Part 19 (1/2)

INTEREST

The feeling that we call interest is so iives direction to our endeavors that ill do well to devote a chapter to its discussion

1 THE NATURE OF INTEREST

We saw in an earlier chapter that personal habits have their rise in race habits or instincts Let us now see how interest helps the individual to select from his instinctive acts those which are useful to build into personal habits Instinct impartially starts the child in the performance of many different activities, but does not dictate what particular acts shall be retained to serve as the basis for habits

Interest comes in at this point and says, ”This act is of more value than that act; continue this act and drop that” Instinct prompts the babe to countless movements of body and limb Interest picks out those that are anism, and the child comes to prefer these rather than the others Thus it is that out of the randos and head and body we finally develop the coordinated activities which are infinitely more useful than the rando in instincts, and selected by interest, are soon crystallized into habits

INTEREST A SELECTIVE AGENT--The same truth holds for mental activities as for physical A thousand channels lie open for your streaht at this moment, but your interest has beckoned it into the one particular channel which, for the tireatest subjective value; and it is now following that channel unless your will has co as naturally follows your interest as the needle does the ely by your interests This is equivalent to saying that your mental habits rest back finally upon your interests

Everyone knohat it is to be interested; but interest, like other eleidly defined (1) Subjectively considered, interest ns our activities their place in a subjective scale of values_, and hence selects a them (2) Objectively considered, an interest is _the object which calls forth the feeling_ (3) Functionally considered, interest is _the dynamic phase of consciousness_

INTEREST SUPPLIES A SUBJECTIVE SCALE OF VALUES--If you are interested in driving a horse rather than in riding a bicycle, it is because the forreater subjective value to you than the latter If you are interested in reading these words instead of thinking about the next social function or the last picnic party, it is because at this ested appeals to you as of ht From this it follows that your standards of values are revealed in the character of your interests The young , and in low resorts confesses by the fact that these things occupy a high place as which appeal to him as subjectively valuable The mother whose interests are chiefly in clubs and other social organizations places these higher in her scale of values than her hoht, trashy literature her in his subjective scale of values than the works of the est interest is in grade hly than true attainment For, whatever may be our claims or assertions, interest is finally an infallible baron to our activities

In the case of sos it is not always possible to ascribe an objective side to the vivacity, may be produced by an unanalyzable complex of causes

But interest, while it is related primarily to the activities of the self, is carried over from the activity to the object which occasions the activity That is, interest has both an objective and a subjective side On the subjective side a certain activity connected with self-expression is worth so much; on the objective side a certain object is worth so much as related to this self-expression Thus we say, I have an interest in books or in business; overned with reference to these objects They are my interests

INTEREST DYNAMIC--Many of oursufficient force as motives to impel us to action Not so with interest Its very nature is dynamic Whatever it seizes upon becomes _ipso facto_ an object for some activity, for some form of expression of the self Are we interested in a new book, we must read it; in a new invention, we must see it, handle it, test it; in some vocation or avocation, we ives its possessor no opportunity for lethargic rest and quiet, but constantly urges him to action Grown ardent, interest becoreat was ever acco interest centered in ht in a ceaseless activity which scarcely gives us ti interest in the Union, this motive will make possible superhuman efforts for the accomplishment of our end Are we man or wohty interests grown into enthusias within us, and our life will be one of activity and achievereat interest lacks motive power Of necessity such a life must be devoid of purpose and hence barren of results, counting little while it is being lived, and little one

HABIT ANTAGONISTIC TO INTEREST--While, as we have seen, interest is necessary to the foronistic to interest That is, acts which are so habitually performed that they ”do themselves” are accompanied by a minimum of interest They come to be done without attentive consciousness, hence interest cannot attach to their performance Many of the activities whichas habit is beingin our ways of doing things, interest will still cling to the process; but let us once settle into an unmodified rut, and interest quickly fades away We then have the conditions present which e

2 DIRECT AND INDIRECT INTEREST

Weof an act, or (2) in the end sought through the doing In the first instance we call the interest _immediate_ or _direct_; in the second instance, _mediate_ or _indirect_

