line
are connected, not opposed.

(i) Even the more purely intellectual phase of trained
power--apprehension of what one is doing as exhibited in
consequences--is not possible without interest. Deliberation will be
perfunctory and superficial where there is no interest. Parents and
teachers often complain--and correctly--that children "do not want
to hear, or want to understand." Their minds are not upon the subject
precisely because it does not touch them; it does not enter into their
concerns. This is a state of things that needs to be remedied, but the
remedy is not in the use of methods which increase indifference and
aversion. Even punishing a child for inattention is one way of trying to
make him realize that the matter is not a thing of complete unconcern;
it is one way of arousing "interest," or bringing about a sense of
connection. In the long run, its value is measured by whether it
supplies a mere physical excitation to act in the way desired by the
adult or whether it leads the child "to think"--that is, to reflect upon
his acts and impregnate them with aims.

(ii) That interest is requisite for executive persistence is even more
obvious. Employers do not advertise for workmen who are not interested
in what they are doing. If one were engaging a lawyer or a doctor, it
would never occur to one to reason that the person engaged would stick
to his work more conscientiously if it was so uncongenial to him that he
did it merely from a sense of obligation. Interest measures--or rather
is--the depth of the grip which the foreseen end has upon one, moving
one to act for its realization.

2. The Importance of the Idea of Interest in Education. Interest
represents the moving force of objects--whether perceived or presented
in imagination--in any experience having a purpose. In the concrete,
the value of recognizing the dynamic place of interest in an educative
development is that it leads to considering individual children in their
specific capabilities, needs, and preferences. One who recognizes the
importance of interest will not assume that all minds work in the same
way because they happen to have the same teacher and textbook. Attitudes
and methods of approach and response vary with the specific appeal
the same material makes, this appeal itself varying with difference of
natural aptitude, of past experience, of plan of life, and so on. But
the facts of interest also supply considerations of general value to t