AT ATTENTION, INTEREST AND MOTIVATION 579 and of correlating the new with the old. It is the psychological meaning of that whole method of concentration in studies of which you have been recently hearing so much. When the geography and English and history and arithmetic simultaneously make cross-references to one another, you get an interesting set of processes all along the line. If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is to make certain that they have something in their minds to attend with, when you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole. Fortunately, almost any kind of a connection is sufficient to carry the interest along. What a help is our Philippine war at present in teaching geography! But before the war you would ask the children if they ate pepper with their eggs, and where they supposed the pepper came from. Or ask them if glass is a stone, and, if not, why not; and then let them know how stones are formed and glass manufactured. External links will serve as well as those that are deeper and more logical. But interest, once shed upon a subject, is liable to remain always with that subject. Our acquisitions become in a measure portions of our personal self; and little by little, as cross-associations multiply and habits of familiarity and practice grow, the entire system of our objects of thought consolidates, most of it becoming interesting for some purposes and in some degree. An adult man's interests are almost every one of them intensely artificial: they have slowly been built up. The objects of professional interest are most of them, in their original nature, repulsive; but by their connection with such natively exciting objects as one's personal fortune, one's social responsibilities, and especially by the force of inveterate habit, they grow to be the only things for which in middle life a man profoundly cares. But in all these the spread and consolidation have followed nothing but the principles first laid down. If we could recall for a moment our whole individual history, we should see that our professional ideals and the zeal they inspire are due to nothing but the slow accretion of one mental object to another, traceable backward from point to point till we reach the moment when, in the nursery or in the schoolroom, some little story told, some little object shown, some little operation witnessed, brought the first new object and new interest within our ken by associating it with some one of those primitively there. The interest now suffusing the whole system took its rise in that little event, so insignificant to us now as to be entirely forgotten. As the bees in swarming cling to one another in layers till the few are reached whose feet grapple the bough from which the swarm depends; so with the objects of our thinking,-they hang to each other by associated links, but the original source of interest in all of them is the native interest which the earliest one once possessed. 14. Building Interests ¡KILPATRICK, W. H., "Coercion and Learning," Journal of Educational Method, February, 1922, Vol. 1, pp. 235-236.] Building interests is perhaps as important a work as education can undertake. Whether it is feasible to build an interest along any given line depends first of all on the native capacities of the person . . . two necessary prerequisites for an abiding interest: first, enough capacity for the activities involved to bring continued satisfaction; and second, a growing activity. The first may refer more specifically to one dominant talent, as for mathematics, or music, or it may contemplate only a combination of more ordinary powers. But there must be the possibility of continued satisfaction from the exercise of the activity. The second prerequisite, that of the quality of growing, it seems is not equally necessary for all people but on the whole the interest will not be abidingly gripping unless it continually faces at least some element of novelty. . . . The essential of the procedure is our old law of Effect, Exercise with satisfaction. We must somehow get vigorous action along the desired line and of a kind that brings a high degree of satisfaction. Suppose we say it in tabular fashion: 1. Get the activity going with zest-if possible in the face of obstacles that challenge all but the last reserves of power. 2. See that success attends. 3. If possible, let there be approval from those whose approval is valued. If the two prerequisites have been met and this procedure can be followed-you will with practical certainty see an interest growing. 15. Building Interest [WOODWORTH, R. S., Dynamic Psychology, pp. 77, 102, 202. New York, Columbia University, 1918.] We act as we have learned to act, see what we have learned to see, are interested in what we have learned to be interested in, enjoy what we have learned to enjoy, and dislike what or whom we have learned to dislike . . . p. 77). It is a general principle of human activity that we are interested in overcoming difficulties and interested, on the other hand, in what we can do successfully-in a word, we are interested in successfully overcoming difficulties. The difficulty may lie on the side of motor execution of an act or on the side of perceiving and grasping a state of affairs, or on both sides at once. Action that is too easy because all the difficulties have been smoothed away or already subjugated by well-formed habits is automatic rather than interesting, and action that meets with unsurmountable obstacles is distinctly annoying; but action that encounters resistance but overcomes it without resorting to the last ounce of effort is distinctly interesting . . . (p. 102). ... To sum up-almost any object, almost any act, and particularly almost any process or change in objects that can be directed by one's own activity towards some definite end, is interesting on its own account, and furnishes its own drive, once it is fairly initiated. To be interesting, the process must present some difficulty and yet some prospect of a successful issue. The truth is, that, having native capacity for performing certain acts and dealing with certain classes of material, we are interested in performing these acts and handling this material; and that, once these activities are aroused, they furnish their own drive. This applies to abilities developed through training as well as to strictly native capacities. Almost anything may be made play and furnish its own motive (p. 202). 