How to learn easily, practical hints on economical study

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HOW TO LEARN EASILY

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3 1924 013 388 990

Cornell University Library

The tine

original of

tliis

book

is in

Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright

restrictions in

the United States on the use of the

text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013388990

HOW TO LEARN

EASILY

HOW

TO LEARN EASILY

PRACTICAL HINTS ON ECONOMICAL STUDY BY

GEORGE VAN NESS PEARBORN AND EDTTOATIOS IN THE SARGENT NORMAL SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE PBTOHOLOGIST AND PHYSI-

INBTRITOTOR IN PBTOHOLOGY

I

OLOGIST TO THE FOBSYTH DENTAL INFIRMARY FOB OHILDKBN, BOSTON ; ETO.

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN,

AND COMPANY

1916

Copyright, 1916,

Bt

Little, Bkown, and CoMPAirr.

All rights reserved

Set up and elactrotyped by

Fiesswork by S.

J. S.

Gushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

J. Faikhill

TO F.

W. N.

IMO PECTOBB

PREFACE Within the

last

in a sense, the

decade psychology has become,

gauge of

most basal of them

all.

place long held in

all

Psychology has taken the

common by

physics, a change which

best of reasons science of of matter.

the sciences and the

— that

chemistry and

was inevitable

by natural

for the

necessity the

mind underlies our whole knowledge With all this significant and potent

progress psychology unquestionably has neglected

some

of its inherent obligations to the twenty-five

million of

American students (twenty-two million

whom are in school) who

are expending precious

time and energy and money in learning of them, to speak learn.

in trying to

This vast multitude of our youths and

maidens are their

more accurately,

— some

young

making confident

years, the best they

investment of

have or ever

will

have, in the wholly necessary means of future livelihood and anticipated happiness for themselves vii

PREFACE

viii

and

ogy with

highly productive resoxirces gladly

its

owns to these the obligation

make and

Academic psychol-

their hoped-for families.

of giving all it

more pleasant,

this learning-process easier,

in all

can to

ways more productive.

The present handbook

strives

toward the

at-

tainment of this high utilitarian aim.

For

not unworthy purpose

both the

it

employs

in part

this

newer, important, concrete discoveries and wider points of view reached in the last few years of educational discussion,

as well as the often

more

familiar pedagogic material derived in the slow

ages of school-experience alone,

now more and more

discredited.

Because of the complete mutual interaction and integration of

"mind" and "body"

in the in-

dividual, practically everything in this plies in

some degree or

other,

erly adapted, as accurately,

to the growth of bodily

book ap-

— and when prop-

— to motor learning,

skill in all its

phases, as

to that learning popularly called "mental."

learn

is

to

become

able,

and

ability is

To

always both

organic and psychical.

The advice

is

written for the learner, but often-

times the learner

may

intelligent teacher

best obtain

it

through the

— a responsible privilege some

PREFACE teachers ignore.

who

ix

Those students

will

heed

most

it

realize to the effective degree that the sav-

ing principles of economics should underlie every rational

endeavor,

allowing

time

neither

nor

energy nor other of the riches of our precious, passing youth to be wasted.

book, then,

is

The one aim

of the

to be of some immediate, practical

use to those, young or old, who, in our workaday world, are engaged, whether vocationally or otherwise, in intensive learning.

In these days of highly organized play and recreation, often of

an elaborate nature,

it is

worth

noting that these principles and hints apply as well in this field as in that of education proper.

Part of the already,

chapter has been published

first

and under

Medical Record ",

its

New

present

title,

York, and

is

in

"The

reproduced

here through the kindness of the editor.

Dr.

Thomas Lathrop Stedman.

Part of the substance chapters appeared as a serial in " The of the other Scientific

American Supplement"

in the spring

of 1916.

The author hereby

expresses his cordial thanks

to the scholars whose

made

use

license.

of,

work and wisdom he has

whether with or without

explicit

PREFACE

X

I wish to express Little,

my

appreciation to Messrs.

Brown, and Company

reproduce extracts from Influence of Joy";

Company

my

for permission to

D. Appleton and

to Messrs.

for permission to quote

berg's " Psychology, General

"The

recent book,

from Munster-

and Applied ",

etc.

to Professor J. Carleton BeU, of the Brooklyn

Training School, editor of

"The

Journal of Edu-

cational Psychology ", for permitting

me

to quote

a number of excerpts from that important periodical of educational science of "

The Journal

and to the

editors

of Philosophy, Psychology,

Scientific Methods," and "

of Psychology,"

;

and

The American Jom-nal

Professor F. J. E.

and President G. Stanley Hall,

Woodbridge

respectively,

G. V. N. D.

Cambkidgb, Massachusetts,

May,

1916.

CONTENTS FAOG

Preface

vii

CHAPTER I

n

Economy in Study

1

Observation and the Taking op Notes

in Educative Is

Your "Thinker"

in

Order?

VI Examination-Prbparbdness Index

44 77

rV Books and Their Educative Use

V

.

Imagination .

.

.

.116 .148

.... .

203 223

HOW

TO LEARN EASILY CHAPTER

I

ECONOMY IN STUDY

We must frankly face the fact that it is possible that some students in every class would be more useful to themselves either

and to the world

on the front or back end

in a " job ",

of a street car

in a good, substantial position in a

;

or

machine shop,

in a laundry, or in a confectionery store, or some-

thing like that.

For

it is possible, if

not probable,

that a certain percentage of a class are not at

all

of

a scholarly "make-up", so that they can never be

The

a success at any learned pursuit. discover this

is

place to

early in school, lest otherwise they

waste precious time. Interest in a Subject.

— If students are naturally

of a scholarly disposition

it is

much easier for them

to study effectively than otherwise

But whether a real

scholarly or not they

it

must

could be. first

have

interest in that which they wish to study. 1

HOW TO LEARN

2

EASILY

they have grown up without the "natural

If

scholarly interest",

But when a

will learn

great

effort,

duty to acquire

it.

been really acquired,

almost reflexly and without any

because

matter

this

their

real interest has

they

So

it is

is

it will

be a pleasure to them.

truly worth while.

Furthermore,

students must have a continually changing and a continually developing interest. if

In every case,

they wish to economize time and energy and to

learn adequately, they will, as a preliminary, de-

velop an interest in the subject they are studying.

Some, in fact

millions, never

go far enough or

deep enough to develop an interest

enough to

realize

their world of matter

may be The

"fate" or

— never deep

how unimaginably it

marvellous

and Hfe and mind.

may be

is

This

just laziness.

way to develop an interest in any by collateral reading. We should read broadly on subjects allied more or less closely to what we are studying. When it is physiology, for example, we should read about related sciences subject

best is

— physics, psychology, and the enticing histology of the nervous system.

There are

all

sorts of

exceedingly interesting material to be obtained

from the

libraries,

ticular subject,

which

is

related to this par-

complex and fascinating in

itself.

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

Another way to develop interest

Fortunate

is

by

thinhing

method who already have an

to associate with 'people

interest.

is

A

for ourselves of those relations. is

3

the student

third

who can have

the advantage of association with masters of the subject in hand!

must have

Whatever be the means, we

interest.

Whatever we have an interest in, we enjoy doing, and that is the reason why well-adapted work, in the long run, the greatest, of

the most certain,

is

human

Many

delights.

if

not

people

think of work as a necessary something, disagreeable rather than agreeable, but, on the contrary, it is

certainly one of

life's

stantial satisfactions

most permanent and sub-

and

delights.

properly called drudgery) that to the individual fessors

is

is

Work (more not adapted

undeniably unpleasant.

in our colleges

and

Pro-

universities, for

ex-

ample, rarely grumble about their work, and this is

not primarily because their work on the whole

pleasant, but

more because

it is

is

well adapted to

them; for otherwise they give it up.

It is the vast

men who do not as yet have work which is adapted to them, who do not like to work. All body

of

great, useful,

and

original

work

ordinarily

under such conditions that the work

is

is

done

enjoyable,

HOW TO LEARN

4

EASILY

there being always enough of interest about

make

it

pleasurable.

It

is

it

to

under these conditions,

furthermore, and generally under these alone, that

the largest amount of energy basal relationship

is

is

This

expended.

expressed in the science of

term " Sthen-euphoric Index",

efficiency in the

meaning the more or

less

direct ratio

between

the expenditure of energy in any action and

"Enjoy your work and

inherent 'pleasantness.

you

will

most

of this

expend a very large amount

likely

This

of energy in it."

its

is

the practical corollary

fimdamental index of organic dynamics.

