Decembes 28, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



839 



THE DOCTRINE OF INTEREST. 



Here two important subjects crowd upon 

 me for consideration, and they are just the 

 subjects which I wish to lay before a sec- 

 tion devoted to the science of education. 

 They are closely related, and I suspect 

 they are strictly modern. I refer to the 

 doctrine of interest, as a valuable or as a 

 harmful characteristic of study ; and to the 

 wisdom or the folly of a free election of 

 studies in our secondary schools and col- 

 leges. Consider for a moment how much 

 we are at sea and how far we have drifted 

 apart on these two matters— and then you 

 will agree with me as to the need of sys- 

 tematic study and observation that we may 

 find our bearings and lay our courses cor- 

 rectly. 



The question of taste and interest is a 

 very perplexing one. Antecedent interest 

 is, we all know, quite accidental and a very 

 unsafe guide. The whims of boys and girls 

 are generally due to the suggestions of com- 

 panions and of external opportunity. It 

 has been my fortune, as well as my duty, 

 to warn hundreds of parents of boys from 

 fourteen to eighteen years of age not to 

 take seriously their early interest in par- 

 ticular studies or their haphazard plans 

 for future occupation. 



Some choice is inevitable, and plans for 

 the distant future are as plenty as castles 

 in Spain, but nothing can be more evident 

 than the unfitness of a boy in his teens to 

 select definitely the course of study best 

 suited to his inherited and acquired ca- 

 pacity; and nothing can be more certain 

 than his practical ignorance of the condi- 

 tions of a successful career. Hence his 

 declared preferences and elections are to be 

 treated with a loving sympathy, as are a 

 hundred other youthful fancies, but the 

 wise parent and the wise teacher decide 

 to leave open all the aveniies of culture 

 and skill, and to hold off the great final 

 choice till the boy has had time and oppor- 



tunity to make two important discoveries, 

 viz., the intellectual world within him, and 

 the material and spiritual world without. 

 Heie we need the pronuncianiento of sci- 

 ence, telling us how much weight we shall 

 attach to the preferences of a boy of twelve, 

 of fifteen, of eighteen, in regard to the 

 scheme of education and training which 

 shall enable him to make the most of him- 

 self and be of the most use to his time and 

 generation. 



Every good teacher aims to make his 

 subject as interesting as possible to his 

 pupils. If they fail to take a lively in- 

 terest in it, something is wrong; either it 

 is not properly presented, or it is over their 

 heads; or it is clearly of no earthly use. 

 Natural lack of capacity on the part of the 

 child is rarely a valid reason for failure, 

 if the child be healthy and normal. I have 

 learned to discredit the truth of the oft- 

 told tale that 'John has no capacity for' 

 such a subject — mathematics, for example. 

 "He never could learn mathematics— he 

 takes no interest in algebra and he hates 

 geometry," etc. Our higher schools and 

 colleges are full of young people who pro- 

 test vigorously that they never could and 

 never can understand, or take any pleasure 

 in, or gain any profit from, certain studies. 

 On the other hand, I firmly believe that 

 every normal person, at least nine out of 

 ten of the children and youth at school and 

 college, can fairly master and actually en- 

 joy and profit by not only mathematics, 

 but by every subject in the curriculum, if 

 it be properly taught, and under proper 

 conditions as to age and preparation. 



I know a man who when a boy was put 

 too early and too rapidly to arithmetic, 

 algebra, geometry, trigonometry and an- 

 alytics. He must have had the worst pos- 

 sible teachers, for he comprehended noth- 

 ing of what he glibly recited from memory. 

 So they called him a dunce, reported him 

 home as a dunce, and the boy accepted the 