16. Interest in Meeting Difficulties [PAULSEN, Friedrich, A System of Ethics, p. 260. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899.] If we could have a life devoid of struggle, a trial of it would soon cause us to regret our choice, and make us long for our old life with all its troubles and sorrows and pains and fears, A life absolutely free from pain and fear would, so long as we are what we are, soon becomes insipid and intolerable. For if the causes of pain were eliminated, life would be devoid of all danger, conflict, and failure-exertion and struggle, the love of adventure, the longing for battle, the triumph of victoryall would be gone. Life would be pure satisfaction without obstacles, success without resistance. We should grow as tired of all this as we do of a game which we know we are going to win. What chess player would be willing to play with an opponent whom he knows he will beat? What hunter would enjoy a chase in which he had a chance to shoot at every step he took, and every shot was bound to hit? Uncertainty, difficulty, and failure are as necessary in a game, if it is to interest and satisfy us, as good luck and victory. 17. When Interest Is Proper [DEWEY, John, Interest and Effort, pp. 41-43. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1913.] Interest is normal and reliance upon it educationally legitimate in the degree in which the activity in question involves growth or development. Interest is illegitimately used in the degree in which it is either a symptom or a cause of arrested development in an activity. . . When interest is objected to as merely amusement or fooling or a temporary excitation (or when in educational practice it does mean simply such things), it will be found that the interest in question is something which attaches merely to a momentary activity apart from its place in an enduring activity -an activity that develops through a period of time. When this happens, the object that arouses (what is called) interest is esteemed just on the basis of the momentary reaction it calls out, the immediate pleasure it excites. "Interest" so created is abnormal, for it is a sign of the dissipation of energy; it is a symptom that life is being cut up into a series of disconnected reactions, each one of which is esteemed by itself apart from what it does in carrying forward (or developing) a consecutive activity. As we have already seen, it is one thing to make, say, number interesting by merely attaching to it other things that happen to call out a pleasurable reaction; it is a radically different sort of thing to make it interesting by introducing it so that it functions as a genuine means of carrying on a more inclusive activity. 18. Interests in Arithmetic [THORNDIKE, E. L., The New Methods in Arithmetic, p. 25. Chicago, Rand McNally & Co., 1921.] Besides the interests in arithmetic as a game where you use your mind, win results, and show your strength and skill, there are many others to which appeal may be made. Other things being equal, work will be more interesting to children in proportion as there is physical action, variety, sociability, a chance to win, a practical gain, a connection with something or somebody that one cares for, and, most of all, perhaps, a significance for some aim or purpose that is a ruling factor in one's life at the time. 19. Motives [WOODWORTH, R. S., Psychology, pp. 84-85. New York, Henry Holt Co., 1921.] In the present chapter, desirous of "keeping close to the ground," we have said little of distinctively human motives. That will come later. In general, a motive is a tendency towards a certain end-result or end-reaction, a tendency which is itself aroused by some stimulus, and which persists for a time because its end-reaction is not at once made. The end-reaction is not made at once because it can only be aroused by an appropriate stimulus, acting in conjunction with the motive. But the motive, persisting in its inner activity, facilitates reaction to certain stimuli and inhibits others. The reactions it facilitates are preparatory to the end-reaction, in that they provide the necessary conditions for that reaction to occur, which means that they bring to bear on the individual the necessary stimulus which can arouse the end-reaction. The restlessness that characterizes an individual driven by an inner motive gives way to rest and satisfaction when the end-result is reached. Motives range from the primitive or primal, like hunger, to the very advanced, such as zeal for a cause. They range from the momentary, illustrated by the need for more light in reading, to the great permanent forces of life, like amour propre and esprit de corps. But the permanent motives are not always active; they sleep and are awakened again by appropriate stimuli. In everyday speech we are apt to use the words "motive" and "reason" interchangeably, as in asking some one what his "motive," or what his "reason" is for doing so and so. A motive, however, is not necessarily, a reason, nor a reason a |