The writer has pubUshed recently a chapter on "The Economics of Happiness", a pioneer dis^

cussion of this perhaps sometime important topic,

and

it is

easiest

so

germane to the task

modes

this discussion

The

of doing

mental work that much of

must be repeated

scientific

of suggesting the

here.

economics of joy and happiness

remains to be developed.

a valuation (even

if

In other terms, joy has

not yet in figures) in Wall

Street on the bulletins of the Stock

the factory in the coal

office

mine

;

;

among the maids

Exchange in yoiu-

;

in

home

aboard ship; in yoiu" own private

accounts which you keep to satisfy the income-tax ^

"The Influence of Joy."

Little,

Brown, and Company.

Boston.

:

ECONOMY soul value even in the

some man

(or,

woman

more

manual

likely,

And

trades.

value to

it,

and to

sorts

all

soon

perhaps, some ingen-

economist) will begin to reduce

grades, to "standardize" financial

5

Daily joy has money-value as well as

collector.

ious

IN STUDY

find its

it

to

mean

and conditions

of

workers.

There

is

an inherent relationship as deep

conceivable in our

human

as

is

personality between the

experience of a satisfaction which merges into plain

enjoyment and the bility, of

the body.

activity, fusing into the capa-

This relationship

is

"imma-

nent", as the metaphysicians used to say, in our self-reliance, in

our pride of

life,

extending through

the gamut from mere baseless vanity upward to.

the substantial

manhood

certain of its worth

and

womanhood which is its powers. The keen

or

of

and great thinker Spinoza, nearly three

centuries

ago, put this primal relationship into plain Latin " in three successive propositions of his " Ethics

(Part

III,

Propositions

LIII,

by Elwes When the mind regards

LIV, and LV),

translated

power

itself

and

of activity, it feels pleasure:

pleasure

is

wherewith

its

own

and that

greater in proportion to the distinctness it

conceives

itself

and

its

own power

of

6

HOW TO LEARN

activity.

The mind endeavours

such things as assert the

its

mind contemplates

to conceive only

of activity.

When

own weakness,

it feels

we take

delight

power its

EASILY

pain thereat. This emphasizes one side in our capability

:

that

and vice versa; the other

side,

that our powers increase with the agreeableness of

the process,

it

has taken a busy

scientific

Let us turn now to

to demonstrate.

century

its

more

practical meaning. If

one compares the larger workshops of to-day

with those of a few decades ago, one sees at a glance

how much has been done

in like direction,

but with week-day good health and productive hygiene as the guiding star rather than happiness. It

need not be suggested that the two are close

relatives,

daughters both of the same sound and

handsome

couple,

happiness

may be

the Busy Normalities.

But

own

sake,

furthered for her

being quite worth while herself as well as a com-

plement to her hygienic

sister.

Workaday joy has economic happiness

is strongly

status,

because

dynamogenic, increasing the

expenditure of energy in every kind of work.

Joyous behavior girl in

is

more vivacious

;

and a happy

a paper-box factory will probably

make

at

:

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

more boxes

least five per cent

in a

7

day than the

same girl, unhappy, can pile up. Moreover, the work done under the stimulus of joy is not only faster

but better in every way, for

it

means an

attentive

interest in the adjustments, making them more exact. However considerable the efficiency increase in manual vocations, in those that are commonly

termed mental

(as

if all

such were not also neuro-

muscular as well

!)

far greater

Here speed becomes usually

still.

the productive advantage

minor account, the quality being

of

importance

out of proportion to the time required. happiness urges helps create.

own

its

The

perfection on

what

And

what

it

practical result of this two-

phased principle of creative

is

is

of

efficiency,

in ratio with the psychic

and some-

freedom of the work,

that forms of art and philosophy and notably

creative literature ordinarily are actually depen-

dent more or

less

on

it.

The

author, at a recent

"Shop-talk" of the Boston Authors' Club, made a httle more explicit some of this dependence

under the Index."

In

its

title

"The Author's Stheneuphoric

In part he said details

this

close

association between

happiness, or contentment akin thereto, and the

HOW TO LEARN

8

highest creative efficiency

EASILY a long and

is

much

involved story with complex plot within plot and incidents innumerable,

Author

is

whose scenario

its Infinite

provokingly slow and hesitant to reveal

(on this particular speck of the cosmos at least).

My

present years are in part employed in an

attempt to imderstand this story whose practical meaning, however we view is

it, is

so impressive.

just one little phase of the master-knot of

It

human

mystery — the relations of the body and the mind, which in

its last

and the mode

analysis reduces to the structure

human nervous magnum opus of Evolu-

of action of the

by all means the up to our era. The

system, tion

grist of this milling,

gist of the matter, the

appears to be that fatigue and

pain and worry and impatience and real unpleasantness of every kind related to authorship and other creative work are abnormalities which actually diminish the

speed and mar the quality of our

entire creative efficiency.

It

is

somew;hat as

if

the course and the rate of a trolley car in our present wretched system were actually impaired

by

the wheels' squeak and the smell of the

air

and the personal repulsion and the

jolt

bad

and the

whole general impiety of the interior atmosphere.

And sometimes in very sooth these are so impaired

ECONOMY

— as

IN STUDY

9

from quarrels with the conductor or by

withdrawals because of the bad conditions within. Fatigue and unpleasantness of every sort

may find

their sanctions in the world's last reckoning, for

philosophy as well as for religion and theology.

But

so far as the definite practical economics of a

workaday world

is

concerned, there

is little

doubt

that for the most part organic happiness makes for

greatly

increased

productiveness

both

in

quality and in quantity.

Be not

by probable personal memories of "forcing yourself to do excellent work when it was most unpleasant", etc., etc. Two ideas seem especially to belie this fallacy (1) the inexmisled

:

cusable waste of nerve strength necessary to force

the association of ideas along the paths which for eflBciency should (2)

always be, so to say, downhill;

even more frequent, perhaps, a confusion of

terms, feelings

the mistaking and misinterpretation of

due to ennui, and

dysphoria or

emotional

lassitude, for a real

unpleasantness

under-

lying the action of the nervous system, in short,

worry and true

fatigue.

In general these last, the contrary of our less

more or

symbolic "joy," seem to be of practical eco-

nomic importance

in freely creative

work.

To

HOW TO LEAEN

10

EASILY

demonstrate this proposition, however, to set forth scientifically the details of this, the

very heart of

our matter, would take us into technicalities of physiology and psychology wholly out of place

And

here.

you'll all

be

jolly well content, as

our

English cousins say, to avoid the stress and strain,

and so merely be assured that such wholly undomesticated and unauthorized creatures as the cortical nerve-cell cytoplasm, internal secretions,

blood pressure, and numerous like things underlie

what we are slowly learning about relationship of unhappiness

this general

and unpleasantness

to creative inefficiency or incapacity, objectively

considered. it

may

On the other hand, your own interests me to

be, as well as scientific theory, compel

you that the practical fact seems to be substantially as I have said It is better for your true assure

:

"efficiency" that you should not do creative

at

all

at

when

it

work any given time than that you should do it is distinctly an unpleasant task, that is,

whenever the high quality be the aim. true of

all

Book has shpwn.

Where

efficiency count, it is

creative work. in literary

This

is

W.

F.

highly-skilled work, as Professor

quality

and progressive

preeminently true of (new)

But nowhere

else certainly

than

work are materials and methods and

ECONOMY results so wholly free,

subject to the law.

language

and

conditions It

11

and therefore so wholly

Mind and body

an integral portion

is

the

of

IN STUDY

of the

human body which

are one,

and

human mind, and

expresses

it.

not only a matter, however, of actual

is

but also of wasteless capability.

capability,

would reach our highest and greatest do the best

for ourselves in the long

If

we

eflficiency,

run and strug-

we must here as elsewhere consider "safety first." To push too hard against fatigue, congle,

tinued disinclination, or positive unpleasantness, is

to

be wasteful

And

creators.

of the best

we have,

or can have, as

any excuse

there's never

for waste,

anywhere, under any conditions, but, least of

all,

of a waste of our nerve force, of our vital energy,

which goes apace but does not readily return.

The

painters

and sculptors and the musicians

long have realized and practised this principle as

a necessary condition of their best creative work.

Let the painters teach you, then, their

easily-

who have not

already

learned lesson

found

this

!

those of you

broad but

(for once) straight

road for

yourselves.

When shall

the different phases of creative work

have been studied along

this general

method.

HOW TO LEARN

12

EASILY

but with actual experimental data and mathematical results,

have been written

will

iless

then at length the economics of nappi-

Herbert

in part.

Spencer, Bain, Munsterberg, Grant Allen, H. R.

