maintain schools and classes for the intellectual improvement of their
employees. To all such the author offers the work with the hope that it
may be useful in directing them toward greater mental efficiency.

In courses in Methods of Study in which the book is used as a
class-text, the instructor should lay emphasis not upon memorization of
the facts in the book, but upon the application of them in study. He
should expect to see parallel with progress through the book,
improvement in the mental ability of the students. Specific problems
may well be arranged on the basis of the subjects of the curriculum,
and students should be urged to utilize the suggestions immediately.
The subjects treated in the book are those which the author has found
in his experience with college students to constitute the most frequent
sources of difficulty, and under these conditions, the sequence of
topics followed in the book has seemed most favorable for presentation.
With other groups of students, however, another sequence of topics may
be found desirable; if so, the order of topics may be changed. For
example, in case the chapter on brain action is found to presuppose
more physiological knowledge than that possessed by the students, it
may be omitted or may be used merely for reference when enlightenment
is desired upon some of the physiological descriptions in later
chapters. Likewise, the chapter dealing with intellectual difficulties
of college students may be omitted with non-collegiate groups.

The heavy obligation of the author to a number of writers will be
apparent to one familiar with the literature of theoretical and
educational psychology. No attempt is made to render specific
acknowledgments, but special mention should be made of the large
draughts made upon the two books by Professor Stiles which treat so
helpfully of the bodily relations of the student. These books contain