"Be not like dumb driven cattle,
Be a hero in the strife"
is sound educational doctrine.
The thing for teachers to do is to cultivate in children all healthy appetites for knowledge, to set up interesting aims and desires at every step, to lead the approach to different fields of knowledge in the spirit of conquest.
In the business world and in professional life men and women work with abundant energy and will because they have desirable ends in view. The hireling knows no such generous stimulus. Business life is full of irksome and difficult tasks but the aim in view carries people through them. We shall not eliminate the disagreeable and irksome from school tasks, but try to create in children such a spirit and ambition as will lead to greater exertions. To implant vigorous aims and incentives in children is the great privilege of the teacher. We shall some day learn that when a boy cracks a nut he does so because there may be a kernel in it, not because the shell is hard.
In concluding the discussion of relative values we will summarize the results.
History, in the liberal sense, surveys the field of human life in its typical forms and furnishes the best illustrative moral materials. Nature study opens the door to the real world in all its beauty, variety, and law. The formal studies constitute an indispensable part of useful and disciplinary knowledge, but they should occupy a secondary place in courses of study because they deal with the form rather than with the content of the sciences. It is a fundamental error to place formal studies in the center of the school course and to subordinate everything to their mastery. History and natural science, on the contrary, having the richest knowledge content, constitute a natural center for all educative efforts. They make possible a strong development of will-energy because their interesting materials furnish strong and legitimate incentives to mental activity and an enlarged field and opportunity to voluntary effort in pursuit of clear and attractive aims.
CHAPTER III.
NATURE OF INTEREST.
By interest we mean the natural bent or inclination of the mind to find satisfaction in a subject when it is properly presented. It is the natural attractiveness of the subject that draws and holds the attention. Interest belongs to the feelings but differs from the other feelings, such as desire or longing for an object, since it is satisfied with the simple contemplation without asking for possession. The degree of interest with which different kinds of knowledge are received, varies greatly. Indeed, it is possible to acquire knowledge in such a manner as to produce dislike and disgust. A proper interest in a subject leads to a quiet, steady absorption of the mind with it, but does not imply an impetuous, passionate, and one-sided devotion to one thing. Interest keeps the mind active and alert without undue excitement or partiality.
It would be well if every study and every lesson could be sustained by such an interest as this. It would be in many cases like lubricating oil poured upon dry and creaking axles. Knowledge might then have a flavor to it and would be more than a consumption of certain facts and formulas coldly turned over to the memory machine. The child's own personality must become entangled in the facts and ideas acquired. There should be a sort of affinity established between the child's soul and the information he gains. At every step the sympathy and life experiences from without the school should be intertwined with school acquisitions. All would be woven together and permeated by feeling. We forget that the feelings or sensibilities awakened by knowledge are what give it personal significance to us.