Marshall,

Max

Meyer, Harvey, and numerous

others already have taken this matter a

along

physiologic road, far

its

Bentham and the

way

beyond Jeremy

But

Utilitarianism of Mill.

which

spite of these,

little

in

steam

are, as it were, the

engines and the electric motors of transportation,

the

ultimate

true

which

will

engine

internal-combustion

carry us along in contentment to the

goal of hedonistic economics, although invented, is

Along

yet to be employed.

way one

speeds at

will,

this splendid road-

and the

ride,

ride of joy, results for a certainty in

no

although a disaster.

Nearly every word of this brief account of the joy-efficiency ratio

process.

study. effort

is

applicable to the learning

We learn fastest when we enjoy our We learn only at great extravagance of

and

of

emotion when method or teacher or

other conditions makes the subject and tery

hateful

or

consistently

its

mas-

How

annoying.

important in practice in the minds of thousands

and thousands school children

of our brightest is

this certain

grammar and high relationship The !

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

13

sthen-euphoric index certainly needs both theo-

and practical application in

retical discussion

its

relation to all our schools.^

After having acquired a good interest and under-

stood the relations between

enjoyment,

it,

initia-

and energy, the learning process proper may be considered next. There are two kinds of learntive,

ing as a procedure, one of which

a conscious

is

process, conscious, deliberate study;

second

is

another

mode

of learning, of

while the

which many

are not even aware, namely, subconscious learning

— by

observation and association, more or less

unconscious.

Conscious or Deliberate Study. of study,

most

of

— When we think

us consider only conscious,

deliberate study, reading, or "grinding", usually in

some book or

other.

This process

is

essentially

a checking or restraining process, that which we call in

physiology and in psychology " inhibition",

an incentive process

of

some

by a normal

conscious study

is

some active The process of

sort to check influence.

one of an inhibitory nature

in its ultimate analysis the essence of

and 1

of its civilization

See also the writer's

"The

gogical Seminary, June, 191i8.

and

—

humanity

culture.

Sthenic Index in Education", Pedct-

HOW TO LEARN

14

In the

first

we "grind."

place

we have

EASILY

to inhibit fatigue

We are tired and would like to go

amusement that is restful.

Theoretically there

Work should be so arranged,

should be no fatigue. alternating with rest

and

exercise

and

there should be no appreciable fatigue.

to

some place

bed, or to go outside for a walk, or to of

when

eating, that

and depressing

This inhibition seeks a more 'pleasant BiUy calls around to play " old maid "

occupation.

or something or other to go to the movies. tractions

;

or Cousin Susie wants us

Then there

are

which have to be inhibited

many

dis-

the reckless

;

automobiles or carting on the avenue, cats on the

back

fence, a piano-torture

someone beyond the violin.

all

from the next room, or

humanity trying to play on

All sorts of sensory stimuli

have to

The

desire to

be kept out of the

eflEective

mind.

change must be inhibited, the perfectly normal

tendency to change

occupation and

thus

get

rested.

Study, then, so far as deliberate, of the

is

the forcing

mental processes along new pathways, the

forcing of nerve-impulses through groups of per-

haps thousands

of

neurones where they have not

been exactly before.

and other things

When

are right

interest is acquired

and we are

in

good

ECONOMY physiological eondition,

The

to grind.

it is

15

a real pleasure truly

habit of even this kind of study

easily acquired,

than we think.

IN STUDY

grinding on difficult study-subjects

quired it;

if

we

is

much more easily in ,most of us The habit of inhibitory, forceful soon ac-

is

give ourselves a fair chance to acquire

and knowledge and understanding

will repre-

sent the comfort of our wives and children, for the

two

will

We

be largely our earning

capital.

should beware of false study, dozing

ing to hold the eyes open while the brain

In such cases the brain

tight.

is

:

try-

is

shut

not open, for

the sensory paths and the association paths are

we cannot force an interest or attention on what we are studying, we should rest entirely closed.

for a

If

few minutes or

about, and force the

open the windows,

else

Or,

issue.

if

stir

conditions are

such that we cannot possibly give our attention to the subject in hand, as fatigue,

we should

give

it

may happen

up.

Unless

readily in

we can

give

our whole attention to whatever we are studying, it is

of little or

than that,

it

no account to

gets us into the

us,

and much worse

bad habit

of sitting

with a book before us and pretending to ourselves that

we

are studying when, in reality, the brain-

neurones are not getting hold of the facts at

all.

HOW TO LEARN

16

The loss

of a little time

is

of

EASILY

no account compared

with the misfortune of this habit.

There should be no

There are

rote-learning.

extremely few things that are properly learned by

and

rote,

it is

In the long run

in this way.

No

well to avoid attempting to learn

lecturer or quiz-master

it is

a great waste.

who knows

his peda-

gogical business will give out his material or opin-

them down in the in" on an examina-

ions so that a student can take

form of formulae and "run

A

tion or elsewhere.

it

lecture should be, almost

always, explanation and not description ; lectures are properly complementary to texts.

Facts and

be learned by concept, not

principles should

by

word.

There are certain physiological

requisites

for

study, especially five things of a hygienic physio-

nature which must be mentioned

logical

good health, exercise, (3)

(2)

It else

is

(1)

abundant outdoor muscular

abundant natural

proper food, and

:

(5)

abundant

air,

(4)

abundant

sleep.

necessary for a student to have good health,

he

is

inexcusably wasteful.

We

cannot

possibly study, for example, with eye-strain, for this inflicts

a continuous

strain^

on the brain and

on the whole nervous system, which depresses

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

the vigor of the mental action.

17

Students should

not think of studying when they have a headache, for at Such a time the brain

blood.

congested with

is

Under such circumstances

more economical

it

would be

to take a brisk, erect, longish

walk out-of-doors, or to do almost anything except study.

For a

like reason,

we should not

try to

study when we are

ill,

head even, a mild

influenza, or anything of that

sort.

Some

say with a bad cold in the

try to study

."sick", which

is

when they

absurd, unless

it is

are at

home

a broken leg

or something of that non-neural nature.

It is

very necessary that a successful student should

We should not stay a student

he free from worry .^

and allow ourselves to worry about the family skeleton, illness in the

home, or other

though they be

such real importance.

worrying

of

things, even If

interferes with the business of studying,

we should

either give

up worrying

or postpone the

we cannot do both at the In some cases, study can be made to

business, for certainly

same

time.

force the worry out of the head

;

if so, it is

well.

We should take abundant gross muscular exercise. * See, for the therapeutics of worry and nerve-waste in general, a monograph called "Nerv#Waste", Health Education League Booklet, No. 27, Boston, second edition, 1914.

HOW TO LEARN

18

The reason circulation,

for this

is

EASILY

that exercise stimulates the

and "keeps the cobwebs out

brain", the spinal cord,

of the

and other important nerve-

masses.

Muscles, as well as brains, are used in

thinking,

and they don't work so well when they

are flabby

and out

and poorly supplied

of tone,

with oxygen and clogged with carbon dioxide.

Too much

exercise,

avoided, since

beyond use

it

on the other hand, must be

employs the brain and so

for study.

Abundant natural outdoor Air. sary to study out-of-doors, as of outdoor air indoors

opening the windows.

— It

is

not neces-

we can have plenty

by the simple expedient

of

Air of the proper tempera-

ture and proper humidity air,

tires it

is

essential.

Moving

properly moist and properly cool (68° F.),

is

the ideal.^

We should have abundant food, but not too much. The ideal is food that is often.

and taken Four moderate meals a day taken regu-

larly, is far better for

large.

Coffee

cessful study. '

For a discussion

may be

easily digestible

a student than two overtaken

if

necessary for suc-

There are many authors who do of the

need of moving air and of other hy^enic

conditions, see the writer's "Certain Further Factors in the Physiology of Euphoria ", Psychokgical Review, May, 1914.

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

19

good and abundant creative work under the

influ-

ence of tea or of coffee, essentially alike in their

stimulant

Alcohol

action.

is

pressant and not a stimulant at

on the

save indirectly

Ten hours

must have abundant too much. There must

eflficient, is little

be no study within an hour, at

On

all,

heart.

Students, to be sleep.

a poisonous de-

least, after eating.

the other hand, gentle ambulatory exercise

helps digestion.

doing

its

work

It

is

certain that

in the stomach,

the blood

if

enough

is

of it cannot

be at the same time in the brain, and the brain cannot work without

So that

blood.

it

its

normal abundance of

quite absurd to think of

is

studying to good advantage immediately after a

hearty meal.

It

is

considered

by many a good

thing to take cat-naps at times through the day.

Food

when we are asleep. We carry on our work on the boa-

digests best of all

should not try to

constrictor plan of taking one big meal every half-

year and then going to sleep for the next six

student.

The boa-constrictor is a really poor Ten hours sleep is none too much, and

cat-naps

certainly

months

!

are

nap, even of five or

amount

teji

of cerebral rest;

excellent,

for

a

short

minutes, gives a large for even a five-minute

HOW TO LEAEN

20

nap takes the blood stirs

for a

up things there

EASILY

moment out of the brain,

generally,

ready for a good siege of study.

