tion of Providence, and that
various "charms" are potent to bring good fortune or ward off disaster.
Probably not one in a thousand of those who accept such beliefs could
give, or have ever tried to give, any rational reason for their point of
view.

But we must not be too harsh toward such crude illustrations of
uncritical thinking. It is entirely possible that not all of us who
pride ourselves on our trained powers of thought could give good reasons
discovered by our own thinking why we think our political party, our
church, or our social organization is better than some other one. How
few of us, after all, really _discover_ our creed, _join_ a church, or
_choose_ a political party! We adopt the points of view of our nation or
our group much as we adopt their customs and dress--not because we are
convinced by thinking that they are best, but because they are less
trouble.

ASSIMILATIVE THINKING.--It is this type of thinking that occupies us
when we seek to appropriate new facts or ideas and understand them; that
is, relate them to knowledge already on hand. We think after this
fashion in much of our study in schools and textbooks. The problem for
our thought is not so much one of invention or discovery as of grasp and
assimilation. Our thinking is to apprehend meanings and relations, and
so unify and give coherence to our knowledge.

In the absence of this type of thinking one may commit to memory many
facts that he does not understand, gather much information that contains
little meaning to him, and even achieve very creditable scholastic
grades that stand for a small amount of education or development. For
all information, to become vital and usable, must be thought into
relation to our present active, functioning body of knowledge; therefore
assimilative thinking is fundamental to true mastery and learning.

DELIBERATIVE THINKING.--Deliberative thinking constitutes the highest
type of thought process. In order to do deliberative thinking there is
necessary, first of all, what Dewey calls a "split-road" situation. A
traveler going along a well-beaten highway, says Dr. Dewey, does not
deliberate; he simply keeps on going. But let the highway split into two
roads at a fork, only one of which leads to the desired destination, and
now a problem confronts him; he must take one road or the other, but
_which_? The intelligent traveler will at once go to _seeking for
evidence_ as to which road he should choose. He will