156 NATURE STUDY. 



The more we can bring our pupils into sympathy with 

 the dandelion and rabbit, with the world of life about 

 them, the better the results. Sympathetic interest, as 

 distinguished from mere intellectual curiosity, is a great 

 aid in nature study. 



As pupils grow older, we can depend more and more 

 on what may be called secondary or indirect interests, 

 the ambition to succeed or to prepare for life, the desire 

 to please parents and others, the fear of the disgrace 

 which failure may bring. This indirect interest is not 

 so helpful nor important at any stage in education as 

 immediate, direct interest. 



A most practical question is, How can the children 

 be interested, and how can they be kept interested? 



As has been said, the first essential in gaining and 

 maintaining interest is to present matter which the chil- 

 dren can understand, for which they have apperceiving 

 concepts, and to present it in such a way as to most 

 clearly relate the new matter to the old. 



Novelty or newness usually arouses or stimulates in- 

 terest. Young children particularly are more interested 

 in new things. For this reason they require frequent 

 change. Their interest cannot be very long sustained 

 in one thing. As children begin to think more, new 

 ideas as well as new objects attract them, new points of 

 view, new relations in which familiar objects are studied, 

 new beauties of form and color and function and adap- 

 tation, unsuspected before. The commonest, most fa- 

 miliar things, such as the dandelion, become new, when 

 thus studied in a new light. 