James and, more

and makes us

Professor William

recently. Professor C. E. Sea-

shore, of the University of Iowa,

have

called atten-

tion to the real importance of this matter, cor-

by well-known principles elementary physiology and by the psychology roborated, as

it

is,

of of

eflBciency.

Professor James, in his extremely important " Talks to Teachers," writes as follows :

—

"We have lately had a number of accomplished Hindoo

Cambridge, who talk freely of life and More than one of them has confided to me

visitors at

philosophy.

that the sight of our faces,

all contracted as they are with the habitual American over-intensity and anxiety of expression, and our ungraceful and distorted atti-

made on him a very painful impression. do not see', said one, 'how it is possible for you to live as you do without a single minute in your day deliberately given to tranquillity and meditation. It is an invaluable part of our Hindoo life to retire for at least half an hour daily into silence, to relax our muscles, govern our breathing, and meditate on eternal things. Every Hindoo child is trained to this from a very early age.' The good fruits of such discipline were obvious in the physical repose, and lack of tension, and the wonderful smoothness and calmness of facial expression, and imperturbability of manner in these Orientals. I felt tudes, in sitting, 'I

— ECONOMY

IN STUDY

21

my

that

countrymen were depriving themselves of an of character. How many American children ever hear it said by parent or teacher that they should moderate their piercing voices, that they shotdd relax their unused muscles, and, as far as possible, when essential grace

sitting, sit quite still

in five thousand.

mental

inner

?

Not one

Yet from

states,

this

in

a thousand, not one

this reflex influence

early

on the

over-tension,

over-

motion, and over-expression are working us grievous national harm."

Professor Seashore adds to this highly significant

advice a suggestion which makes our point of view

on the matter says

still

more nearly complete.

He

:

"The

featiu-e

midday nap)

is

which concerns us (in regard to the that the greatest benefit from normal

sleep, night or day,

comes from the very

first

part of

it.

From this we may derive a principle of mental economy. Cut and

short the long, light sleep of the late morning hours substitute a short sleep at

during the work-day.

some favorable time

Fifteen minutes of sleep after

the heaviest work and the main meal of the day will count more for efficiency than five times fifteen minutes of sleep in the morning.

The curve

of day-sleep has

the same form as the curve of night-sleep ; but it is usually very much smaller. From ten to twenty minutes would cover the period of deepest sleep in the day rest of

a normal brain- worker."

Attention to a book should not be too long concentrated,

without pause.' It should by habit be

HOW TO LEARN

22

EASILY

concentrated vigorously, but only for relatively

The most

short periods at a time. of

work when the mental

associating

numbers with

letters (simple, for

by Professor Daniel Starch,

He

expended in

effort is

the

have been studied

purposes of the laboratory)

Wisconsin.

useful periods

of the University of

says that in this work " it

is

more

economical, within limits, to shorten the periods

them correspondingly over a given period of time. The most favorable length of period for this work seemed to be between ten and twenty minutes." It is well, if we are to of

work and to

rely implicitly

distribute

on opinions as

rules of behavior,

to have in evidence the figures of actual experi-

mentation. There should be more power of concentration for short periods

than most schools inculcate, but we

cannot keep the mind strongly concentrated for long periods under ordinary degrees of educational interest.

Every twenty minutes or so a student

should walk around the room for a minute or two, for this activity

draws some

the brain into the legs

;

of the

moreover,

injurious long-fixation of the eyes. sit

for

blood out of

it

relieves the

No

one can

an hour, or an hour-and-a-half, without

changing his position, except at a considerable loss

ECONOMY diflGicult

23

Under such a condition

of nerve-economy.

naturally

IN STUDY

it is

to avoid going to sleep, partial

or complete.

Grammar schools and high schools

almost never,

as yet, succeed in teaching their students

how

to

and still that is what counts most. A momentary, thoughtful idea often is worth a week think,

of fruitless mechanical grind. tity is

what counts

things.

When we

business of is

it,

Quality not quan-

in study as well as in other

study we should make a serious

remembering that

real learning, that

understanding and constructive power, comes

only through thought. Subsconscious Learning.

— This

is

a

mode

of

learning which one unfamiliar with psychology is not apt to think of as " study " at all. acquire

We

this

kind of learning (both as process and as prod-

uct) with the subconscious minds, physiologically chiefly,

namely by the association

neurones. scious terize

of millions of

Subconscious observation by subcon-

minds would be a common way to characit.

A good example of this kind of study or learning is

a child about two years old learning to speak.

The

child, at first, does

not consciously strive to

pick up the marvellous art of speaking, but none

HOW TO LEARN

24

the less he acquires

We

it

EASILY

quickly, in part

by imitation.

cannot understand anything worth learning

without this factor of mind, the subsconscious

mind, the great integrator of intelligence.

The

endless details of knowledge are supplied very largely

by

this unconscious

mental process, this

continual subconscious perception and observation

by

all

It is

the senses at once.

beyond our present purpose to describe

this

phase of the human mind, that deep and on-rushing part of "the stream of consciousness", which

is

closest to the nervous integrators of protoplasmic

function.

It

is

the great planner of our behavior,

however, the chief solver of our most important

problems in the conduct of life ;

it is

the seat of our

motives, the developer of our habits, the associator of our ideas into real

recommend our

own

it

and useful knowledge.

for study, that

selves

we may understand

and the minds

Von Hartmann, Dubois, H. Prince, Ribot, Coriat,

I

of those

about

Poincare,

Jelliflfe,

us.

Morton

and Janet, teach

we need to know, until we learn to observe its phenomena first hand for ourselves. At present we are concerned with the subconabout

it, all

that

scious as the chief active recipient of information

from the environment and as the chief arranger.

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

25

developer, and increaser of this ever-varying mul-

As has been

titude of educational impressions. said already,

without

the subsconscious

there

could be no real understanding of actual conditions of experience, so

and

myriad are they and so complex

interinvolved.

We

should keep

all

our senses open, therefore,

to "light" of every kind imaginable, which the

subconscious integrating process each, other

and to

may

relate to

ourselves,

and make us truly

ways

of studying in this

wise.

There are three

chief

process of school and college learning. first place,

by more

In the

or less conscious seeing

and

observing of books, diagrams, pictures, and other things that vision.

we can

get only through our sense of

Second, hearing things such as lectures,

recitations,

and

talk.

actively doing things clinical

And

third,

less extent,

constructive drawing, research. is

actually

— extensive laboratory work,

work, and, to a

in detail here

by

To

essay-work, discuss these

out of the question, so that

we

must be content with the mere observation, although of basal and vast importance, that doing, as opposed to receiving, represents the modern

method

of learning even the

most abstract

of

26

HOW TO LEARN

subjects.

The world

is

EASILY

becoming aware, and

effectively aware, that bodily efficiency

one way

the basis of learning, or, in the words of wise old Pestalozzi, " No learning without skill." or another

is

Imagination

who

is

essential in every scientific

But

more than a manikin.

is

imagination student.

of

is

man

visualizing

immediate necessity to every

We must,

for example,

in our minds, directly into

be able to look,

any part

of a living

organism and accurately see just what there

and

what

precisely

of this power, I

Anatomy,

pathology,

convinced,

many

inefficiency of cians.

am

is

is

lack

the cause of the

engineers, geologists, physi-

for

surgery,

The

going on there.

is

example,

clinical

or

physiology,

medicine

are

but

impractical knowledge without this faculty, easily

developed (by most students) by a I

recommend

it

as

little

practice.

an important accomplishment

in itself, as well as a valuable

The taking of notes

means

of study.

is of sufficient practical

portance to warrant a brief discussion.

im-

If text-

books are the meat of the student, his notes are certainly his necessary drink, with his meals

at other times.

It has

and

been said that one " should

train his powers of observation

and memory" so

as to be able to go into a lecture-room

and remem-

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

27

ber the gist of the lecture without taking notes.

But

we cannot develop our

in the first place,

memory

.1

We

should not attempt to accustom

ourselves to listening to lectures without taking at least a few notes, unless the subject be un-

Every school

technical.

lecture contains

many

material facts, and sometimes hundreds of them,

and there all,

is

no mind that can remember them

No matter how vital and may seem the moment when we

economically.

permanent they

hear them, they probably are soon replaced with others equally interesting,

them

are gone,

many

of

and very soon most

them

for good, while part

of those which remain are jumbled

We

of

and mistaken.

should take notes of everything worth

noting.

No

matter where we

are,

whenever we

hear anything, or even see anything worth noting,

we should "make a note be of value

all

our

lives,

mind with our precious

of it."

