Given such an interest, the pupil will not sit inert
through the period unless stimulated by a question from the teacher, but
will ask intelligent and pertinent questions to help the enterprise
along. Moreover, each pupil, because of his proprietary interest in the
enterprise, will feel constrained to bring to class such subsidiary aids
as his home affords. His interest causes him to react to clippings,
pictures, magazine articles, books, and conversations that have a
bearing upon the topic, and these he contributes opportunely in his zeal
for the success of the recitation. His pockets become productive of a
varied assortment of materials that the tentacles of his interest have
seized upon in his preparation for the event, and so all members of the
class become beneficiaries of his explorations and discoveries.
=The potency of ownership.=--A child is interested in his own things.
The little girl fondles her doll in the most tender way, even though it
does not measure up to the accepted standards of excellence or elegance.
But it is her doll; hence her affection. Volumes have been written upon
the general subject of interest, and we have been admonished to attach
our teaching to the native interests of the child, but the fundamental
interest of proprietorship has strangely enough been overlooked. If we
want to discover and localize the child's interest, we have but to make
an inventory of his possessions.
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