d jail-wardens to demagogues and statesmen, instinctively come so to
conceive their charges. If you do the same, thinking of them (however
else you may think of them besides) as so many little systems of
associating machinery, you will be astonished at the intimacy of insight
into their operations and at the practicality of the results which you
will gain. We think of our acquaintances, for example, as characterized
by certain 'tendencies.' These tendencies will in almost every instance
prove to be tendencies to association. Certain ideas in them are always
followed by certain other ideas, these by certain feelings and impulses
to approve or disapprove, assent or decline. If the topic arouse one of
those first ideas, the practical outcome can be pretty well foreseen.
'Types of character' in short are largely types of association.

X. INTEREST

At our last meeting I treated of the native tendencies of the pupil to
react in characteristically definite ways upon different stimuli or
exciting circumstances. In fact, I treated of the pupil's instincts. Now
some situations appeal to special instincts from the very outset, and
others fail to do so until the proper connections have been organized in
the course of the person's training. We say of the former set of objects
or situations that they are _interesting_ in themselves and originally.
Of the latter we say that they are natively uninteresting, and that
interest in them has first to be acquired.

No topic has received more attention from pedagogical writers than that
of interest. It is the natural sequel to the instincts we so lately
discussed, and it is therefore well fitted to be the next subject which
we take up.

Since some objects are natively interesting and in others interest is
artificially acquired, the teacher must know which the natively
interesting ones are; for, as we shall see immediately, other objects
can artificially acquire an interest only through first becoming
associated with some of these natively interesting things.

The native interests of children lie altogether in the sphere of
sensation. Novel things to look at or novel sounds to hear, especially
when they involve the spectacle of action of a violent sort, will always
divert the attention from abstract conceptions of objects verbally taken
in. The grimace that Johnny is making, the spitballs that Tommy is ready
to throw, the dog-fight in the street, or the distant firebells
ringing,-