=B. On Habitual Action.=--Further new habits may be established and old ones improved under the direction of conscious reaction. When a child first learns to represent the number four by the symbol, the problem is necessarily met at first through a conscious adjustment. In other words, the child must mentally associate into a single new experience the number idea and certain ideas of form and of muscular movement. Although, however, the child is conscious of all of these factors when he first attempts to give expression to this experience, it is clear that very soon the expressive act of writing the number is carried on without any conscious direction of the process. 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.