These notes

will

the most vital links of our school-life;

and often

of

great practical use, besides.

Notes should be arranged schematically

in a

psychologically scientific way, with center head-

*

For a

Reference

volume

brief account of

Handbook of

six. ^

the

memory

see the author's article in the

Medical Sciences, third edition, 1916,

HOW TO LEARN

28

EASILY

ings, side headings,

group headings, and sub-group

headings, and put

down

When

such headings.

much use.

not of

according to ideas under

all

run together, notes are

Let a book's elaborate analytical

table of contents be a

model for

this.

We

get into the habit of using abbreviations.

hand

is

desirable, economical,

should Short-

and almost neces-

but if we cannot manage to learn shorthand, we can acquire a system of abbreviation of our own device. Do not expect to get from a lecture anything that can be taken down and run in

sary,

verbatim on an examination, for a good lecture

is

an explanation, not dictation; not a description;

and not a It

is

set of crib-notes.

extremely

important to economy

notes be kept "posted

up" every day,

our notebooks, then in our brains.

if

that

not in

We should

go

them in general every night and thus connect them with what has gone before, and so keep the mind up with the subject. Examinations will take care of themselves if we keep our didactic material posted up day after day. Examinations over

are not intended to trap us, but are intended as

means to

how much we know in fact, how much we do

find out

know mostly, Cramming for an examination ;

is

or do not not

know.

like carrying

;

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

29

when getting weighed we are cheating ourselves. The economical way is to keep our notes posted up in our brains every day so they can associate and we can learn much weights in our pockets

faster, giving

chance.

:

our subconscious faculties a better

The power

of grasping ideas is

We

tremely valuable one. gist

and sense

ideas,

should pick out the

of a running discourse, select the

and express them

in our

own

words.

The drawing and writing of diagrams greatest importance,

and

is

of

much

all

of the

is

put before us should

The drawing of

be sketched quickly.

grams

an ex-

original dia-

value, but the quick copying of

those put before us

is

also very important.

Things

should not "go in one ear and out the other": there should be something within, between the ears, to fix the ideas,

easy

way

to do that

is

namely, the brains.

by

One

writing tersely the ideas,

and drawing the diagrams whenever possible. We should learn to visualize, to see and hear and feel

things in our minds, and this selection of the

essentials will help this important habit.

Frequent reviewing

is

of the greatest importance.

It tends to integrate things, keeps subjects unified,

and puts the whole subject before us at once. Without a wholeness nothing

is

of

much

account.

HOW TO LEARN

30

We

EASILY

should have as large a variety of textbooks

on every subject we study as we can possibly afford, for, in that

way, we get different points of

view of the same topic, and fixation is more certain.

Every ten

paid for good books while

dollars

students, will be worth a hundred dollars to us

And no

later on.

wise person

books, for each one has

sells his

associations

old text-

with his

mind which make it often far more valuable and convenient to him in later years than a new one could be. Conversation and discussion

among

ourselves are

extremely important as means to accurate and

broad information.

Talk things over.

Collateral

reading always lends interest, and makes us better talkers,

which in

man

woman.

or

The need

for

itself is well

economy

worth while in any

in learning,

economy

in

time and energy, has long been recognized as a pressing need of the utmost economic

import.

No

and

social

one, perhaps, has better stated this

aspect of the question than has President Suzzallo, of the University of

Washington, in the Report of

the National Council of Education on "Economy of Time in Education " (Bulletin 38, U. S. Bureau of Education).

He

writes

:

—

:

ECONOMY "More

efficient

IN STUDY

31

and economical methods must

be used,

if the general schools are to be relieved of overpressure.

The waste apparent.

in our schools for general training has been It will

become more

irritating,

once

we

attempt to shorten the period of education by two full years. It will be doubly vexatious when we dare to add the

new

aspects of

human

training that

modern

society

Perhaps just this additional pressure

requires.

necessary to

make

is

us urgent in the improvement of our

Then, perhaps, we shall recogmust be measured by standards of practicality, less obvious but just as certain, as those which obtain in preparation for breadwinning. Who that is not superficial can doubt the practicality of a good character as a business asset? Who will not recognize the worth of a common stock of moral ideals, when two classes in the community wage unfair war upon each other ? It must be our business to try to analyze more accurately than we have ever done the spiritual practicality of our general schools. Only then can we weed out our false practices and our inefiPective instruction. It will be difficult to do, but it can be done, if we will only study men in the setting of a

educational methods.

nize that a cultural education

real social world.

ophy

we can "

From

the standpoint of the philos-

of education, there are three clear

(1)

fallacy

ways by which

decrease the overpressure in our schools

We must rid ourselves once and for all of that which insinuates that education is to be com-

pleted for any person within a given set of schools.

broad view of

life tells

us

it is

A

experience which educates.

We are made by the whole length and breadth of life. Other institutions than the school do mold the pupil's character life beyond the school will continue to amend ;

HOW TO LEARN

32

EASILY

The school simply occupies a strategic position in it. human life because it works upon a plastic infancy with tools that are of very superior power,

if

rightly applied.

But the fact need not suggest that the school must comMore than anything else plete any man's education. teachers require the courage to leave things undone.

To make that possible, to teach students

The

all

the teacher must not be content

the facts they need to

school can not do

focus of

its

it

attention

anyway.

ofiE

facts

know finally.

It should take the

and forms perfectly

learned and habits and attitudes completely fixed, and divide

its

attention between (a) requiring a thorough

acquisition of

some fundamental things and

(6)

develop-

ing interests in the unmastered domains, along with the

power to attack these

them

in his adult

life.

fields

The

when the grown man faces economy in our educa-

first

come through a completely changed point of view as to the school's function. It will take the emphasis o£E subject matter as an end, making it a means, and lay the stress upon the development of the child's power to proceed alone. What does it matter that a child does not know everything, if the school will make him wish to do so and give him the power of independent thought and study? Six years of school life are merely six years of opportunity to grow in knowledge and power. Let the school do what it can in the allotted time, always remembering that the child must be equipped to go on without the teacher. "An incalculable waste occurs in our schools because

tion will

this principle is violated.

Fearful that the course will not be covered, that some fact will be left out, we hurry, crowd, and coerce children till they have no further interest in books

when

school

is

done.

We

have

ECONOMY

S3

many facts superficially, but we have shorn

taught them

them

IN STUDY

of the

power to educate themselves. Children in the presence of good literature for

who have been

years never seek it again, because the teacher has maltreated both the subject and the children with his pedantic insistence on details. They acquire no more facts when school is done, because they have not been taught to work in freedom, without the admonitions and compulsions of the teacher. We must aim to do more

for

human

power, by striving to do

less in

the

way

of

giving students information.

" (2) We must reconstruct the course of study so as to eliminate that which does not need to be known, or that which is of lesser importance and can be gained

by the student after a while. No mere professional theory of discipline should be allowed to take precedence over real social need. The curricula of our schools must be made in the light of our social surveys of what

men need in knowledge, habits, powers, skills, and values. And these surveys need to be made accurately. If the

vocabulary taught in spelling contains 3000

words, these should be the 3000 words most frequently used in the social world, not some mere compilation

made on

the guess of textbook makers.

If his

mathe-

matical computations are taught him, they should

correspond in fact and method with current adult The selection of a course of study is always primarily a sociological matter; and every activity, practice.

traditional or innovative, should be eliminated relatively important social sanction can be

when no

found for

it.

but in a few school years all truth cannot be mastered; what is less important must be dropped if a more important element calls for its time. All truth

is

useful,

HOW TO LEARN

34

We

" (3)

must

methods

increase the efficiency of our

We

of instruction.

EASILY

are

still

divided into cults, as to

we like the old, we stick to a we are temperamentally fond We do not know of the new, we welcome innovation. of an old as opposed to a new the relative efficiency teaching processes.

If

traditional procedure

;

if

method of a method used in one locality as compared with another employed in other school systems. We ;

must as a profession eliminate the less efficient modes of by subjecting all om- classroom procedure to the test of a comparative experimental pedagogy and (6) by establishing some central bureau of pedainstruction (a)

knowledge which will keep the professional world informed as to methods and their values. "The waste in education will not be difficult once we have (1) attained a more natural view of the school's functions, (2) provided social surveys as a basis for gogical-

constructing courses of study, and (3) established an experimental pedagogy for determining relative efficiency."

Education as well as being a theoretically precious also a

and a thoroughly practical thing, good financial investment.

suggested that the uneducated

man

school graduate about $1000 a year, ;

in fact

Some one has earns about

$1.50 per day, or $20,000 in forty years

in forty years

is

;

a high-

or $40,000

a college-man earns on an average

say about $3000 per year, or $120,000 in forty years,

when an average amount

of

work

is

done.

