It was designed to discipline in general, and if it failed, it
was because the individual was unwilling to be disciplined.
In the other direction, the tendency was towards a negative
conception of discipline, instead of an identification of it with
growth in constructive power of achievement. As we have already
seen, will means an attitude toward the future, toward the
production of possible consequences, an attitude involving effort
to foresee clearly and comprehensively the probable results of
ways of acting, and an active identification with some
anticipated consequences. Identification of will, or effort,
with mere strain, results when a mind is set up, endowed with
powers that are only to be applied to existing material. A
person just either will or will not apply himself to the matter
in hand. The more indifferent the subject matter, the less
concern it has for the habits and preferences of the individual,
the more demand there is for an effort to bring the mind to bear
upon it--and hence the more discipline of will. To attend to
material because there is something to be done in which the
person is concerned is not disciplinary in this view; not even if
it results in a desirable increase of constructive power.
Application just for the sake of application, for the sake of
training, is alone disciplinary. This is more likely to occur if
the subject matter presented is uncongenial, for then there is no
motive (so it is supposed) except the acknowledgment of duty or
the value of discipline.
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