make a
subject interesting you must so popularize it that you cheapen it. This
idea is typified in the "snap" courses in school--courses made
interesting at the expense of painstaking application. As a matter of
fact, to cheapen a thing is ultimately to kill interest in it. Genuine
interest of real worth is born of effort and devotion to a worthy
objective. Far from dissipating the mind's energies, it heightens and
concentrates them to the mastery of the bigger and finer things of life.

A subject to be made interesting must present some element of newness,
yet must be so linked up with the experience of the learner as to be
made comprehensible. It must, moreover, be made to appeal as essential
and helpful in the life of the learner. The two outstanding queries of
the uninterested pupil are:

What is it all about?
What's the use?

Let us, then, turn to two or three subjects which at first thought may
appear more or less dull to see whether there is an approach to them
that can be made interesting.

Members of the teacher-training class at Provo were asked to name four
or five subjects which they regarded hard to stimulate interest in. They
named the following:

Fasting.
The Fall.
The Atonement.
The Resurrection.
The Story of Jonah.

Let us suppose that I have met my Second Intermediate class of eighteen
boys and girls to discuss the subject of fasting. I might begin by
relating an actual experience in which through fasting and prayer on the
part of the members of a particular family a little boy has just been
most miraculously restored to health, after an operation for
appendicitis. It was an infection case, and three doctors agreed there
was no possible chance of recovery. A fourth doctor held out the
possibility of one chance in a hundred. And yet a two days' fast,
coupled with a faith I have seldom seen equalled, has been rewarded by
the complete recovery of the boy, who is now thoroughly well and strong.

Such a concrete illustration is one possibility for arousing interest.

Or, I might proceed with a few definite, pointed questions:

"How many of you eighteen boys and girls fasted this month?"

The answers show that seven have fasted; eleven have not.

I proceed then to inquire why the eleven have failed to fast. Various
explanations are offered:

"Oh, I forgot."

"We don't fast in our home."

"Father has to work all day Sunday; and so, because mother has to get
breakfast for h