TWO PROBLEMS IN EDUCATION. 587 



disinclination in the minds of his governors do not and cannot appeal 

 to him as intrinsically valid. One can, of course, compel the per- 

 formance of disagreeable tasks, and by repetition of compulsion one can 

 convince a refractory youth that some achievement is always possible 

 and necessary, in spite of his strong aversion to a particular kind of 

 work. But what one usually cultivates, under such circumstances, is 

 not a growing strength to master difficulties, but chiefly the habit of 

 skilful, even of subtle evasion — the habit of calculating not how much 

 one can do, but how little one must do. 



Again, the effect of compelling a youth to pursue a subject per- 

 manently uninteresting is pernicious in another way. It cultivates the 

 abominable habit of being satisfied with partial or inadequate achieve- 

 ment. Permanent lack of interest in a given field of work is an indi- 

 cation of corresponding incapacity; for growing interest and capacity 

 always go together. Under such circumstances a youth never feels the 

 glow of conscious mastery of the subject for its own sake; half achieve- 

 ment is the result of forced, half-hearted endeavor, and both become 

 the rule. 



The result may be even worse. To be constantly baffled undermines 

 one's confidence in one's own powers, and ultimately imperils self- 

 respect. To force a youth to work against the grain for its own sake 

 is, therefore, futile, and worse than futile; for it not only fails to ac- 

 complish its purpose, but actually cultivates the evasion of school work, 

 the aversion to school work, and, in extreme cases, it may even destroy 

 the capacity for work of any sort. Morever, it must not be forgotten 

 that evasion of work, aversion to work, and ennui are the fertile soil in 

 which all the vices flourish. 



Again, all such efforts to make a youth work 'against the grain,' for 

 its own sake, by the pursuit of uninteresting studies are artificial, and 

 wholly unnecessary. What we want a youth to acquire is the power of 

 overcoming difficulties, and the corresponding habit of adequate 

 achievement. This power and the corresponding habit are cultivated 

 oy overcoming difficulties, not by forced and unsuccessful attempts at 

 overcoming them. Every subject affords abundant opportunity for 

 overcoming difficulties, and when it is in harmony with the pupil's in- 

 terests and powers, those difficulties will he overcome; first, because they 

 lie in the way of further progress in a subject which he wishes to 

 master; and second, because he possesses the requisite natural capacity 

 for conquest, because he daily feels the sense of achievement — the strong- 

 est of all incentives to exertion. Hence, conquest may become the rule. 

 Through conquest alone comes the habit of working in spite of diffi- 

 culties, which is the kind of working against the grain worth trying for. 



Finally, as was pointed out above, a man's life is more significant 

 and richer in every way, the more his dominant interests and powers- 



