PLACE OF INTEREST IN THEORY
or in theory, come from ignoring or excluding its moving, developing nature; they bring an activity to a standstill, cut up its progressive growth into a series of static cross-sections. When this happens, nothing remains but to identify interest with the momentary excitation an object arouses. Such a relation of object and self is not only not educative, but it is worse than nothing. It dissipates energy, and forms a habit of dependence upon such meaningless excitations, a habit most adverse to sustained thought and endeavor. Wherever such practices are resorted to in the name of interest, they very properly bring it into disrepute. It is not enough to catch attention; it must be held. It does not suffice to arouse energy; the course that energy takes, the results that it effects are the important matters.
But since activities, even those originally impulsive, are more or less continuous or enduring, such static, non-developing excitements, represent not interest, but an abnormal set of conditions. The positive contributions of the idea of interest to pedagogic theory are twofold. In the first place, it protects us from a merely
