Page:John Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education (1913).djvu/67

 realize more clearly than ever he did before how much it means to him; and accordingly may brace him, invigorate him in his effort to achieve the end. Within certain limits, resistance only arouses energy; it acts as a stimulus. Only a spoiled child or pampered adult is dismayed or discouraged and turned aside, instead of being aroused, by lions in the path—unless the lions are very fierce and threatening. It is not too much to say that a normal person demands a certain amount of difficulty to surmount in order that he may have a full and vivid sense of what he is about, and hence have a lively interest in what he is doing.

Meeting obstacles makes a person project more definitely to himself the later and consummating period of his activity; it brings the end of his course of action to consciousness. He now thinks of what he is doing, instead of doing it blindly from instinct or habit. The result becomes a conscious aim, a guiding and inspiring purpose. In being an object of desire, it is also an object of endeavor.

This arousing and guiding function is