When such a student has gone through a preparatory school without overcoming this tendency to "fluid attention" and comes to college, the instructors in the higher institutions are practically helpless before him.

We say of him that "he has never learned to study," that he does not know "how to apply himself," that he has no "power of assimilation." All of which simply means that his channels of reaction are so formed already that no instruction can get sufficient lodgment in him to bring about any modification of his "apperceptive systems." The embarrassment is the more marked because such a youth, all through his education period, is willing, ready, evidently receptive, prompt, and punctual in all his tasks.
Now what shall be done with such a student in his early school years?
This is a question for the secondary teacher especially, apart from the more primary measures recommended above.

It is in the years between eight and fifteen that this type of mind has its rapid development; before that the treatment is mainly preventive, and consists largely in suggestions which aim to make the muscular discharges more deliberate and the general tone less explosive.

But when the boy or girl comes to school with the dawning capacity for independent self-direction and personal application, then it is that the problem of the motor scholar becomes critical.

The "let-alone" method puts a premium upon the development of his tendencies and the eventual playing out of his mental possibilities in mere motion.
Certain positive ways of giving some indirect discipline to the mind of this type may be suggested.
Give this student relatively difficult and complex tasks.