THE PERMANENCE OF INTERESTS 449 



THE PERMANENCE OF INTERESTS AND THEIR RELA- 

 TION TO ABILITIES 



Br Professor EDWARD L. THORNDIKB 



TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLDMBIA UNIVERSITY 



THERE is a wide range of opinion amongst both theorists and prac- 

 titioners with respect to the importance of the interests of chil- 

 dren and young people. These early likes and dislikes, attractions and 

 repulsions, are, by some, taken to be prime symptoms of what is for 

 the welfare of the individual or even of the species. By others they are 

 discarded as trivial, fickle, products of more or less adventitious circum- 

 stances, meaning little or nothing for the nature or welfare of any one. 

 It seems, therefore, desirable to report whatever impersonal estimates of 

 the significance and value of interests one can secure. 



I have measured the significance of interests in certain limited 

 particulars, with very definite results, and shall, in this article, describe 

 these results and the method by which they were obtained and by which 

 any one can readily verify them. 



The particular problems attacked all concerned the relative amount 

 or relative intensity or relative strength of interests within the same 

 individual. That is, "greater interest" will always mean the interest 

 which was greater than the others possessed by the same individual. 

 Little interest will mean little in comparison with the individual's other 

 interests. The question, " To what extent is the strength of an interest 

 from ten to fourteen prophetic of the strength which that interest will 

 manifest in adult life ? " will mean, " To what extent will it in adult life 

 keep the same place in an order of the individual's interests which it 

 had in the order which described his childish preferences ? " Amounts 

 or degrees of ability or capacity will similarly always mean relative 

 amounts. Thus, to say that a person was, during high school, most 

 interested in mathematics and most able at mathematics will mean that 

 the person liked mathematics more than he did anything else, and 

 did better at mathematics than he did at anything else. The statement 

 will not imply anything about the degree of his interest or ability in 

 comparison with other individuals. 



The particular problems attacked are limited further to seven 

 varieties of interests and the corresponding varieties of ability or capac- 

 ity, namely, mathematics, history, literature, science, music, drawing, 

 and other hand-work (this last being defined as " carpentering, sewing, 



VOL. LXXXI.— 31. 



