John Dewey - Ultimate Collection: 40+ Works on Psychology, Education, Philosophy & Politics. Джон Дьюи

child realizes its place and bearings in helping him give better and fuller utterance to his love of song. Whether it appeals or fails to appeal is a question of relationship. While the little child takes only a near view of things, as he grows in experience he becomes capable of extending his range, and seeing an act, or a thing, or a fact not by itself, but as part of a larger whole. If this whole belongs to him, if it is a mode of his own movement, then the thing or act which it includes gains interest too.

      Here, and here only, have we the reality of the idea of "making things interesting." I know of no more demoralizing doctrine—when taken literally—than the assertion of some of the opponents of interest that after subject-matter has been selected, then the teacher should make it interesting. This combines in itself two thorough-going errors. On one side, it makes the selection of subject-matter a matter quite independent of the question of interest—that is to say of the child's native urgencies and needs; and, further, it reduces method in instruction to more or less external and artificial devices for dressing up the unrelated materials, so that they will get some hold upon attention. In reality, the principle of "making things interesting" means that subjects be selected in relation to the child's present experience, powers, and needs; and that (in case he does not perceive or appreciate this relevancy) the new material be presented in such a way as to enable the child to appreciate its bearings, its relationships, its value in connection with what already has significance for him. It is this bringing to consciousness of the bearings of the new material which constitutes the reality, so often perverted both by friend and foe, in "making things interesting."

In other words, the problem is one of intrinsic connection as a motive for attention. The teacher who tells the child he will be kept after school if he doesn't recite his geography lesson better² is appealing to the psychology of mediate interest. The old English method of rapping knuckles for false Latin quantities is one way of arousing interest in the intricacies of Latin. To offer a child a bribe, or a promise of teacher's affection, or promotion to the next grade, or ability to make money, or to take a position in society, are other modes. They are cases of transferred interest. But the criterion for judging them lies just here: How far is one interest externally attached to another, or substituted for another? How far does the new appeal, the new motive, serve to interpret, to bring out, to relate the material otherwise without interest? It is a question, again, of inter-esse. The problem may be stated as one of the relations of means and end. Anything indifferent or repellent becomes of interest when seen as a means to an end already commanding attention; or seen as an end that will allow means already under control to secure further movement and outlet. But, in normal growth the interest in means is not externally tied on to the interest in an end; it suffuses, saturates, and thus transforms it. It interprets or revalues it—gives it a new significance. The man who has a wife and family has thereby a new motive for his daily work—he sees a new meaning in it, and takes into it a steadiness and enthusiasm previously lacking. But when he does his day's work as a thing intrinsically disagreeable, as drudgery, simply for the sake of the final wage-reward, the case is quite different. Means and end remain remote; they do not permeate one another. The person is no more really interested in his work than he was before; in itself, it is a hardship to be escaped from. Hence he cannot give full attention to it; he cannot put himself unreservedly into it. But to the other man every stroke of work may literally mean his wife and baby. Externally, physically, they are remote; mentally, with respect to his plan of living, they are one; they have the same value. In drudgery on the contrary means and end remain as separate in consciousness as they are in space and time. What is true of this is true of every attempt in teaching to "create interest" by appeal to external motives.

      At the opposite scale, take a case of artistic construction. The sculptor has his end, his ideal, in view. To realize that end he must go through a series of intervening steps which are not, on their face, equivalent to the end. He must model and mold and chisel; perform a series of particular acts, no one of which exhibits or is the beautiful form he has in mind, and every one of which represents the putting forth of personal energy. But because these are necessary means in the achieving of his activity, the meaning of the finished form is transferred over into these special acts. Each molding of the clay, each stroke of the chisel, is for him at the time the whole end in process of realization. Whatever interest or value attaches to the end attaches to each of these steps. He is as much absorbed in one as in the other. Any failure in this complete identification means an inartistic product, means that he is not really interested in his ideal. Upon the other hand, his interest is in the end regarded as an end of the particular processes which are its means. Interest attaches to it because of its place in the active process of what it is but the culmination. He may also regret the approach of the day that will put an end to such an interesting piece of work. At all events, it is not the mere external product that holds him.

      We have spoken freely of means and ends because these terms are in common use. We must, however, analyze them somewhat to make sure they are not misunderstood. The terms "means" and "end" apply primarily to the position occupied by acts as stages of a single developing activity, and only secondarily to things or objects. The end really means the final stage of an activity, its last or terminal period; the means are the earlier phases, those gone through before the activity reaches its termination. This is plainly seen in, say, the leisurely eating of a meal, as distinct from rushing through it to have it over as soon as possible; in the playing of the game of ball, in listening to a musical theme. In each case there is a definite outcome; after the meal is eaten, there is a certain amount of food in the system; when the nine innings of the game of baseball are ended, one side or the other has won. Henceforth—afterwards—it is possible to separate the external result from the process, from the continuous activity which led up to it. Afterwards we tend to separate the result from the process; to regard the result of the process as the end and the whole process as simply a means to the external result. But in civilized society, eating is not merely a means to getting so much food-power into the system; it is a social process, a time of family and friendly reunion; moreover, each course of the meal has its own enjoyment just as a matter of partaking of food, that is, of an active continuing process. Division into means and end hardly has any meaning. Each stage of the entire process has its own adequate significance or interest; the earlier quite as much as the latter. Even here, however, there is a tendency to keep the best till the last—the dessert comes at the end. That is, there is a tendency to make the last stage fulfilling or consummating stage.

      In the hearing of the musical theme, the earlier stages are far from being mere means to the later; they give the mind a certain set and dispose it to anticipate later developments. So the end, the conclusion, is not a mere last thing in time; it completes what has gone before; it settles, so to speak, the character of the theme as a whole. In the ball game, the interest may intensify with every passing stage of the game; the last inning finally settles who wins and who loses, a matter which up to that time has been in suspense or doubt. In the game, the last stage is not only the last in time, but also settles the character of the entire game, and so gives meaning to all that has preceded. Nevertheless the earlier parts of the game are true parts of the game; they are not mere means for reaching a last inning.

      In these illustrations we have seen how the last stage may be the fulfilling, the completing, or consummating of all that has gone before, and may thus decide the nature of the activity as a whole. In no case, however, is the end equivalent simply to an external result. The mere fact that one side won—the external result or object—is of no significance apart from the game whose conclusion it marks. Just so, we may say that the value of x in an algebraic equation is 5. But to say in general that x equals 5 is nonsense. This result is significant only as the outcome of a particular process of solving a particular equation. If, however, the mathematical inquiry is carried on to deal with other connected equations, it is possible to separate the result, 5, from what led up to it, and in further calculating to use 5 independently of the equation whose solution it was. This fact introduces a further complication.

      Many, most, of our activities, are interconnected. We not only have the process of eating the meal, but we have the further use of the food eaten—its assimilation and transformation into energy for new operations. The musical theme heard may represent a step in a more continuous process of