on--anything, no matter how abstract, that arouses their
curiosity or appeals to their love of mastery offers enough of a
problem. Sometimes children are vitally interested in working
geometrical problems, translating difficult passages in Latin, striving
to invent the perpetual motion machine, even though there is no evident
and useful result. It is not the particular type of situation that is
the thing to be considered, but the attitude that it arouses in the
individual concerned. Educators in discussion of the situations that
make for thinking must allow for individual differences and must plan
for the intellectually minded as well as for others.

The thinker confronted by a situation for which his present knowledge is
not adequate, recognizes the difficulty and suspends judgment; in other
words, does not jump at a conclusion but undertakes to think it out. To
do this control is continually necessary. He must keep his problem
continually before him and work directly for its solution, avoiding
delays, avoiding being side-tracked. This means, of course, the critical
attitude towards all suggestions offered. Each one as it comes must be
inspected in the light of the end to be reached--if it does not seem to
help towards that goal, it must be rejected. Criticism, selection, and
rejection of suggestions offered must continue as long as the thinking
process goes on. "To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on
systematic and protracted inquiry--these are the essentials of
thinking."

In order to maintain this critical attitude to select and reject
suggestions with reference to a goal, the suggestions as they come
cannot be accepted as units and followed. Such a procedure is possible
only when the mental process is not controlled by an end. Control by a
goal necessitates analysis of the suggestions and abstraction of what in
them is essential for the particular problem in hand. It is because no
complete association at hand offers a satisfactory response to the
situation that the need for thinking arises. Each association as it
comes must be broken up, certain parts or elements emerge, certain
relationships, implications, or functions are made conscious. Each of
these is examined in turn; as they seem to be valueless for the purpose
of the thinker, they are rejected. If one element or relationship seems
significant for the problem, it is seized upon, abstracted from its
fellows, and becomes the center of the next series