h to gain a prize
will cause a child to take deep interest in a lesson. But in all these
cases desire _precedes_ interest. Interest, indeed, in the thing
itself for its own sake, is frequently not present. It is true in many
cases that indirect interest is not interest at all. It is a dangerous
thing in education to substitute _indirect_ for _direct_ or true
interest. The former often means the cultivation, primarily, of
certain inordinate desires or feelings, such as rivalry, pride,
jealousy, ambition, reputation, love of self. By appealing to the
selfish pride of children in getting lessons, hateful moral qualities
are sometimes started into active growth in the very effort to secure
the highest intellectual results and discipline. Giving a prize for
superiority often produces jealousy, unkindness, and deep-seated
ill-will where the cultivation of a proper natural interest would lead
to more kindly and sympathetic relations between the children. The
cultivation of direct interest in all valuable kinds of knowledge, on
the other hand, leads also to the cultivation of desires, but the
desires thus generated are pure and generous, the desire for further
knowledge of botany or history, the desire to imitate what is admirable
in human actions and to shun what is mean. The desires which spring
out of direct interest are elevating, while the desires which are
associated with indirect interest are in many cases egotistic and
selfish.

We often say that it is necessary to make a subject interesting so that
it may be more _palatable_, more easily learned. This is the commonly
accepted idea. It is a means of helping us to swallow a distasteful
medicine. If the main purpose were to get knowledge into the mind, and
interest only a means to this end, the cultivation of such indirect
interests would be all right. But interest is one of the qualities
which we wish to see permanently associated with knowledge even after
it is safely stored in the mind. If interest is there, future energy
and activity will spring spontaneously out of the acquirements.
Indirect interest indeed is often necessary and may be a sign of tact
in teaching. But it is negative and weak in after results. So far as
it produces motives at all they may be dangerous. It cannot build up
and strengthen character but threatens to undermine it by cultivating
wrong motives. There is no assurance that knowledge thus acquired can
affect the will and bear