Just what bonds are needed in order that a child may learn to add, or to spell, to appreciate music, or to be industrious, is a question that only experiment and investigation can answer.  At present but little is known as to just what happens, just what connections are formed, when from the original tendency towards vocalization the child just learns to say the word “milk,” later reads it, and still later writes it.  One thing is certain, the process is not a unitary one, nor is it a simple one.  Just so long as habit is discussed in general terms, without any recognition of the complexity of the process or to the specific bonds involved, just so long will the process of habit formation be wasteful and inefficient.

As a sample of the kind of work being done in connection with special habits, investigation seems to give evidence that in the habit of simple column addition eight or nine distinct functions are involved, each of which involves the use of several bonds.  Besides these positive connections, a child in learning must inhibit other connections which are incorrect, and these must often outnumber the correct ones.  And yet column addition has always been treated as a simple habit—­with perhaps one element of complexity, when carrying was involved.  It is evident that, if the habit concerned does involve eight or nine different functions, a child might go astray in any one.  His difficulty in forming the habit might be in connection with one or several of the processes involved.  Knowledge on the part of the teacher of these different steps in the habit, and appreciation by him of the possibilities of making errors, are the prerequisites of efficient teaching of habits.

In each one of the subjects there is much need of definite experimental work, in order that the specific bonds necessary in forming the habits peculiar to the subject be determined.  The psychology of arithmetic, or of physics, or of spelling should involve such information.  Meanwhile every teacher can do much if she will carefully stop and think just what she is requiring in the given response.  An analysis of the particular situation and response will make clear at least some of the largest elements involved, some of the most important connections to be made.  It is the specific nature of the connections to be made and the number of those connections that need emphasis in the teaching of habits.  Not only must the specific nature of the bonds involved in individual habits be stressed, but also the specific nature of the entire complex which is called the habit.  There is no such thing as a general curve of learning that will apply equally well, no matter what the habit.  The kind of curve, the rate of improvement, the possibilities of plateaus, the permanence of the improvement, all these facts and others vary with the particular habit.