an intelligent one, and that our
specialty shall not prove a rut in which we become so deeply buried that
we are lost to the best in life.

A PROPER BALANCE TO BE SOUGHT.--It behooves us, then, to find a proper
balance in cultivating our interests, making them neither too broad nor
too narrow. We should deliberately seek to discover those which are
strong enough to point the way to a life vocation, but this should not
be done until we have had an opportunity to become acquainted with
various lines of interests. Otherwise our decision in this important
matter may be based merely on a whim.

We should also decide what interests we should cultivate for our own
personal development and happiness, and for the service we are to render
in a sphere outside our immediate vocation. We should consider
avocations as well as vocations. Whatever interests are selected should
be carried to efficiency. Better a reasonable number of carefully
selected interests well developed and resulting in efficiency than a
multitude of interests which lead us into so many fields that we can at
best get but a smattering of each, and that by neglecting the things
which should mean the most to us. Our interests should lead us to live
what Wagner calls a "simple life," but not a narrow one.

5. INTEREST FUNDAMENTAL IN EDUCATION

Some educators have feared that in finding our occupations interesting,
we shall lose all power of effort and self-direction; that the will, not
being called sufficiently into requisition, must suffer from non-use;
that we shall come to do the interesting and agreeable things well
enough, but fail before the disagreeable.

INTEREST NOT ANTAGONISTIC TO EFFORT.--The best development of the will
does not come through our being forced to do acts in which there is
absolutely no interest. Work done under compulsion never secures the
full self in its performance. It is done mechanically and usually under
such a spirit of rebellion on the part of the doer, that the advantage
of such training may well be doubted. Nor are we safe in assuming that
tasks done without interest as the motive are always performed under the
direction of the will. It is far more likely that they are done under
some external compulsion, and that the will has, after all, but very
little to do with it. A boy may get an uninteresting lesson at school
without much pressure from his will, providing he is sufficiently afraid
of the master. In order that the will