When Miss Murray came to the third grade she found bad conditions as to
attention. A street car line went by the school and every time a car
passed the children all looked up from their books until it had gone out
of sight.
[Sidenote: Watching Street cars]
Miss Murray at once put up sash-curtains, thick enough effectively to
shut out the sight of the street cars. She found the upper sashes nailed
shut, as the former teacher had opened the lower sashes only. She had
these unnailed, and the shades hung at the window sill instead of from
the top of the window. This enabled her to shut out the sight and sound
of the street cars pretty effectively. After several months, the
children forgot to look out of the window even when they could see the
cars; the habit of attention to work had been fixed through the
elimination of the lures to curiosity.