ECONOMY IN STUDY The

between the

difference

first

35

and second

is

$20,000, but the difference between the second and

the third, between the earnings of the high school

and the

college graduates,

whole fortune in

itself.

is

$80,000.

That

is

a

These statements point

out practically and explicitly the material value of

an education to those numerous people who

the most part measure

and

cents,

all

things in terms of dollars

— certainly the most general measure-

ment-unit which

we

possess.

Huxley's definition of a liberal education follows

:

for

—

is

as

"That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of whose ;

with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order, ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work and intellect is a clear, cold logical engine,

spia the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the

mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the laws of her operations one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come ;

to a halt

conscience of

by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender who has learned to love all beauty, whether ;

Nature or of

hate all vileness, and to love Such a one and no other has had a

art, to

others as himself. liberal education."

HOW TO LEARN

36

That

is

in

EASILY

my opinion at once the most scientific

and the generally best

definition of

an education

that was ever written, and therefore

worth

is

I wish, however, to call

repeating continually.

attention to one statement here and to

show how

some extent it is mistaken. Along in the first part this definition says " whose intellect is a clear, to

cold logical engine, with

working order",

etc.

all its

One

logical psychologists of the

and untechnical

sense,

parts in smooth

of the leading physio-

world in the very broad

Huxley here undoubtedly

expressed a hope rather than a statement of fact.

The epidemic of sometimes

unscientific

mental and

physical "testing" from which America, here there, is

now

suffering, has served,

and indeed should of the

among other mind cannot,

anew that the be what Huxley has sugVery recently Morton Prince, one

ends, to emphasize

gested above.

and

not,

most eminent authorities on the subcon-

scious aspects of mind, wrote in a remarkable

essay on " The Psychology of the Kaiser "

:

—

"Our conscious thoughts are much more determined by subconscious processes, of which we are unaware, than we realize. One great popular delusion is that our minds are more exact logical instruments than they really are, and we stand in awe of the minds of great men, thinking that because they are superior in certain

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

directions therefore they are superior in

37

all

other direc-

where they claim superiority. Whereas, as a matter of fact, a man may be eminently superior in certain fields of mental activity and psychologically a perfect fool-thinker and fool-performer in other fields. Helmholtz said of the eye that it was such an imperfect optical instrument that if an instrumentmaker should send him an optical instrument so badly made, he would refuse to accept it and return it forthwith. He might have said the same thing of the human mind. It is a very imperfect instrument of thought. All we can say is that it is the best we can get. The deeper insight we get into the mechanism of the human mind the poorer thing it appears as an instrument of tions of their activities,

precision."

It

is

only man's instinctive egotism, on the one

hand, uncorrected by his relative ignorance, on the other, that has kept scientific attitude,

mon

wisdom.

with poor tools necessity for obtain,

and

all

this,

the obviously correct

from long since becoming com-

One who knows he has will see all

to

work

the more occasion and

the information and hints he can

will see

the need also for the exercise

both of the greatest diligence and the greatest care in using the tools he has. realize that the tific

It

is

body and the mind

well always to (in its scien-

sense) educationally speaking are tools, tools

none too

efficient,

which have to be trained labori-

HOW TO LEARN

38

ously into high ability.

EASILY

The mind,

then,

is

in

general a capable instrument but not particularly so as an instrument of precision. It is well

worth while for every student to be

economical in the use of time, to learn in the most

economical manner that he can employ.

my

chief sanction for offering as really

certain hints

That

is

important

on the more economical methods

of

study and of learning — and of becoming wise

We do not need here to discuss at aU the nature of education.

and short tion

is

I

do suggest that a familiar

definition of the essence of

human educa-

the adequate reaction of personality

environment. for our

But

The "reaction"

to its

in this definition is

immediate practical purpose the important

thing.

We must remember, however, process

is

that the learning-

not a material process.

A

teacher can-

not give us a knowledge of literature, of geometry, of physics, or of similar subjects,

as

he might

readily convey the detailed directions for doing fine presswork, or for building

a complete doll's

house, or for the construction of a fancy chocolate cake.

The

The two problems

are distinctly different.

best that one can do in giving advice on such

a matter as learning

— so subtle and at times seem-

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

ingly so wholly abstract

—

39

to state, as simply

is

as possible, the chief effective conditions involved

and then to

trust implicitly in the natural reaction

on the information secured.

of the learner's inind

Indispensable, certainly, for learning worthy of its

high reputation,

One must firmly impress his motiva-

tdill-to-learn.

and

tion-force

the consistent, deeply seated

is

the

first

in

strong and

permanent

set it in

determined to support

it

action, fully

From

in every respect.

normal children the desire to learn

may

be relied upon.

is

Professor Hall-

Quest of the University of Virginia expressed

much

Richmond in November, 1915 ("School and Society", March 11, 1916), in

an address

in

especially in the following

two paragraphs

:

—

"Any one who has observed children knows that they are bundles of question marks.

by

binations

and levels

of the attention will to learn.

of

development are the sine qua non

upon a

It

is

many

difficult

task

may

be called the

the cooperation of the entire per-

sonality of one's being

upon a

reasons, but

learn in proportion to

The

are also mimics

The harmonious and concentrated exercise

of learning.

restless for

They

Curiosity and imitation in various com-

nature.

its

task. it

The

child

may

be

does possess the will to

interest in the undertaking.

we know, are closely The problem of education is

interests of the child, as

related to the instincts.

partly the selection of those methods of teaching that

HOW TO LEARN

40

EASILY

stimulate instinctive interests to the discipline of habit

H a child, in all respects apparently normal, seems to lack interest in kindergarten and school work this condition is due to one of two causes; either the natural interest of the child has not been appealed to with suflScient "punch" or the child is physically ill. formation.

want to learn. The plasticity, the nervous system is wholly in favor of new impressions. The capacity of the yoimg child for work is marvellous. Between its physical and mental activities there is a close correlation providing adequate measures are employed to arouse and keep awake the mind. Otherwise one meets the all too common results obtained by the Simon-Binet tests, children physically normal but mentally several years behind

Normal

children

resilience of the

the chronological age.

"The importance teacher

is

obvious.

of aU There

this for the kindergarten is

need of beginning very

early to teach the child the rudiments of reading, writ-

ing

and the simplest processes

of

number work.

true, as Fiske writes, that the period of is

much

human

It

longer than that of other forms of animal

because the purpose

is

so

much

is

infancy life

higher and the results

much more significant for the race. But this should not mean that the period should be unnecessarily prolonged by delaying the introduction of subjects within the range of the child's capacity. The argument usually presented is that it is unfair to the child so

mind too more unfair to

The

to force its

early.

it is

force the child's

however, that to remain inactive too long. In the reorganization of the school programs up and down it is within the range of conservfact

is,

mind

ative prediction to state that within the next decade

ECONOMY

IN STUDY

made beyond that much earlier to

there will be a successful effort

now

41

current, to introduce the child

subjects that are now delayed because the child is supposed to be mentally unable to grasp them as yet. It is fundamentally a matter of method, not mental responsiveness.

Boris Sidis' son and others like

him

have been called precocious. The fact is that they are fascinatingly normal. By a careful study of the child's abilities in

the kindergarten

it will

be possible to deter-

mine to what extent its range of education should be enlarged. It will be found that when properly attacked the problems of reading, writing, number work, and those astonishing feats of the imagination leading up to choice bits of thinking form a firm foundation for the gradual supplying of information and for the gradual unfolding of powers that even in these days of enlightenment many parents and teachers believe far beyond the capacity of a child of four or five."

This dynamic aspect of mind, the

resistless

impulse to do and thereby to "learn", especially

modern pedagogy modern psychology. The

in youth, is the very key-note of

— as

it is,

practical

in sooth, of

problem for every student young or old

the manner of best taking advantage of and

is

utiliz-

ing this tremendous inherent dynamic tendency.

The

precise process cannot, indeed, be described

mechanically, for this will-to-learn must do

own work,

secure

its

own

its

personal victories over

ignorance and inadequacy.

In other words, the

HOW TO LEARN

42

student, whatever in

knowledge be

all

his subject,

the intricate world of

must have a

Often this alone

lasting desire to learn.

— the native ingenuity

EASILY

real is

and

enough

of the learner's intelligence

supplies the rest automatically, as biography shows

us

it

But many people who can

has so often done.

swim

really well use bridges

even over narrow

streams.

Now some of my readers may expect too much from my discussions. Some may mistake advice for energy, a dietary for a full diet, or, even, (in the

words of someone

and easy vigilance

else)

the guide-board for a rapid

intelligent limousine. is

Just as eternal

almost always the price of safety, so

continual effort

is

the least cost of an education, of

That is why an education is worth something, and in many directions too. I wonder if that relationship between this difficulty and the value ever occurred to many who read

effective learning.

these words.

