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2. Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
3. Organisation of one’s ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous
idea that will serve as a guide in life.
4. Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what
one wants and when one wants.
5. Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to
inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.

It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the
application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations
on points of detail can be given.

Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of
their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to
make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed
in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity,
therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort
of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All
methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and
can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological
action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest
in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the
most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so
that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for
learning more and always more.

For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording
and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and
spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the
child’s thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be
stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood.
Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what
is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the
how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those
who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In
this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit
of making a persistent effort to know.

This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind
should be widened and enriched.

You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for

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