Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. INTEBEST. Half a dozen people may be speaking at once close to a listener, but he listens only to a single voice. He remains oblivious to the others because his attention, guided by his interest, is concentrated on that one. Our mental capacity, our physical powers, are monopolized by that which, for some reason or other, is attractive to us. The attraction may be very strong, appealing powerfully to the feelings; or it may be a remote attraction, appealing only to the intellect. It is not my purpose to enter into an analysis of the nature of interest; but only to point out some of its practical bearings on the work of the student. Shall a student pursue only those things that spontaneously interest him? If he must develop interest in some things for which he has no inherent liking, what kind of interest shall it be ? Shall the burden of exciting the student's interest in his work be laid on the teacher's shoulders, or shall the student hold himself responsible for the cultivation of genuine interest in all the phases of his work? The gravest problem that teachers have to deal with is that of awakening and sustaining the interest of thestudent in his studies. There is less hopeless incapacity among scholars than many people think. The high- schools lose more students after the first year or two because the latter have lost their interest in the work than because of incapacity or the grinding necessity of working for a living. Without interest in a thing the intellect will not work upon it; interest is the fuel to the engine. From the teacher's point of view the student himself is the responsible party; without interest on his part there can be no such thing as education. The reason why it is so hard to teach a young child is because its attention cannot...