Page:John Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education (1913).djvu/72

 there is at least enough novelty to keep his fancies going. Strange as it may seem to say it, one of the chief objections both to mechanical drill work and to the assigning of subject-matter too difficult for pupils is that the only activity to which they actually incite the pupils is in lines too easy for them. Only the powers already formed, the habits already fixed, are called into play; the mind—the power of thinking—is not called into action. Hence apathy in children naturally sluggish, or mind-wandering in children of a more imaginative nature. What happens when work too difficult, work beyond the limits of capacity, is insisted upon? If the teacher is professionally skilled, a pupil will not be able entirely to shirk or to escape. He must keep up the form of attentive study, and produce a result as evidence of having been occupied. Naturally he seeks short cuts; he does what he can do without recourse to processes of thinking that are beyond him. Any external and routine device is employed to "get the answer"—possibly surreptitious aid from others or downright cheating. Any way, he does what