Page:John Dewey's Interest and Effort in Education (1913).djvu/77

 the person, apart from the arithmetic or the geography or the manual activity, that might be attached to the lesson material so as to give it a leverage, or moving force.

One effect was to substitute a discussion of "motives" in the abstract for a consideration of subject-matter in the concrete. The tendency was to make out a list of motives or "interests" by which children in general or children of a given age are supposed to be actuated, and then to consider how these might be linked up with the various lessons so as to impart efficacy to the latter. The important question, however, is what specific subject-matter is so connected with the growth of the child's existing concrete capabilities as to give it a moving force. What is needed is not an inventory of personal motives which we suppose children to have, but a consideration of their powers, their tendencies in action, and the ways in which these can be carried forward by a given subject-matter.

If a child has, for example, an artistic capacity in the direction of music or drawing, it is not necessary to find a motive for its exercise. The