case of
a student. In trying to become interested in Mediaeval History, keep
actively engaged in it. Read book after book dealing with the subject.
Apply it to your studies in Political Economy, English, and American
History. Choose sub-topics in Mediaeval History as the subjects for
themes in English composition courses. Try to help some other student
in the class. Take part in class discussions and talk informally with
the instructor outside of the classroom. Use your ingenuity to devise
methods of keeping active toward the subject. Presently you will
discover that the subject no longer appears cold and forbidding; but
that it glows warm with virility; that it has become interesting.

It will readily be noticed that the two laws of interest here set forth
are closely interrelated. One can hardly seek information about a
subject without exerting activity toward it; conversely, one cannot
maintain activity on behalf of a subject without at the same time
acquiring information about it. These two easily-remembered and
easily-applied rules of study will go far toward solving some of the
most trying conditions of student life. Memorize them, apply them, and
you will find yourself in possession of a power which will stay with
you long after you quit college walls; one which you may apply with
profit in many different situations of life.

We have shown in this chapter the fallacy of the assumption that a
student cannot become genuinely interested in a subject which at first
seems uninteresting.

We have shown that he may develop interest in any subject if he but
employs the proper psychological methods. That he must obey the
two-fold law--secure information about the subject (stating the new in
terms of the old) and exert activity toward it. That when he has thus
lighted the flame of interest, he will find his entire intellectual
life illuminated, glowing with purpose, resplendent with success.

In concluding this discussion we should note the wide difference
between the quality of study which is done with interest and that done
without it. Under the latter condition the student is a slave, a
drudge; under the former, a god, a creator. Touched by the galvanic
spark he sees new significance in every page, in every line. As his
vision enlarges, he perceives new relations between his study and his
future aims, indeed, between his study and the progress of the
universe. And he goes to his educational tasks not as a prisoner