OUTLINE OF A STUDY OF THE SELF 



INTRODUCTION 



THE authors have discovered, through their experience as teachers, that 

 a study of the ancestry, development, and present constitution of the 

 self is an extremely profitable task for most students. They therefore 

 present this outline as an aid to the systematic and thorough study of the several 

 important aspects of the self. 



The purpose of the study is threefold : first, to help you to understand your- 

 self and to become a useful and happy member of society; second, to help you 

 to understand and sympathize with other persons, especially children, and 

 to further their development; third, to arouse your interest in the facts of 

 heredity, of environmental influence, and in the significance of the appHed sciences 

 of eugenics and euthenics. 



Do the work well.^ If you do it hastily it will be worse than valueless. 

 Choose times for the study when you can be undisturbedly reminiscent and 

 reflective. Certain of the questions cannot be answered in detail, or not without 

 an excessive amount of labor; regard them as suggestive and do the best you can 

 to get the information which they demand. Do not answer them categorically. 

 Be wholly honest with yourself. Write freely and fully of what you shrink from 

 or are ashamed of as weU as of the facts which seem to you creditable. The 

 contents of your report will be accepted in confidence by the instructor. 



Be sure to arrange for personal conferences with the instructor and with 

 some of your relatives in order that you may obtain advice and assistance in 

 gathering information. 



The object to be studied is the self. We shall study it (i) as a product or 

 expression of heredity; (2) as a developing, reacting mechanism {a going machine) ; 

 (3) as a conscious and self-conscious wiUing being; and (4) as a member of social 

 groups. 



The general plan of work is indicated in outline below in order that you may 

 view the task as a whole. 



^ G. E. Partridge's " An outline of individual study " (New York, 1910) will aid you greatly if 

 carefiilly read. 



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