that is sure to be exercised, however, only in case the other factors
just mentioned are also present.

Power of initiative is the key to proper study. If different lessons
were mastered in exactly the same manner, it might not be important.
But that is not the case, for every new lesson brings a new situation.
Experienced teachers know that one year of instruction in a certain
study does not free them from the necessity of extensive preparation,
if required to teach the same subject a second year. The discovery of
this fact is one of the serious disappointments of young teachers. The
same holds in study. Every new lesson, every new book, must be
mastered in a way peculiar to itself; each affords a new test of
resourcefulness. Thus the exercise of initiative is a constant and
very important factor in all independent study.

_(2) Why power of initiative cannot be acquired through imitation._

Power of initiative might still prove no source of difficulty, if it
were something that could be acquired mainly by imitation. But there
is the rub the case of the geography class mentioned on page 258 shows
conclusively that the natural tendency of young people to imitate the
example of initiative set by their teachers gives very little
guarantee of the exercise of similar initiative on their part when
studying alone.

And there are plain reasons for this. In the first place, there is the
widest difference between seeing and doing, between theory and
practice in general, so that one may observe an action and still fail
utterly to duplicate it. That is very common. But, in addition, the
power of initiative, being really the "ability to originate or start,"