interest. They come to be done without attentive consciousness, hence
interest cannot attach to their performance. Many of the activities
which make up the daily round of our lives are of this kind. As long as
habit is being modified in some degree, as long as we are improving in
our ways of doing things, interest will still cling to the process; but
let us once settle into an unmodified rut, and interest quickly fades
away. We then have the conditions present which make of us either a
machine or a drudge.

2. DIRECT AND INDIRECT INTEREST

We may have an interest either (1) in the doing of an act, or (2) in the
end sought through the doing. In the first instance we call the interest
_immediate_ or _direct_; in the second instance, _mediate_ or
_indirect_.

INTEREST IN THE END VERSUS INTEREST IN THE ACTIVITY.--If we do not find
an interest in the doing of our work, or if it has become positively
disagreeable so that we loathe its performance, then there must be some
ultimate end for which the task is being performed, and in which there
is a strong interest, else the whole process will be the veriest
drudgery. If the end is sufficiently interesting it may serve to throw a
halo of interest over the whole process connected with it. The following
instance illustrates this fact:

A twelve-year-old boy was told by his father that if he would make the
body of an automobile at his bench in the manual training school, the
father would purchase the running gear for it and give the machine to
the boy. In order to secure the coveted prize, the boy had to master the
arithmetic necessary for making the calculations, and the drawing
necessary for making the plans to scale before the teacher in manual
training would allow him to take up the work of construction. The boy
had always lacked interest in both arithmetic and drawing, and
consequently was dull in them. Under the new incentive, however, he took
hold of them with such avidity that he soon surpassed all the remainder
of the class, and was able to make his calculations and drawings within
a term. He secured his automobile a few months later, and still retained
his interest in arithmetic and drawing.

INDIRECT INTEREST AS A MOTIVE.--Interest of the indirect type, which
does not attach to the process, but comes from some more or less
distant end, most of us find much less potent than interest which is
immediate. This is especially true unless the end be one of intense
desir