nterest toward
the work."[18]

Who has not experienced that feeling of hopelessness and despair that
comes at these successive levels of the long process of acquiring skill
in a complicated art? How desperately we struggle on--striving to put
every item of energy that we can command into our work, and yet feeling
how hopeless it all seems. How tempting then is the hammock on the
porch, the fascinating novel that we have placed on our bedside table,
the happy company of friends that are talking and laughing in the next
room; or how we long for the green fields and the open road; how
seductive is that siren call of change and diversion,--that evil spirit
of procrastination! How feeble, too, are the efforts that we make under
these conditions! We are not making progress in our art, we are only
marking time. And yet the psychologists tell us that this marking time
is an essential in the mastery of any complicated art. Somewhere, deep
down in the nervous system, subtle processes are at work, and when
finally interest dawns,--when finally hope returns to us, and life again
becomes worth while,--these heartbreaking struggles reap their reward.
The psychologists call them "plateaus of growth," but some one has said
that "sloughs of despond" would be a far better designation.

The progress of any individual depends upon his ability to pass through
these sloughs of despond,--to set his face resolutely to the task and
persevere. It would be the idlest folly to lead children to believe that
success or achievement or even passing ability can be gained in any
other manner. And this is the danger in the sugar-coating process.

But motivation does not mean sugar-coating. It means the development of
purpose, of ambition, of incentive. It means the development of the
willingness to undergo the discipline in order that the purpose may be
realized, in order that the goal may be attained. It means the creating
of those conditions that make for strength and virility and moral
fiber,--for it is in the consciousness of having overcome obstacles and
won in spite of handicaps,--it is in this consciousness of conquest that
mental strength and moral strength have their source. The victory that
really strengthens one is not the victory that has come easily, but the
victory that stands out sharp and clear against the background of effort
and struggle. It is because this subjective contrast is so absolutely
essential to the consciousness of po