Ambition and energy,

initiative,

push, work and effort (but never drudgery) are required for learning, whether hard or easy, for

although the study-process

is

a most pleasant

kind of work, almost never drudgery, effort, to

do

it

because

it is

ourselves.

an

active reaction.

it

requires

We

have

!

ECONOMY Learning, again, as often yet,

IN STUDY

we

often hear, but none too

not the mere

is

filling of

up

apples, but the slow growing

and the apples from the

may

43

of

a barrel with

both the barrel

seedling trees.

But we

note that out of the five or six million people

in the

United States who cannot read or write,

some have never seen the

" guide-board ",

and do

not know even where or

how they wish

to go

These certainly would not wish to be whisked along blindly in a limousine in this case

mere

it's

arrival.

;

nor should we, for

the journey that counts, not the

Education

is

a progress, not a town

With

with numerous gravestones on every hand.

an ever and ever widening vista, further and further on into the mental depths of Reason and Reality, the

Cosmos

of spirit

and

of matter opens

to the serious student and to the persistent thinker.

And

as he dies, be

it

a good old age or

earlier,

whatsoever has befallen him or his in an adventurous Life, he realizes that he has had the

Best this Splendid Woeld Affokds.

Very

CHAPTER

II

OBSERVATION AND THE TAKING OF NOTES

OuK first more tion,

(in

on observa-

explicit discussion is

the very broad and useful psychologic

usage of the term) and then on the taking of notes.

Most

of our learning

this

— our surroundings,

" environment ", material, finite

comes from

and

infinite.

the Cosmos and our minds

upon the process observing of our

of

Cosmos, this spiritual

The relation between is

dependent largely

observation,

own minds.

including the

The term observa-

tion suggests an important element of learning fact, learning is

and

unthinkable without

it,

;

in

especially

perhaps in the natural sciences, of which there are

now

form

so

many.

of note-taking

them "on the

Observation ;

it is

is

obviously a

taking notes and writing

tablets of the

memory", on brain

instead of on paper.

There are two kinds of observation.

There

is

a

primary knowledge of nature outdoors, and under

somewhat

artificial

conditions in the laboratory;

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES

45

and then a secondary or mediate process, observation of books and of other, e.g., pictorial, de-

by

scriptions of the original observations

others.

Both of these forms of observation furnish material for note-taking.

Direct observation requires a habit of the continually sensitive

and accurate use

of the sense-

organs; organs of movement-sensation, of heartouch, smell, heat and cold, sometimes

ing, of

singly but sometimes, too,

all

at once.

Observation always should be explicit; unless

it

be

explicit, it is

not observation at

but a form of "wool-gathering." it

must be minutely

In

many

explicit in order to

all,

cases

be of any

Further details often lend things a wholly

value.

new

in fact,

aspect, details

noticed,

which have not before been

and thus lead sometimes to important

discoveries.

All of this process of observation

involves a fine adjustment (by

means

of muscles

and nerves and sometimes obvious glands) sense-organs. fection

is

no

"Trifles trifle,"

make

and thus

of the

perfection but perit is

in this phase,

the detailed phase, of observation.

On

the other hand, observation must be also a

process of observing things in their entirety their general relation to environment.

and

We

in

must

HOW TO LEAEN

46

EASILY

not always miss the ocean's grandeur for study,

however

scientific, of

the waves upon the shore,

any more than we ought to miss the beauty of a There is forest because of the crowded trees. chance for varied observation in street-cars and in trains

Travel supplies the material for

!

much

observation and also the stimulus to use this

power.

Observation exercises the mind, while the

travel tones us

up and

rests

our organism.

general terms, direct observation

with book-study because

it

distracts the interest therefrom. difficulties of travel, as

we

order to study; consistency

is

is

In

incompatible

almost inevitably This

is

one of the

used to be the mode, in

forget to study,

and

this in-

natural.

Another matter

:

this habit of

minute adjust-

ment of the senses involves a disregarding of whatever is

already familiar, so that, in a way, for effective

observation

we have

really to

be familiar with

whatever we suppose we are familiar with ; which is

to say

we really have to mind our P's and Q's, for

observation, as Interest

is

depends on

it

develops, requires intelligence.

absolutely

interest,

necessary.

and with

Observation

interest the observa-

tion-process becomes "reflex" or automatic

therefore

easy.

A

boy's

interest

in

girls,

and for

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES example, and a

47

the fashions are

girl's interest in

practical interests which uniformly, in normal boys

and

lead to a process of observation,

girls at least,

which thus goes on continually. There is a great amount of labor required in observation.

It is not a passive process,

hand demands much

effort,

much

but on the other bodily activity,

the details of which are too technical for discussion

This

in this sketch of the nature of observation.

process

of

sensory muscle-adaptation

A

perception.

perception

some object around, and cular adjustments

;

is

called

is

an active reaction to

requires

many

indeed these are

its

mus-

fine

physiologic

essence.

Sense-training of the simplest sort

one of the

is

most important of all the elements of education, but for the most part only the feeble-minded children have the advantages of scarcely,

is

it

!

But no

one,

too old or too normal to develop at

least a greater efficiency in this the very basis of

intelhgence.

The

is at fault to

omit sense-training whatever else

elementary

educational

system it

Natural, might have to omit to give it room spontaneous sense-training comes from natural !

interests,

but

it is

become by being

only a fraction of what trained.

Few

it

might

people yet realize

HOW TO LEARN

48

how

utterly different things

EASILY and events appear

to different observers even under precisely

the

same objective conditions. Professor J. McKeen Cattell, of Columbia University, years ago made some

A

striking demonstrations of this difference.

two-colored quadrangular card was exposed

for a short time to a

sons singly, and

dozen or two intelligent per-

when the drawings

"subject" saw were compared

it

of

what each

was found that

only two perceived the square red-and-green area alike,

and these not exactly

so, despite

chance of perceiving similarly. researcher's

own

the mere

To quote

the

words as given in the Proceedings

of the American Psychological Association, 1899

:

" When a moving surface is exhibited as it passes under a window in a screen it appears larger than the window. If green is exhibited first for second, followed by second, the observer does not see green folred for lowed by red, but the two colors are seen side by side, variously arranged and intermingled, filling a larger area than the window through which they are seen. A

^

^

and physiological processes in time makes for perception a spatial continuum. In this case, however, the same physical stimulus gives rise to enseries of physical

tirely different perceptions with different observers, indicating that the processes of visual perception are largely built up by the individual.

"When

in the ordinary vision of daily life the line of

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES moves over

sight

retinal element

is

objects, say the

shelf,

each

successively stimulated, but the objects

are seen simultaneously, side

intermittent

books on a

49

stimulations

by

may

side.

In this case the

occur as rapidly as

1000 per second without any fusion or blurring. This and, indeed, all the phenomena of color-vision, are cerebral rather than retinal. "These experiments, demonstrating as they do that a fact indicates that fusion

time series is perceived as a space continuum when this is advantageous for our reactions, show anew that our perceptions are not 'copies' of a physical world or correlates of simple physiological processes, but are dependent on experience and utility."

Thus sense-perception, observation, in the young child is far more even than it appears to be, for it builds the very foundations of the mind.

How

long

is

our system of general education for

normal children to accept, but

idly,

the obvious

reproach that the mental deffectives at the present

time in some schools

(for

example that founded

and developed by Seguin and now ably directed

by Dr. Walter Elmore Fernald in Waverley, Massachusetts), that the feeble minded are given more careful sense-training than is to be had by other more successful children in the "grades"?

Dr. Charles

W.

Eliot, President

Emeritus of

Harvard University, at the Pan-American tific

Scien-

Congress in Washington, 1916, in the course of

HOW TO LEARN

50

a timely paper entitled

EASILY

"The Changes Needed

in

American Secondary Education" spoke the longnecessary words for sense-training and for motortraining of the

— obviously only complementary phases

one and the same process carried on by

nerve-circuits, muscles,

and glands

— in short

perceiving and doing as the basis of

worth the getting and having.

all

for

education

For ten years the

present writer has been attempting to work out the

psychobiology of this very matter, the sanction of the body

and

its life,

each of us in his

apotheosis ere he dies.

But the

university trustee-boards no

own

personal

sceptics (in the

more than

city slums) will not learn the story

— yet

in the !

But

Dr. Eliot says "It follows from these considerations that the training of the senses should always have been a prime object in

human

education, at every stage from primary to

That prime object it has never been, and not to-day. The kind of education the modern world has inherited from ancient times was based chiefly

professional. is

on

literature.

