Part 19 (2/2)
THE VALUE OF A STRONG INTEREST--Nor are we to look upon these transitory interests as useless They coe, but they impel us to activities which are immediately useful, or else prepare us for the later battles of life But even aside fro just to be interested For it is only through the impulsion of interest that we first learn to put forth effort in any true sense of the word, and interest furnishes the final foundation upon which volition rests Without interest the greatest powers hest attainment rest satisfied with commonplace mediocrity No one will ever kno many Gladstones and Leibnitzes the world has lost simply because their interests were never appealed to in such a way as to start them on the road to achievement It matters less what the interest be, so it be not bad, than that there shall be soth of endurance, and lead to habits of achievement
4 SELECTION AMONG OUR INTERESTS
I said early in the discussion that interest is selective a out those which appear to be of the most value to us In the sa our interests themselves
THE MISTAKE OF FOLLOWING TOO MANY INTERESTS--It is possible for us to become interested in so many lines of activity that we do none of them well This leads to a life so full of hurry and stress that we forget life in our busy living Says Ja our interests:
”With most objects of desire, physical nature restricts our choice to but one of oods, and even so it is here I a by one ofthe rest Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsoreat athlete, and make a million a year; be a wit, a bon vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a 'tone poet' and saint But the thing is simply impossible
The millionaire's ould run counter to the saint's; the bon vivant and the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to man But to make any one of them actual, the rest must est, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation”
INTERESTS MAY BE TOO NARROW--On the other hand, it is just as possible for our interests to be too narrow as too broad The one who has cultivated no interests outside of his daily round of huh out of life It is possible to becoet to live--to become so habituated to soht suggested by its environment, that we miss the richest experiences of life Many there are who live a barren, trivial, and self-centered life because they fail to see the significant and the beautiful which lie just beyond where their interests reach! Many there are so taken up with their own petty troubles that they have no heart or sympathy for fellow humanity! Many there are so absorbed with their own little achievee!
SPECIALIZATION SHOULD NOT COME TOO EARLY--It is not well to specialize too early in our interests We , and whose gleaning would enrich our lives The student who is so buried in books that he has no ti a mistake equally with the one who is so enthusiastic an athlete and social devotee that he neglects his studies Likewise, the youth who is so taken up with the study of one particular line that he applies hi a distorted growth Youth is the ti the sky line back on all sides; it is the ti diverse and varied lines of interests if ould grow into a rich experience in our later lives The physical must be developed, but not at the expense of the lected, but it ed to such an extent that other interests suffer Interest in amusements and recreations should be cultivated, but these should never run counter to the ious
Specialization is necessary, but specialization in our interests should rest upon a broad field of fundamental interests, in order that the selection of the special line ent one, and that our specialty shall not prove a rut in which we become so deeply buried that we are lost to the best in life
A PROPER BALANCE TO BE SOUGHT--It behooves us, then, to find a proper balance in cultivating our interests,them neither too broad nor too narrow We should deliberately seek to discover those which are strong enough to point the way to a life vocation, but this should not be done until we have had an opportunity to become acquainted with various lines of interests Otherwise our decision in this important matter may be based merely on a whim
We should also decide what interests we should cultivate for our own personal development and happiness, and for the service we are to render in a sphere outside our immediate vocation We should consider avocations as well as vocations Whatever interests are selected should be carried to efficiency Better a reasonable number of carefully selected interests well developed and resulting in efficiency than a multitude of interests which lead us into soof each, and that by neglecting the things which should mean the ner calls a ”simple life,” but not a narrow one
5 INTEREST FUNDAMENTAL IN EDUCATION
So our occupations interesting, we shall lose all power of effort and self-direction; that the will, not being called sufficiently into requisition, must suffer froreeable things well enough, but fail before the disagreeable
