Observing or Gaping: With Information Concerning Conjurors, Careful Equilibrists, Centres of Gravity and Circus Girls

Abstract

It is very disturbing to think by far the most comfortable way to get through a lecture or class period is to let the master talk without listening to him consciously, so that he merely provides a pleasant background of sound. When you are required not merely to suffer him to talk at you, but also to consider and remember what he says, it becomes mentally fatiguing; the less there is of importance in what you hear, the less yon have to consider; and a good master remembers that when he talks to you for a whole class period, then, although he may ask you later for an abstract or a precis of what he has said, his whole talk should not itself be an abstract. There is a limit to the amount of concentrated listening and thinking that we can manage over a given time. One can present a talk that is a concentrated dose-a precis in itself; or one can dress up two or three ideas so that the talk is like a Pomeranian dog-mostly fluff and very little body. The fluff must be looked upon as necessary-Pomeranians would lose their value if skinned, having then not even the economic importance of a rabbit; and similarly, if a talk or an article has no "fluff", you merely gape and fail to follow it, so that probably the whole time is wasted.