By the time the fifth year of school has been reached the principal
facts concerning each of the prominent factors of study can be talked
about freely, as so much definitely understood knowledge, and the
children can be expected to apply them in their various studies. Many
a whole recitation can be spent in supplementing authors' statements,
in determining principal thoughts, and in doing many other things
suggested in the preceding pages, the teacher directly emphasizing
such things as essential parts of proper study, and requiring them in
the preparation of lessons. Many a whole recitation, also, may be
occupied in discussing how lessons have been prepared, the teacher not
seldom presenting her own way in detail and allowing her pupils to
compare theirs with it. Abstract theory about method of study will
thus be avoided.

Perhaps, most of all, the teacher will fix upon the second stage of
study (p. 204) as the crucial point in method, in which the children
select what seems of real value to them and let the rest go. Of course
they will often err, and then it will devolve upon the teacher to show
the value of what they have rejected. If she cannot do that, either
her mind or the curriculum will need to be improved. While this seems
a grave responsibility to place upon pupils of the elementary school,
It must be remembered that they should know how to study by the time
they complete that course; and they cannot possibly learn how, without
dealing boldly with values,--the values of facts in comparison with
one another, or relative values, and their values to the self, or
general values. We have long wanted young people to know how to study,
without allowing them choice among ideas, that is, without placing
them in the conditions that would permit it. The fact that during the
later years of the elementary school children must choose almost daily
outside of school between good and bad literature as presented in