoided. The mind must be trained to hold its concepts clearly without obliquity or blur. Therefore, in­nuendo, indirectness, and slackness of thought and expres­sion should be guarded against. The processes of the mind should be carried on logically. Avoid irrelevancy. The habit of the mind should be selective. Choose the order and kind of thought you put into your mental house."

Rule a square of cardboard in columns and place therein a series of symbols or characters, with each of which there is to be associated in the mind a particular thought. Place the board where it may be conveniently seen, and, begin­ning with the first symbol, go over the series in regular or­der, holding in mind for a particular time the special con­cept or thought, and that alone, associated with each sym­bol. The student may elaborate this plan as to symbols, the associated concepts, or the order of viewing them, and make it as complex as he desires. The principle of concentration is the persistent but gentle calling back of the mind to the original thought, and is affected by merely substituting it for the intrusive one.

Concentrate without using muscular force. The clearest mind dwells in the healthiest body, and this is the best condition for concentration.