The Elements of General Method, Based on the Principles of Herbart

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 p

it, but does not imply an impetuous, passionate, and one-sided devotion to one thi

n 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 s

t is among these objects that poets and artists find their materials and their inspiration. For the same reason the pictures drawn by the artist or poet have a charm which does not pass away. They select something concrete and individual; they clothe it with beauty and attractiveness; th

per interest, there is greater ease and pleasure in the acquisition, and occupation with the object satisfies an inner need. "When interest has been fully developed, it must always combine pleasure, facil

hese kinds of interest concern us from a speculative rather than a pedagogical point of view.

state for action. In opposition to a lively and humane treatment of subjects, a dry and dull routine has often been praised as the proper discipline of the mind and will. "It was a mistake," says Ziller, "to find in the simple pressure of difficulties a source of culture, for it is the opposite of culture. It was a mistake to call the pressure of effort, the feeling of burden and pain, a source of proper training, simply because will power and firmness of character are thus secured and preserved to youth. Pedagogical efforts looking towards a lightening and enlivening of instruction should not

made strongly interesting from the start, or unless interest-awakening knowledge has already been stored in the mind. To make great demands upon the will power in early school years, is like asking for ripe fruits before they have had time to mature. Knowledge, feelings, and will-incentives of every sort must be first planted in the mind, before a proper will-energy can be expected. In teaching, we should aim to develop will power, not to take it for granted as a ready product. As the will should ultimately control all the mental powers, its proper maturity is a later outcome of education. Even supposing that the will has considerable original native power, it is a power that

st to himself for the reason. There are perhaps no circumstances in which a lack of interest does not originate in the mode of instruction adopted by the teacher." This statement assumes that all knowledge is about equally interesting to pupils, and everything depends upon the manner in which the teacher deals with it. But different kinds of knowledge differ widely in their power to awaken interest in children. The true idea of interest demands that the subject matter be in itself interesting, adapted to appeal to a child, and to secure his participation. If the interest awak

re of the character of desire. A desire to restore one's health will produce great interest in a certain health resort, like the Hot Springs, or in some method of treatment, as the use of Koch's lymph. The desire for wealth and business success will lead a merchant in the fur trade to take interest in seals and seal-fishing, and in beavers, trapping, etc. The wish to gain a prize will cause a child to take deep interest in a lesson. But in all these cases desire precedes interest. Interest, indeed, in the thing itself for its own sake, is frequently not present. It is true in many cases that indirect interest is not interest at all. It is a dangerous thing in education to substitute indirect for direct or true interest. The former often means the cultivation, primarily, of certain inordinate desires or feelings, such as rivalry, pride, jealousy, ambition, reputation, love of self. By appeali

be dangerous. It cannot build up and strengthen character but threatens to undermine it by cultivating wrong motives. There is no assurance that knowledge thus acquired can affect the will and bear fruit in action, even though it be the right kind of knowledge, because it is not the knowledge in this case that furnishes the incentives. The interest that is awakened in a subject because of its innate attractiveness, leaves incentives which may ripen sooner or later into action. The higher kind of interest is direct, intrinsic, not simply receptive, but active and progressive. In the knowledge acquired it finds only incentives to further acquisition. It is life giving and is prompted by the objects themselves, just as the interest of boys is awakened by deeds of adventure and darin

ween the years of childhood and old age there is scarcely a person who does not enjoy a walk or a ride in the open air, where the variety of plant, bird, animal, and landscape makes a pleasing panorama. Speculative interest goes deeper and inquires into the relations and causal connections of phenomena. It traces out similarities and sequences, and detects law and unity in nature. It is not satisfied with the simple play of variety, but seeks for the cause and genesis of things. Even a child is anxious to know how a squirrel climbs a tree or cracks a

, and Scott's glory would quickly depart. What empty and spiritless annals would the life of Frederic the Great and Patrick Henry furnish! Social interest is the regard for the good or evil fortune of societies and nations. Upon this depends our concern for the progress of liberty and the struggle for free institutions in England and other countri

ool courses tend strongly to make them forget, namely, that the right kind of knowledge contains in itself the stimulus and the germs to great mental exertion. The dull drill upon grammar, arithmetic, reading, spelling, and writing, which are regarded as so important as to exclude almost everything else, has convinced many a child that school is veritably a dull place.

