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adapted to his purpose, and the plan flashed into his mind, how must his
eye have brightened, and how quick must the weary listlessness of his
employment have vanished. While he was maturing his plan and carrying it
into execution--while adjusting his wires, fitting them to the exact
length and to the exact position--and especially when, at last, he began
to watch the first successful operation of his contrivance, he must have
enjoyed a pleasure which very few even of the joyous sports of childhood
could have supplied.

It is not, however, exactly the pleasure of exercising _ingenuity in
contrivance_ that I refer to here; for the teacher has not, after all, a
great deal of absolute _contriving_ to do, or, rather, his _principal
business_ is not contriving. The greatest and most permanent source of
pleasure to the boy, in such a case as I have described, is his feeling
that he is accomplishing a great effect by a slight effort of his own;
the feeling of _power_; acting through the _intervention of
instrumentality_, so as to multiply his power. So great would be this
satisfaction, that he would almost wish to have some other similar work
assigned him, that he might have another opportunity to contrive some
plan for its easy accomplishment.

Looking at an object to be accomplished, or an evil to be remedied, then
studying its nature and extent, and devising and executing some means


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