“I can’t get interested in History.” This illustrates a kind of complaint frequently made by students. In this article we are discussing how interest may be developed in an “uninteresting” subject.

A growing feeling of pleasure is the sign which notifies us that we are growing interested in a subject. Some persons notice that they take interest easily in certain things and they take interest in them so spontaneously and effortlessly that they think these interests must be born within them.

Actually, we acquire most of our interests in the course of our experience. Since interests are largely products of experience, then, it follows that if we wish to have an interest in a given subject, we must consciously and purposefully develop it. Following steps should be taken to develop interest in a particular subject:

1. In order to develop interest in a subject, secure information about it.
Let us take one example that is quite common the interest which a typical young girl takes in a movie star. Her interest in him comes largely from what she has been able to learn about him; the names of the productions in which he has appeared, his age, the color of his automobile, his favorite novel. Her interest may be said actually to consist, at least in part, of these facts. The more information you collect about the subject, the more interest you develop around the subject.

2. In order to develop interest in a subject, exert activity towards it
In trying to become interested in a particular, keep actively engaged in it. Read book after book dealing with the subject. Apply it to your studies in other subjects. Try to help some other student in the class. Take part in class discussions and talk informally with the instructor outside of the classroom. Use your ingenuity to devise methods of keeping active toward the subject. Presently you will discover that the subject no longer appears cold and forbidding; but that it glows warm with virility; that it has become interesting.

Student may develop interest in any subject if he but employs the proper psychological methods. That he must obey the two-fold law–secure information about the subject (stating the new in terms of the old) and exert activity toward it. That when he has thus lighted the flame of interest, he will find his entire intellectual life illuminated, glowing with purpose, resplendent with success.