to explain the value of the course. In friendly or intimate discussion
with him, elicit his conception of the utilitarian or disciplinary
worth of the prescribed Latin or mathematics in the arts course. He
sees no relation between the problems of life and the daily lessons in
many of these subjects. He submits to the teacher's attempts to graft
this knowledge upon his intellectual stock merely because he has
learned that the easiest course is to bend to authority. Instruction
in too many college subjects is based, not on intelligent and
voluntary attention, but on the discipline maintained by the
institution or by the instructor. It is obvious that such instruction
is stultifying to the teacher and can never develop in the student a
liberal and cultured outlook upon life.

The principle of motivation in teaching seeks to justify to the
student the experience that is presented as part of his college
course. It is obvious that this motivation need not always be
explained in terms of utilitarian values. A student of college age can
be made to realize the mental, the cultural, or the inspirational
values that justify the prescription of certain courses. The college
instructor who tries to motivate courses in the appreciation of music
or painting finds no great difficulty in leading his students to an
enthusiastic conviction of their inspirational value. It is well
worth taking the student into our confidence in these matters of aim
and value. We must become more tolerant of the thoughtful student who
makes honest inquiry as to the value of any of the presented courses.
We must learn to regard such questions as signs of growing seriousness
and increasing maturity and not as signs of impertinence. We
constantly ask ourselves questions about the round of our daily task;
we seek to know thoroughly their uses, their values, their meaning in
our lives. Clear conception of use or value in teaching is as vital as
it is in life--for what is teaching if not the process of repeating
life's experiences?

In the principle of motivation lies the most successful solution of
the problem of interest in teaching. We have too long persisted in the
"sugarcoating" conception of interest. We have regarded it as a
process of "making agreeable." Interest has therefore been looked upon
as a fictitious element introduced into teaching merely to inveigle
the mind of the student into a consideration of what we are offering
it. Our modern psycholog