INTEREST NOT ANTAGONISTIC TO EFFORT--The best develop forced to do acts in which there is absolutely no interest Work done under compulsion never secures the full self in its performance It is done mechanically and usually under such a spirit of rebellion on the part of the doer, that the advantage of such trainingthat tasks done without interest as the motive are always performed under the direction of the will It is far more likely that they are done under some external compulsion, and that the will has, after all, but very little to do with it A boylesson at school withouthe is sufficiently afraid of the h co the performance of certain acts, it must have a reasonably free field, with external pressure re force must come from within, and not from without
On the other hand, there is not the least danger that we shall ever find a place in life where all the disagreeable is re The necessity will always be rising to call upon effort to take up the fight and hold us to duty where interest has failed And it is just here that there must be no failure, else we shall bewith every eddy in the tide of our life, and never able to breast the current Interest is not to supplant the necessity for stern and strenuous endeavor but rather to call forth the largest measure of endeavor of which the self is capable It is to put at work a larger amount of power than can be secured in any other way; in place of supplanting the will, it is to give it its point of departure and render its service all the more effective
INTEREST AND CHARACTER--Finally, we are not to forget that bad interests have the saood ones, and will lead to acts just as surely And these acts will just as readily be for that back of the act lies an interest; in the act lies the seed of a habit; ahead of the act lies behavior, which grows into conduct, this into character, and character into destiny Bad interests should be shunned and discouraged But even that is not enough Good interests must be installed in the place of the bad ones froh substitution rather than suppression that we are able to break froood
Our interests are an evolution Out of the sirow thethe opportunity to develop the interests of childhood, the man will coreat thing, then, in educating a child is to discover the funda these as a starting point, direct the and more serviceable ones Out of the early interest in play is to come the later interest in work; out of the early interest in collecting treasure boxes full of worthless trinkets and old scraps co ownershi+p of property; out of the interest in chuer social interests; out of interest in nature comes the interest of the naturalist And so one by one we est fruit in our adult life, and we find that they all have their roots in soiven a chance to grow
6 ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT OF OUR INTERESTS
The order in which our interests develop thus becomes an important question in our education Nor is the order an arbitrary one, as ht; for interest follows the invariable law of attaching to the activity for which the organism is at that tirowth That we are sos does not disprove this assertion The interest in its fundaood, and but needs more healthful environment or more wise direction While space forbids a full discussion of the genetic phase of interest here, yet we may profit by a brief statement of the fundamental interests of certain well-marked periods in our development
THE INTERESTS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD--The interests of early childhood are chiefly connected with anis control of the largerare worth doing for their own sake alone Iination is building a neorld Speech is a joy, language is learned with ease, and rhye are still very direct and ichild's life is so full of action, and since it is out of acts that habits grow, it is doubly desirous during this period that environ should all direct his interests and activities into lines that will lead to permanent values
THE INTERESTS OF LATER CHILDHOOD--In the period fro in the scope of interests, as well as a noticeable change in their character Activity is still the keynote; but the child is no longer interested , but is now able to look forward to the end sought Interests which are sos attracts his attention He is beginning to reach outside of his own little circle, and is ready for handicraft, reading, history, and science Spelling, writing, and arithmetic interest him partly from the activities involved, but aames which require tea to sacrifice hiinning, and right and wrong are no longer things which reat problee is to direct the interest into ways of adapting the ness to work under voluntary attention for the accomplishment of the desired end
THE INTERESTS OF ADOLESCENCE--Finally, with the advent of puberty, coe in the development of interests before adult life
This period is notand broadening of those already begun The end sought becoer factor, whether in play or in work Mere activity itself no longer satisfies The youth can now play tea shape, and he can subordinate hiroup Interest in the opposite sex takes on a new phase, and social form and mode of dress receive attention A new consciousness of self ees, and the youth beco of things press for solution, and what and who aime of obedience to one of self-control, from an ethics of authority to one of individualis on aseriously toward life vocations This is a ti plans and strenuous activity It is a crucial period in our life, fraught with pitfalls and dangers, with privileges and opportunities At this strategic point in our life's voyage we ht interests to a safeinterests, bind ourselves to a broken life of discouragement and defeat