Education is a process of forming habits in the brain. In the formation of habits there are several principles that must be observed. As we cannot avoid forming habits, how important it is that we seek to form those that are useful and desirable. In acquiring them, there are several general principles.

1. Guard the pathways leading to the brain.
Nerve tissue is impressible and everything that touches it leaves an ineradicable trace. You can control your habits to some extent, then, by observing caution in permitting things to impress you. Many unfortunate habits of study arise from neglect of this. The habit of using a “pony,” for example, arises when one permits oneself to depend upon a group of English words in translating from a foreign language. Nerve pathways should then be guarded with respect to _what_ enters. They should also be guarded with respect to the _way_ things enter. Remember, as the first pathway is cut, subsequent nervous currents will be directed. Consequently if you make a wrong pathway, you will have trouble undoing it.

 2. Go slowly at first to prevent undesirable pathways
This is an important principle in all learning. If, when trying to learn the date 1453, you carelessly impress it first as 1435, you are likely to have trouble ever after in remembering which is right, 1453 or 1435. As you value your intellectual salvation, then, go slowly in making the first impression and be sure it is right.

3. Make an assertion of will
Vow to yourself that you will form the habit, and keep that resolve ever before you.

4. Make an emphatic start
Surround yourself with every aid possible. Make it easy at first to perform the act and difficult not to perform it. For example, if you desire to form the habit of arising at six every morning, surround yourself with a number of aids. Buy an alarm clock, and tell some one of your decision. Such efforts at the start “will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur.” When men decide to swear off smoking, they choose the opening of a new year when many other new things are being started; they make solemn promises to themselves, to each other, and finally to their friends. Such customs are precautions which help to bolster up the determination at the time when extraordinary effort and determination are required.

In forming the habits, take pains from the start to surround yourself with as many aids as possible. This will not constitute a confession of weakness. It is only a wise and natural precaution which the whole experience of the race has justified.

5. Seize every opportunity to act upon your resolution
If you wish your resolves to be firmly fixed, you should act upon them speedily and often. Particularly at time of emotional excitement one makes resolves that are very good, and a glow of fine feeling is present. Strictly speaking you have not really completed a resolve until you have acted upon it. Many repetitions will be required before a pathway is worn deep enough to be settled. Seize the very earliest opportunity to begin grooving it out, and seize every other opportunity for deepening it.