The cultivation of a many-sided interest is desirable in order to avoid narrowness, and to open up the various sources of mental activity, i.e., to stimulate mental vigor along many lines. We believe that most children are capable of taking interest in many kinds of study. The preference which some children show for certain branches and the dislike for others may be due to peculiar early surroundings, and is often the result of good or poor teaching as much as to natural gifts. As every child has sympathies for companions and people, so every child may take a real interest in story, biography, and history, if these subjects are rightly approached. So also the indifference to plant and animal life shown by many persons is due to lack of culture and suitable suggestion at the impressionable age. Unquestionably the lives of most people run in too narrow a channel. They fail to appreciate and enjoy many of the common things about them, to which their eyes have not been properly opened. The particular trade or business so engrosses most people's time that their sympathies are narrowed and their appreciation of the duties and responsibilities of life is stunted. The common school, more than all other institutions, should lay broad foundations and awaken many-sided sympathies. The trade school and the university can afford to specialize, to prepare for a vocation. The common school, on the contrary, is preparing all children for general citizenship. The narrowing idea of a trade or calling should be kept away from the public school, and as far as possible varied interests in knowledge should be awakened in every child.
But this variety of interests may lead to scattering and superficial knowledge. And in its results many-sided interest would seem to point naturally to many-sided activity; that is, to multiplicity of employments, to that character which in Yankee phrase is designated as "Jack of all trades and master of none." If instead of being allowed to spread out so much, the educational stream is confined between narrow banks, it will show a deep and full current. If allowed to spread over the marshes and plains, it becomes sluggish and brackish. Our course of study for the common schools in recent years, has been largely added to and has been extended over the whole field of knowledge. History, geography, natural science lessons and drawing have been added to the old reading, writing, arithmetic, and grammar. There may appear to be more variety, but less strength. When in addition to this greater variety of studies, enthusiastic teachers desire to increase the quantity of knowledge in each branch and to present as many interesting facts as possible, at every point, we have the over-loading of the school course. This effect will be noticed in a later chapter in its bearing upon concentration. Children have too much to learn. They become pack-horses, instead of free spirits walking in the fields of knowledge. Mental vigor, after all, is worth more than a mind grown corpulent and lazy with an excess of pabulum, overfed. The cultivation therefore of a many-sided interest ceases to be a blessing as soon as encyclopedic knowledge becomes its aim. In fact the desire on the part of teachers to make the knowledge of any subject complete and encyclopedic destroys all true interest. The solution of this great problem does not consist in identifying many-sided interest with encyclopedic knowledge, but in such a detailed study of typical forms in each case as will give insight into that branch without any pretension to exhaustive knowledge. Certainly a true interest in plants does not require that we become acquainted with all the species of all the genera. But a proper study of a few typical forms in a few of the families and genera might produce a much deeper interest in nature and in her laws.
The culture of a many-sided interest is essential to a full development and perfection of the mental activities. It is easy to see that interest in any subject gives all thought upon it a greater vigor and intensify. Mental action in all directions is strengthened and vivified by a direct interest. On the other hand mental life diminishes with the loss of interest, and even in fields of knowledge in which a man has displayed unusual mastery, a loss of interest is followed by a loss of energy. Excluding interest is like cutting off the circulation from a limb. Perfect vigor of thought which we aim at in education, is marked by strength along three lines, the vigor of the individual ideas, the extent and variety of ideas under control, and the connection and harmony of ideas. It is the highest general aim of intellectual education to strengthen mental vigor in these three directions. Many-sided interest is conducive to all three. Every thought that finds lodgment in the mind is toned up and strengthened by interest. It is also easier to retain and reproduce some idea that has once been grasped with full feeling of interest. An interest that has been developed along all leading lines of study has a proper breadth and comprehensiveness and cannot be hampered and clogged by narrow restraints and prejudice. We admire a person not simply because he has a few clear ideas, but also for the extent and variety of this sort of information. Our admiration ceases when he shows ignorance or prejudice or lack of sympathy with important branches of study. Finally, the unity and harmony of the varied kinds of knowledge are a great source of interest. The tracing of connections between different studies and the insight that comes from proper associations, are among the highest delights of learning. The connection and harmony of ideas will be discussed under concentration.
The six interests above mentioned are to be developed along parallel lines. They are to be kept in proper equipoise. It is not designed that anyone shall be developed to the overshadowing of the others. They are like six pillars upon which the structure of a liberal education is rested. A cultivation of any one, exclusively, may be in place when the work of general education is complete and a profession or life labor has been chosen.
It is also true that a proper interest is a protection against the desires, disorderly impulses, and passions. One of the chief ends of education is to bring the inclinations and importunate desires under mastery, to establish a counterpoise to them by the steady and persistent forces of education. A many-sided interest cultivated along the chief paths of knowledge, implies such mental vigor and such preoccupation with worthy subjects as naturally to discourage unworthy desires.
Locke says, self-restraint, the mastery over one's inclinations, is the foundation of virtue. "He that has found a way how to keep a child's spirit easy, active, and free, and yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things that are uneasy to him; he, I say, that knows how to reconcile these seeming contradictions, has, in my opinion, got the true secret of education." But it is a secret still; the central question remains unanswered. How is the teacher to approach and influence the will of the child? Is it by supposing that the child has a will already developed and strong enough to be relied upon on all occasions? On the contrary, must not the teacher put incentives in the path of the pupil, ideas and feelings that prompt him to self-denial?
Interest as a source of will-stimulus has peculiar advantages. It is not desired that the inclinations and feelings shall get the mastery of the mind, certainly not the disorderly and momentary desires. Higher desires, indeed, should properly influence the will, as the desire of the approval of conscience, the desire to attain excellence, to gain strength and mastery, to serve others, etc. But the importance of awakening interest as a basis of will cultivation is found in the favorable mental state induced by interest as a preliminary to will action along the best lines. Interest is not an impetuous force like the desires, prompting to instant action, but a quiet, permanent undertone, which brings everything into readiness for action, clears the deck, and begins the attack. It would be a vast help to many boys and girls if the irksomeness of study in arithmetic or grammar, which is so fatal to will energy, could give way to the spur of interest, and when the wheels are once set in motion, progress would not only begin but be sustained by interest.
It is pretty generally agreed to by thoughtful educators, that in giving a child the broad foundations of education, we should aim not so much at knowledge as at capacity and appreciation for it. A universal receptivity, such as Rousseau requires of Emile, is a desideratum. Scarcely a better dowry can be bestowed upon a child by education, than a desire for knowledge and an intelligent interest in all important branches of study. Herbart's many-sided interest is to strengthen and branch out from year to year during school life, and become a permanent tendency or force in later years. No school can give even an approach to full and encyclopedic knowledge, but no school is so humble that it may not throw open the doors and present many a pleasing prospect into the fields of learning.
With Herbart, therefore, a many-sided, harmonious interest promotes will-energy through all the efforts of learning from childhood up, and when the work of general education has been completed, the youth is ready to launch out into the world with a strong, healthy appetite for information in many directions. The best fruitage of such a course will follow in the years that succeed school life. Interest is a very practical thing. It is that which gives force and momentum to ideas. It is not knowledge itself, but, like the invisible principle of life, it converts dead matter into living energy. In our schools thus far we have had too much faith in the mechanics of education. Too much virtue has been imputed to facts, to knowledge, to sharp tools. We have now to learn that incentive is a more important thing in education; that is, a direct, permanent, many-sided interest.