discourage the idea that psychology can be a panacea for all of a
teacher's ills. The larger portion of the twelve pages is devoted to
this object, although the explicit statement is made, on the third
page, that "psychology ought certainly to give the teacher radical
help." But so little space is given to this declaration that, in spite
of its definiteness and positive character, the class as a whole
reached the conclusion that he was advising teachers not to study
psychology at all. In other words, they had failed to balance up one
part of the chapter against the other; and their failure left them in
the ridiculous position of assuming that an author of a book for
teachers was dissuading teachers from reading his book.

A third and perhaps the most common source of error is found in the
particular wording given to the central thought. In order to be
perfectly definite and accurate any thought should be expressed in the
form of a full statement. It ordinarily takes at least a whole
sentence to express a whole thought. But it is very common for
students even, who have formed the habit of thinking by points, to
allow brief headings, consisting of single words or short phrases, to
represent entire thoughts. Although such headings, on account of their
brevity, may be useful, they are merely names for the thought, not
statements of the thought itself; and it means the loosest kind of
thinking to stop with them. A mere title, as a lecture "About Russia,"
for instance, designates only the outside limits to which a person
confines himself--provided he sticks to his theme. It often tells no
more about the substance of the thought within those limits than a
man's name tells about his character. It is usually easy to tell "what
a page is about"; but it usually requires keen thinking to word its
principal idea sharply in a full sentence. Many students are
inaccurate in the interpretation of authors and in their own thinking,