The above constitute the principal factors in study. But two other problems are of vital importance for the elementary school.
Studying is evidently a complex and taxing kind of work. Even though the above discussions reveal the main factors in the study of adults, what light does it throw upon the work of children? Is their study to contain these factors also? The first of these two questions, therefore, is, Can children from six to fourteen years of age really be expected to study?
It is not the custom in German elementary schools to include independent study periods in the daily program. More than that, the German language does not even permit children to be spoken of as studying. Children are recognized as being able to learn (lernen); but the foreigner, who, in learning German, happens to use the word studiren (study) in reference to them, is corrected with a smile and informed that "children can learn but they cannot study." Studiren is a term applicable only to a more mature kind of mental work.
This may be only a peculiarity of language. But such suggestions should at least lead us to consider this question seriously. If children really cannot study, what an excuse their teachers have for innumerable failures in this direction! And what sins they have committed in demanding study! But, then, when is the proper age for study reached? Certainly college students sometimes seem to have failed to attain it. If, however, children can study, to what extent can they do it, and at how early an age should they begin to try?
The method of teaching children how to study
The second of these two questions relates to the method of teaching children how to study. Granted that there are numerous very important factors in study, what should be done about them? Particularly, assuming that children have some power to study, what definite instruction can teachers give to them in regard to any one or all of these factors?
Can it be that, on account of their youth, no direct instruction about method of study would be advisable, that teachers should set a good example of study by their treatment of lessons in class, and rely only upon the imitative tendency of children for some effect on their habits of work? Or should extensive instruction be imparted to them, as well as to adults, on this subject?
The leading problems in study that have been mentioned will be successively discussed in the chapters following. These two questions, however, Can children study? and If so, how can they be taught to do it? will not be treated in chapters separate from the others. Each will be dealt with in connection with the above factors, their consideration immediately following the discussion of each of those factors. While the proper method of study for adults will lead, much emphasis will fall, throughout, upon suggestions for teaching children how to study.
Some limitations of the term study
The nature of study cannot be known in full until the character of its component parts has been clearly shown. Yet a working definition of the term and some further limitations of it may be in place here.