olated from subject
matter is responsible for the false conceptions of discipline and
interest already noted. When the effective way of managing material
is treated as something ready-made apart from material, there are just
three possible ways in which to establish a relationship lacking by
assumption. One is to utilize excitement, shock of pleasure, tickling
the palate. Another is to make the consequences of not attending
painful; we may use the menace of harm to motivate concern with the
alien subject matter. Or a direct appeal may be made to the person to
put forth effort without any reason. We may rely upon immediate strain
of "will." In practice, however, the latter method is effectual only
when instigated by fear of unpleasant results. (iii) In the third place,
the act of learning is made a direct and conscious end in itself. Under
normal conditions, learning is a product and reward of occupation with
subject matter. Children do not set out, consciously, to learn walking
or talking. One sets out to give his impulses for communication and for
fuller intercourse with others a show. He learns in consequence of his
direct activities. The better methods of teaching a child, say, to read,
follow the same road. They do not fix his attention upon the fact that
he has to learn something and so make his attitude self-conscious
and constrained. They engage his activities, and in the process of
engagement he learns: the same is true of the more successful methods in
dealing with number or whatever. But when the subject matter is not used
in carrying forward impulses and habits to significant results, it is
just something to be learned. The pupil's attitude to it is just that
of having to learn it. Conditions more unfavorable to an alert and
concentrated response would be hard to devise. Frontal attacks are even
more wasteful in learning than in war. This does not mean, however, that
students are to be seduced unaware into preoccupation with lessons. It
means that they shall be occupied with them for real reasons or ends,
and not just as something to be learned. This is accomplished whenever
the pupil perceives the place occupied by the subject matter in the
fulfilling of some experience.

(iv) In the fourth place, under the influence of the conception of the
separation of mind and material, method tends to be reduced to a cut and
dried routine, to following mechanically prescribed steps. No one can
tell in how many schoolroo