hese interests must
be born within them.

When we examine carefully the interests of man, and trace their
sources, we see that the above view is fallacious. We acquire most of
our interests in the course of our experience. Professor James asserts:
"An adult man's interests are almost every one of them intensely
artificial; they have been slowly built up. The objects of professional
interest are most of them in their original nature, repulsive; but by
their connection with such natively exciting objects as one's personal
fortune, one's social responsibilities and especially by the force of
inveterate habit, they grow to be the only things for which in middle
life a man profoundly cares."

Since interests are largely products of experience, then, it follows
that if we wish to have an interest in a given subject, we must
consciously and purposefully develop it. There is wide choice open to
us. We may develop interest in early Victorian literature, prize-fight
promoting, social theory, lignitic rocks, history of Siam, the
collection of scarabs, mediaeval history.

We should not be deceived by the glibness of the above statements into
assuming that the development of interest is an easy matter. It
requires adherence to certain definite psychological laws which we may
call the laws of interest. The first may be stated as follows: _In
order to develop interest in a subject, secure information about it_.
The force of this law will be apparent as soon as we analyze one of our
already-developed interests. Let us take one that is quite common--the
interest which a typical young girl takes in a movie star. Her interest
in him comes largely from what she has been able to learn about him;
the names of the productions in which he has appeared, his age, the
color of his automobile, his favorite novel. Her interest may be said
actually to consist, at least in part, of these facts. The astute press
agent knows the force of this law, and at well-timed intervals he lets
slip through bits of information about the star, which fan the interest
of the fair devotee to a still whiter heat.

The relation of information to interest is still further illustrated by
the case of the typical university professor or scientist. He is
interested in certain objects of research--infusoria, electrons, plant
ecology,--because he knows so much about them. His interest may be
said to _consist_ partly of the body of knowledge that he possesses. He
was not a