But their beatific visions would dissolve upon hearing the superintendent name certain teachers to act as a committee to determine and report upon the studies that would best serve the purpose of generating reverence, and another committee to select the studies that would most effectively stimulate and develop self-control, and so on through the list.  It is here that we find the crux of the whole matter.  Here the program collides with tradition and with stereotyped habits of thinking.  Many superintendents and teachers will contend that such a problem is impossible of solution because no one has ever essayed such a task.  No one, they argue, has ever determined what subjects will effectually generate the specific qualities self-control or reverence, no one has ever discovered what school studies will function in given spiritual qualities.  According to their course of reasoning nothing is possible that has not already been done.  However, there are some progressive, dynamic superintendents and teachers who will welcome the opportunity to test their resourcefulness in seeking the solution of a problem that is both new and big.  To these dynamic ones we must look for results and when this solution is evolved, the work of reconstruction will move on apace.

Reverting, for the moment, to the subject of thoroughness:  it must be clear that this quality is worthy a place in the course of study because it is worthy the best efforts of the pupil.  Furthermore, it is worthy the best efforts of the pupil because it is an important element of civilization.  These statements all need reiteration and emphasis to the end that they may become thoroughly enmeshed in the social consciousness.  If we can cause people to think toward thoroughness rather than toward arithmetic or other school studies, we shall win the feeling that we are making progress.  Thoroughness must be distinguished, of course, from a smattering knowledge of details that have no value.  In the right sense thoroughness must be interpreted as the habit of mastery.  We may well indulge the hope that the time will come when parents will invoke the aid of the schools to assist their children in acquiring this habit of mastery.  When that time comes the schools will be working toward larger and higher objectives and education will have become a spiritual process in reality.

It will be readily conceded that the habit of mastery is a desirable quality in every vocation and in every avocation.  It is a very real asset on the farm, in the factory, in legislative halls, in the offices of lawyer and physician, in the study, in the shop, and in the home.  When mastery becomes habitual with people in all these activities society will thrill with the pulsations of new life and civilization will rise to a higher level.  But how may the child acquire this habit of mastery?  On what meat shall this our pupil feed that he may become master of himself, master of all his powers, and master of every situation