INTEREST IN THE END VERSUS INTEREST IN THE ACTIVITY--If we do not find an interest in the doing of our work, or if it has becoreeable so that we loathe its performance, then thereperfor interest, else the whole process will be the veriest drudgery If the end is sufficiently interesting it may serve to throw a halo of interest over the whole process connected with it The following instance illustrates this fact:

A twelve-year-old boy was told by his father that if he would make the body of an auto school, the father would purchase the running gear for it and give the machine to the boy In order to secure the coveted prize, the boy had tothe calculations, and the drawing necessary forthe plans to scale before the teacher inwould allow him to take up the work of construction The boy had always lacked interest in both arith, and consequently was dull in them Under the new incentive, however, he took hold of them with such avidity that he soon surpassed all the remainder of the class, and was able to s within a term He secured his automobile a few months later, and still retained his interest in arith

INDIRECT INTEREST AS A MOTIVE--Interest of the indirect type, which does not attach to the process, but comes from some more or less distant end, most of us find much less potent than interest which is immediate This is especially true unless the end be one of intense desire and not too distant The assurance to a boy that he et his lessons well because he will need to be an educated oes into business for himself does not compensate for the lack of interest in the lessons of today

Yet it is necessary in the economy of life that both children and adults should learn to work under the incitement of indirect interests Much of the e do is for an end which is more desirable than the work itself It will always be necessary to sacrifice present pleasure for future good Ability to work cheerfully for a soery If interest is removed from both the process and the end, no inducement is left to work except compulsion; and this, if continued, results in the lowest type of effort It puts a man on a level with the beast of burden, which constantly shi+rks its work

INDIRECT INTEREST ALONE INSUFFICIENT--Interest co in the process may finally lead to an interest in the work itself; but if it does not, the worker is in danger of being left a drudge at last To be more than a slave to his work onefor its own sake The man who performs his work solely because he has a wife and babies at home will never be an artist in his trade or profession; the student who masters a subject only because hethe traits of a scholar The question of interest in the process makes the difference between the one orks because he loves to work and the one who toils because he e The drudge does only what he s for the end of labor, the artist for it to begin The drudge studies how he may escape his labor, the artist how he may better his and ennoble it

To labor when there is joy in the work is elevating, to labor under the lash of co It matters not so much what ahis team down the crowded street better than anyone else could do it, and glorying in that fact, may be a true artist in his occupation, and be ennobled through his work A states the affairs of a nation as no one else could do it, or a scholar leading the thought of his generation is subject to the sarade of service of which he is capable, man must find a joy in the perforh its perforh the position or how refined the work, the worker becomes a slave to his labor unless interest in its performance saves him

3 TRANSITORINESS OF CERTAIN INTERESTS

Since our interests are always connected with our activities it follows that th, and then fade away as the corresponding instincts which are responsible for the activities pass through these saes This only means that interest in play develops at the ti expression; that interest in the opposite sex beco the attention to the choice of a mate; and that interest in abstract studies comes when the developical trains of thought All of us can recall , and are noeak or else have altogether passed away Hide-and-seek, pussy-wants-a-corner, excursions to the little fishi+ng pond, securing the colored chro blood-and-thunder stories or sentis to our past, or has left but a faint shadow Other interests have come, and these in turn will also disappear and other new ones yet appear as long as we keep on acquiring new experience

INTERESTS MUST BE UTILIZED WHEN THEY APPEAR--This e of interests when they appear if ish to utilize and develop them How many people there are who at one ti them to cultivate their taste for music, art, or literature and said they would do this at some convenient season, and finally found thes! How many of us have felt an interest in some benevolent work, but at last discovered that our inclination had died before we found ti as we are, do not at thisof so of some interest which we had fondly supposed was as stable as Gibraltar? The drawings of every interest which appeals to us is a voice crying, ”Now is the appointed ties us today to becoin at once to be or perform, if ould attain to the coveted end