The best fruitage of such a course
will follow in the years that succeed school life. Interest is a very
practical thing. It is that which gives force and momentum to ideas.
It is not knowledge itself, but, like the invisible principle of life,
it converts dead matter into living energy. In our schools thus far we
have had too much faith in the mechanics of education. Too much virtue
has been imputed to facts, to knowledge, to sharp tools. We have now
to learn that _incentive_ is a more important thing in education; that
is, a direct, permanent, many-sided interest.
CHAPTER IV.
CONCENTRATION.
By concentration is meant such a connection between the parts of each
study and such a spinning of relations and connecting links between
different sciences that unity may spring out of the variety of
knowledge. History, for example, is a series and collocation of facts
explainable on the basis of cause and effect, a development. On the
other hand, history is intimately related to geography, language,
natural science, literature, and mathematics. It would be impossible
to draw real history out by the roots without drawing all other studies
out bodily with it.
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