Interest depends on comprehension.—­First of all we must remember that interest never attaches to what the mind does not grasp.  Go yourself and listen to the technical lecture you do not understand, or try to read the book that deals with matters concerning which you have no information; then apply the results of your experience to the case of the child.  The matter we teach the child must have sufficient connection with his own experience, be sufficiently close to the things he knows and cares about, so that he has a basis on which to comprehend them.  The new must be related to something old and familiar in the mind to meet a warm welcome.

If we would secure the child’s interest, we must make certain of a “point of contact” in his own life and meet him on the plane of his own experience.  God smiling in the sunshine, making the flowers grow or whispering in the breeze is closer to the child than God as “Creator.”  God protecting and watching over the child timid and afraid in the dark is more real than God in his heaven as “protector.”  We must remember that not what we feel is of value, but what the child feels is of value is what will appeal to his interest and attention.  And no exertion or agonizing on our part will create interest in the child in matters for which his own understanding and experience have not fitted him.  For example, probably no child is ever interested in learning the church catechism or Bible verses which we prize so highly, but which he can not understand nor apply; he may be interested in a prize to be had at the end of the learning, but in this case the interest is in the reward and not in the matter learned. Empty words devoid of meaning never fire interest nor kindle enthusiasm.

Interest attaches to action.—­Children are interested more in action, deeds, and events than in motives, reasons, and explanations.  They care more for the uses to which objects are to be put than for the objects themselves.

No boy is interested in a bicycle chiefly as an example of mechanical skill, but, rather, as a means of locomotion.  No girl is interested in dolls just as dolls, nor as a product of the toy maker’s skill, but to play with.  It is this quality that makes children respond to the story, for the story deals with action instead of with explanation and description.  In the story there is life and movement, and not reasoning and mere assertion.  The story presents the lesson in terms of deeds and events, instead of by means of abstract statement and formal conclusion.

This principle carries over to the child’s own participation.  Everyone is most interested in that in which he has an active part.  The meeting in which we presided or made a speech or presented a report is to us a more interesting meeting than one in which we were a silent auditor.  To the child, personal response is even more necessary.  No small part of the reason why the child “learns