he will be much more apt to avoid such mistakes than would otherwise be true.  If he knows how unsafe it is to form a judgment on limited data,—­if from his own and his classmates’ thinking first, and later from the history of science, illustrations are drawn of the disastrous effect of such thinking, he will see the value of seeking sources of information and several points of view before forming his own judgment.  In his study the child should be taught not to be satisfied until he has tested the correctness of his judgment by verifying the result.  This is a very necessary part of studying.  He should check up his own thinking by finding out through appeal to facts if it is so; by putting the judgment into execution; by consulting the opinion of others, and so on.

Study may be considered from the point of view of the type of material which is used in the process.  The student may be engaged on a problem which involves the use of apparatus or specimens of various kinds, or he may need to consult people, or he may have to use books.  So far as the first type is concerned, it is obviously unwise to have a student at work on a problem which involves the use of material, unless the technique of method of use is well known.  Until he can handle the material with some degree of facility it is waste of time for him to be struggling with problems which necessitate such use.  Such practice results in divided attention, poor results from the study, and often bad habits in technique as well.  Gaining the technique must be in itself a problem for separate study.

Children should be taught to ask questions which bear directly on the point they wish to know.  If they in working out some problem are dependent on getting some information from the janitor, or the postman, or a mason, they must be able to ask questions which will bring them what they want to know.  Much practice in framing questions, having them criticized, having them answered just as they are asked, is necessary.  Children should be aware of the question as a tool in their study and therefore they must know how to handle it.  In connection with this second type of material, the problem of the best source of information will arise.  Children must then be made conscious of the relative values of various persons as sources of a particular piece of information.  Training in choice of the source of information is very important both when that source is people and also when it is books.

Teaching children to use books in their study is one of the big tasks of the teacher.  They must learn that books are written in answer to questions.  In order to thoroughly understand a book, students must seek to frame the questions which it answers.  They must also know how to use books to answer their own questions.  This means they must know how to turn from part to part, gleaning here or there what they need.  It means training in the ability to skim, omitting unessentials and picking out essentials.