dicine, or statesmanship, or the history of literature. These things may be profoundly interesting to a person two or three times as old, but not to him. Other things, however, the story of Ulysses, travel, animals, geography, and history, even arithmetic, may be very attractive to a boy of ten. It becomes a matter of importance to se

ourself in his place," to sympathize with children and feel their needs. The educational reformers who have had deepest insight into child-life, have given us clear and profound warnings. Rousseau says: "Study children, for be sure you do not understand them. Let childhood ripen in children.

nnection with these tales are also stirring studies. Reading a familiar story is certainly a much more interesting employment than working at the almost meaningless sentences of a chart or first reader. Number work when based upon objects can be made to hold the attention of little ones, at least in the last half of the first grade. They love also to see and describe flowers, r

ren. Secondly, it may be laid down as a fact of experience that children will be more touched and stimulated by particular persons and objects in nature than by any general propositions, or laws, or classifications. They prefer seeing a particular palm tree to hearing a general description of palms. A narrative of some special deed of kindne

oth these steps natural interest is provided for in the best way. A full and itemized examination of some attractive object produces as strong an interest as a child is capable of. Then to find out that this object is a sort of key to the right interpretation of other objects, more or less familiar to him, has all the charm of discovery. The sunflower, for example, is a large and attractive object for itemized study. It the examination leads a step further to a comparison with other composite flowers, there will be an interesting discovery of kinship with dandelions, asters, thistles, etc. This principle of the type, as illustrating both the particular and general, is true also of geographical topics that lead a child far from home and call for the construction of mental pictures. The study of Pike's Peak and vicinity is very interesting and instructive for fourth grade children. The valleys, springs at Manitou, Garden of the Gods, Cheyenne Canon and Falls, the Cave of the Winds, the ascent of the peak by trail or by railroad, the views of distant mountains, the summit house on the barren and rugged top, the snow fields even in summer, the drifting mists that shut off the view, the stories of hardship and early history-these thin

although it comes all the way from the Alps and from the distant traditional history of the Swiss, is one of the best things with which to illustrate and impress manliness and patriotism. The fairy stories for still younger children, are the best means for teaching kindness or unselfishness, because they are so chaste, and beautiful, and graceful, even to the child's thought. The most attractive type-forms and life-personificatio

ional monarchy, democracy, republic, federal republic. There have been great epochs of political convulsion in the conflicts with external powers and in civil struggles and revolutions. In the growth of handicrafts, arts, manufactures, and inventions, there has been a series of advances from the time when men first began to cultivate the ground, to reduce the metals, and to bring the forces of nature into service. In the development of human society, therefore, and in

binson Crusoe, however, who typifies mankind's early struggle with the forces of nature, claims his undivided attention. A boy of ten will take more delight in the story of King Alfred or William Tell than in twenty Gladstones or Bismarcks. Not that Gladstone's work is less important or interesting to the right person, but the boy does not live and have his being in the Gladstonian age. Not all parts of history, indeed, are adapted to please and instruct some period of youth. Whole ages have been destitute of such materials, barren as deserts for educational purposes. But those epochs which have been typical of great experiences, landmarks of progress, have also found poets and historians to describe them. The great works of poets and historians contain also the great object lessons upon which to cultivate the minds of children. Some of the leading characters of fiction and history are the best personifi

g, generative culture influence. Knowledge which contains no springs of interest is like faith divorced from works. Information and discipline may be gained in education without any lasting interest, but the one who uses such knowledge and discipline is only a machine. A Cambridge student who had taken the best prizes and scholarships said at the end of his university career: "I am at a loss to know what to do. I have already gained the best distinctions, and I can see but little to work for in the future." The child of four years, who opens his eyes with unfeigned interest and surprised inquiry into the big world around him, has a better spirit than such a dead product of university training. But happily this is not the spirit of our universities now. The remarkable and characteristic idea in university life today is the spirit of investigation and scientific inquiry which it constantly awakens. We happen to live in a time when university teacher

ry 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 narr

wing 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

ed 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

ne 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

inclinations and importunate desires under mastery, to establish a counterpoise to them by the steady and persistent forces of education. A many-sided interest

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

gth 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 e

sideratum. 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

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 li