Discipline means power at command;
mastery of the resources available for carrying through the
action undertaken. To know what one is to do and to move to do
it promptly and by use of the requisite means is to be
disciplined, whether we are thinking of an army or a mind.
Discipline is positive. To cow the spirit, to subdue
inclination, to compel obedience, to mortify the flesh, to make a
subordinate perform an uncongenial task -- these things are or
are not disciplinary according as they do or do not tend to the
development of power to recognize what one is about and to
persistence in accomplishment.
It is hardly necessary to press the point that interest and
discipline are connected, not opposed.
(i) Even the more purely intellectual phase of trained power --
apprehension of what one is doing as exhibited in consequences --
is not possible without interest. Deliberation will be
perfunctory and superficial where there is no interest. Parents
and teachers often complain -- and correctly -- that children "do
not want to hear, or want to understand." Their minds are not
upon the subject precisely because it does not touch them; it
does not enter into their concerns. This is a state of things
that needs to be remedied, but the remedy is not in the use of
methods which increase indifference and aversion. Even punishing
a child for inattention is one way of trying to make him realize
that the matter is not a thing of complete unconcern; it is one
way of arousing "interest," or bringing about a sense of
connection.
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