It has been pointed out[3] what the content of the word _virtue_ must be, if this word is to be an adequate expression for the ultimate purpose of instruction. Virtue must embrace not only what is purely individual, or subjective, such as piety and humaneness of disposition, but it must likewise include what is objective, or social, in conduct. This fact lends a new significance to the doctrine of interest, for though a normal child is not naturally interested in introspective analysis of his feelings, he is spontaneously interested in what is objective and within the range of his experience. The enterprises of his mates, the regulations of his school or home, the erection of houses, the introduction of new machinery, the social doings of the neighborhood, the havoc created by the elements, the prominent features of the changing year--all these claim his closest attention. The common school studies deal with these very things. Literature (reading) and history reveal to him the conduct of men; the one considering it ideally, the other historically. Mathematics teaches the mastery of material when considered quantitatively, whether in trade or manufacture or construction. Nature studies bring the child into intimate touch with the significant in his natural environment. Geography shows him the most obvious features of the industrial activity about him. It shows him the chief conditions of production in crops and manufactures; it also gives him hints of the great business of commerce. In all these studies, the natural inclinations of the mind are directly appealed to. Not a little of the importance of the doctrine of interest in instruction depends upon these facts; for both the insight and the disposition that instruction is capable of imparting to the pupil relates specifically to the objective side of his character, the one most in need of development and most susceptible of it. [3] Paragraphs 8–15. 63. We may speak also of indirect as distinguished from direct interest. But a predominance of indirect interest tends to one-sidedness, if not to selfishness. The interest of the selfish man in anything extends only so far as he can see advantages or disadvantages to himself. In this respect the one-sided man approximates the selfish man, although the fact may escape his own observation; since he relates everything to the narrow sphere for which he lives and thinks. Here lies his intellectual power, and whatever does not interest him as means to his limited ends, becomes an impediment.