, with people, or
with materials. The term has been rather arbitrarily applied to
activities that dealt with books, but surely much study is accomplished
when people are consulted instead of books, and also when the sources of
information or the standards are flowers, or rocks, or textiles.

Study, then, is a big term, including many different varieties of
activities, of varying degrees of difficulty and responsibility. It
cannot possibly be taught all at once, according to one method, at one
spot in the school curriculum. Power to study is of very gradual growth.
It must proceed slowly, from simple to complex types. From easy to
difficult problems, from situations where there is close supervision and
direction to situations where the student assumes full responsibility.
Knowing how to study is not an inborn gift--it does not come as a matter
of intuition, nor does it come in some mysterious way when the child is
of high school age. It is governed by the laws of learning, or
readiness, exercise, and effect, just as truly as any other ability is.
If adults are to know how to study, if they are to use the technique of
the various kinds of study efficiently, children must be taught how. Nor
can we expect the upper grammar grade or the high school teachers to do
this. Habits of study must be formed just as soon as the responses to
which it leads are needed. Beginning down in the kindergarten with study
in connection with physical and mental habits, the child should be
taught how to study. The type must gradually become more complex; he
must pass from group to individual study, from supervised to
unsupervised, but it must all come logically, from step to step. True,
it is not easy to teach how to study. A careful analysis of the various
types with their peculiar elements should be a help. First, however,
there are some general principles that underlie all study which must be
discussed.

Study must have, as has already been stated, a purpose. The individual,
in order to exercise his mind in a controlled way, must have an aim. The
clearer and more definite the aim, whether it be little or big, the
better the study will be. From the beginning, then, children must be
taught to make sure they know what they are going to do before beginning
to study. It may be necessary to teach them in the early grades to say
to themselves or to the class just what they are going to accomplish in
the study. Teach them when the lesson is assigned