In other words, the
child soon acquires the habit of performing the act spontaneously, or
without direction from the mind. Inversely, any habitual mode of
action, in whatever way established, may, if we possess the necessary
experience, be represented in idea and be accepted or corrected
accordingly. A person, for instance, who has acquired the necessary
knowledge of the laws of hygiene, may represent ideally both his own and
the proper manner of standing, sitting, reclining, etc., and seek to
modify his present habits accordingly. The whole question of the
relation of conscious to habitual reaction will, however, be considered
in Chapter XXII.

CHAPTER III

THE PROCESS OF EDUCATION

CONSCIOUS ADJUSTMENT

From the example of conscious adjustment previously considered, it would
appear that the full process of such an adjustment presents the
following characteristics:

1. _The Problem._--The individual conceives the existence within his
environment of a difficulty which demands adjustment, or which serves as
a problem calling for solution.

2. _A Selecting Process._--With this problem as a motive, there takes
place within the experience of the individual a selecting of ideas felt
to be of value for solving the problem which calls for adjustment.

3. _A Relating Process._--These relevant ideas are associated in
consciousness and form a new experience believed to overcome the
difficulty involved in the problem. This new experience is accepted,
therefore, mentally, as a satisfactory plan for meeting the situation,
or, in other words, it adjusts the individual to the problem in hand.

4. _Expression._--This new experience is expressed in such form as is
requisite to answer fully the need felt in the original problem.

EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT

=Example from Writing.=--An examination of any ordinary educative
process taken from school-room experience will show that it involves in
some degree the factors mentioned above.

As a very simple example, may be taken the case of a young child
learning to form capital letters with short sticks. Assuming that he has
already copied letters involving straight lines, such as A, H, etc., the
child, on meeting such a letter as C or D, finds himself face to face
with a new problem. At first he may perhaps attempt to form the curves
by bending the short thin sticks. Hereupon, either through his own
failure or through some suggestion of his teacher, he comes to see a
sho