that call forth thought are infinite in number and kind. But the
essential fact is that study does not normally take place except under
the stimulus or spur of particular conditions, and of conditions, too,
that are unsatisfactory.

It does not take place even then unless we become conscious of the
strained situation, of the want of harmony between what is and what
might be. For ages malarial fever was accepted as a visitation by
Divine Providence, or as a natural inconvenience, like bad weather.
People were not disturbed by lack of harmony between what actually was
and what might be, because they did not conceive the possibility of
preventing the disease. Accordingly they took it as a matter of
course, and made no study of its cause. Very recently, on the other
hand, people have become conscious of the possibility of exterminating
malaria. The imagined state has made the real one more and more
intolerable; and, as this feeling of dissatisfaction has grown more
acute, study of the cause of the disease has grown more intense, until
it has finally been discovered. Thus a lively consciousness of the
unsatisfactoriness of a situation is the necessary prerequisite to its
investigation; it furnishes the motive for it.

It has ever been so in the history of evolution. Study has not taken
place without stimulus or motive. It has always had the practical task
of lifting us out of our difficulties, either material or spiritual,
and placing us on our feet. In this way it has been merely an
instrument--though a most important one--in securing our proper
adjustment or adaptation to our environment.[Footnote: For discussion
of this subject, see _Studies in Logical Theory_, by John Dewey.
See, also, _Systematic Study in Elementary Schools_, by Dr. Lida
B. Earhart, Chapters 1 and 2.]