Method of study will then become a large subject for regular
instruction. Even in the kindergarten and the first years of school it
will receive some attention, for that is the time when children begin
to acquire good mental habits or to fall into pernicious ones. Without
making so young pupils fully conscious that they are learning to
study, the teacher will lead them to move their eyes rapidly over the
printed page, so as to read simple stories quickly in silence, and
with good expression orally. This is already done by good teachers.
She will accustom them to responsibility for discovering the bearings
of observations in nature-study, of stories, work in color, etc., on
their home lives, and thus pave the way for collecting knowledge under
guidance of definite aims. She will cultivate in them the power to
fill out the author's picture, until situations are more vividly seen
and felt than now. She will require them to think and talk more
sharply by points, and to use judgment in neglecting really
unimportant details, training their consciences to allow such neglect,
if such training is needed. She will encourage them to pass judgment
on the merits of facts that they learn, while influencing them not to
feel too sure. She will see that they do whatever thinking is to be
done on poems and other matter that is to be memorized before the
memorizing itself is undertaken, so that the important habit of
memorizing through thought, rather than without it, shall begin to be
firmly fixed. She will lead them to understand that they are not
through with the study of topics until the ideas have been used in
some way, perhaps many times. And, particularly, she will put forth
effort to keep them natural in whatever they do and say, reasonably
contented with their abilities, and self-reliant. While most of such
instruction will be incidental, a portion of many a recitation will be
directly occupied in this way.