Its

principal

materials,

beside

some

elementary mathematics, were sacred and profane writings, both prose and poetry, including descriptive

and religion but accompanying this tradition of language and literature was another highly useful transmission from ancient times the study of the fine arts, with the many kinds of narration, history, philosophy,

—

;

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES skill

that are indispensable to artistic creation.

51

Wher-

ever in Europe the cultivation of the fine arts has survived in vigor, there the varied skill of the artist in music, painting, sculpture, and architecture has been

a saving element in national education, although it affected strongly only a limited number of persons. The English nation was less influenced by artistic culture than the nations of the Continent. American secondary and higher education copied English models, and were also injuriously affected by the Puritan, Genevan, Scotch-Presbyterian, and Quaker disdain As a result the programs of seconfor the fine arts. dary schools in the United States allotted only an insignificant portion of school time to the cultivation of

the senses through music and drawing; and, until lately, boys and girls in secondary schools did not have their attention directed to the fine arts

or voluntary organizations.

As a

rule,

by any outside the young

men

admitted to American colleges can neither draw nor sing; and they possess no other skill of eye, ear, or hand.

"In recent years, on account of the complexities, and numerous accidents of urban life, there

urgencies,

has been a striking revelation of the untrustworthiness of human testimony, not because witnesses intended to deceive, but because they were unable to see, hear,

happened in their and describe correctly is not at all confined to uneducated people. On the contrary, it is often found in men and women whose education has been prolonged and thorough, but never contained any significant element of sense or describe accurately

presence.

what

This inability to

really see,

hear,

HOW TO LEAEN

62

EASILY

Many highly educated American ministers, and teachers have never received any scientific training, have never used any instrument of precision, possess no manual skill whatever, and can not draw, training.

lawyers,

sing, or

Their entire

play on a musical instrument.

education has dwelt in the region of language, literature, philosophy, and history, with a brief excursion into the

mathematics.

field of

Many an

elderly professional

man, looking back on

his education

own habits

and

of thought

and examining

his

of expression, perceives that

were never trained to act with precision; that his habits of thought permit vagueness, obscurity, and inaccuracy, and that his spoken or written statement lacks that measured, cautious, candid, simple quality which the scientific spirit fosters and inculcates. "

his senses

Thus we have

much

to learn to observe

have to learn to become

skilful.

Skill is

process as accurate sense-perception;

tary attention

is

we the same as

and volun-

another psychophysical operation

which involves perfect and general bodily control,

and must be taken bodily fitness.

in a general

(2)

of

It includes at least five funda-

mental states and processes it

and broad sense

:

(1) it involves vigor

involves a great deal of initiative;

(3) it

involves mental quickness (wit) and (4) sensitivity to every educating influence; fidence '

U.

S.

is

indispensable.

Bureau

of

and, (5) self-con-

Intelligence itself (which

Education Bulletin, 1916, No.

10, pp. 6

and

8.

:

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES is

name for

only a larger

tion to

and appreciation

fine

adapta-

of one's eflFective environ-

ment, spiritual and material. is

but a

skill) is

53

Skill in its essence

a cursive general voluntary power finely to

adjust the muscles, and those used in the adaptations of the sense organs in

Since there

is

innervation, intellect,

skill

— even

is

cases, especially.

obviously closely alUed to

though the syllogism here em-

ployed be imperfect.

More than

ago the famous Pestalozzi

"No

some

no mental process without muscular

without

learning

a hundred years

said, as already skill",

—a

quoted

dictum for

pedagogy so basal as to be worth repetition

The whole

sake of emphasis.

and body

is

for the

relation of the

mind

involved in an actual demonstration

of this proposition plished.

:

Skill

is

;

but

it

certainly can be accom-

potential

imagination of the

practically constructive sort, discuss, as a

means to easy

and

this

we

shall

learning, in a later

chapter.

Professor Munsterberg, of Harvard University, ofifers

much timely wisdom

his recent

in this

matter in one of

books

"We

camiot emphasize too much the similarity between the external and the internal actions, between the movements of the limbs and the movements of the

64

HOW TO LEARN

thoughts.

To remember,

observe, to reason,

EASILY

to invent,

means above

to

attend,

to

to adjust inner

all

impulses to the final aim, to suppress and inhibit those

which interfere and to excite and reenforce those which lead forward.

The

practically the

model process

psychical abilities.

training

If

we

in

external

actions

is

for the training in all

are to gather from the train-

ing in motor abilities the principles for the training in abilities in general,

we ought

to put emphasis on the

following psychological factors.

use of the involuntary reflexes;

make

we must make we must thirdly, we must

First,

secondly,

use of the instinct to imitation

;

resolve the complex action to be learned into its ele-

ments; fourthly, we must reenforce the activity by and lastly, we must mechanize the process

suggestion

;

by repetition. "The involuntary motor impulses and

reflexes are

indeed the given material without which no development of voluntary powers can be understood. There are numberless short cuts and substitutions, but some-

how

all

learning of an intentional activity starts from

the experience of involuntary reactions which come up from the inborn psychophysical dispositions. In a

corresponding

way we have

to accept the tendency to

imitation as the inborn disposition which

is not learned, but which precedes learning. No child could learn to speak who had not the instinctive impulse, first, to produce sounds, and secondly to imitate sounds. This imitation is at first imperfect, but it is just the incompleteness of the success which drives the child forward.

The most action

essential further step is the resolution of the

into

simpler

become combined.

motor functions, which slowly Whether the child learns reading

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES

55

or writing, dancing or swimming, carpentry or pianoplaying, the whole set of simultaneous and successive

movements must be

built up by imitating the single actions which in themselves are useless for the final purpose.

"A skilful training demands no less the suppression of opposing impulses, and this is the place where suggestion has its chief task. Finally, there is no learning motor ability without repetition : every new performance decreases the resistance in the motor path until the response to the stimulus becomes automatic. The formation of such habits is the significant end. The of

trained piano player does not exert his will for the special

movements. As soon as the idea of playing motor setting, the black dots on the paper produce the immediate impulse to the right finger-

finger

controls his

It is evident that the cooperation of these psychophysical factors demands the most perfect

actions. five

adjustment, if the result is to be reached in the shortest time, with the smallest effort and with the most finished effect.

The

desirable alternation between periods of

rhythm and rapidity movements before a new learned, the most economic analysis of the comthe various habits of manipulation and control,

training

and periods

of rest, the

of repetition of one group of set

is

plex,

the associations formed between the sensory impressions

and the actions and many other

factors

must determine

the advance."

These each and

all

are contributions, or might

be well so used, as to how to learn Professor J.

B.

Watson,

of

easily at

any age.

Johns Hopkins

HOW TO LEARN

56

University,

EASILY

at present engaged in elaborate

is

research which will greatly extend the

Bechterew in Petrograd and eEtsily

made

are

many

will

work

show anew how

highly useful bodily asso-

ciations through the extremely adaptive

system

In a recent address before the

of nerve-units.

American

of

Psychological

Association,

he

sum-

marized the matter somewhat as follows,

(in

which "reflex" denotes the associate reaction

some

in

cases)

:

—

"As Bechterew's students aflBrm, we find that a simway to produce the reflex is to give a sound-stimulus

ple

in conjunction with a strong electro-tactual stimulus. Bechterew's students use the reflex withdrawal of the foot the subject sits with the bare foot resting on two :

metal electrodes. given, the foot

is

The movements

When

the faradic stimulation

is

jerked up from the metal electrodes. of the foot are recorded graphically

We found that the reflex appears in the finger as readily as in the toe. So satisfactory and convenient is this last method that we have adopted it in all our later work with human subjects. A bank of keys is provided which enables the experiupon smoked paper.

.

.

.

room of course, from the sound of a bell coincidently with the current or separate from the current. In beginning work upon any new subject we first sound the beU alone to see if it will directly produce the reflex. We have never yet, even after repeated stimulations. menter (he

is

La a different

subject) to give at will the

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES been able to get the

evoked by the

reflex

We

to the electro-tactual stimulation. bell

and shock simultaneously

then again

offer the bell.

bell alone prior

give next the

about

for

57

five trials;

If the reaction

does not appear, we give five more stimulations with the beU and current simultaneously etc. The conditioned reflex

—

makes its appearance at first haltingly, i.e., it will appear once and then disappear. Punishment (faradism) is then given again. It may next appear twice in succesand again disappear. After a time it begins to appear regularly every time the bell is offered. In the

sion

we begin

best cases

to get a conditioned reflex after

fourteen to thirty combined stimulations."

Such easily-formed new associations constitute the bodily basis, in part, of those numberless sets of delicate adjustments of the muscles

and glands

and sense organs on which depends that capability which, lacking a better word, skill.

No

learning,

we have termed

constructive mental process,

is

i.e.,

no

possible without this marvellous ease of

association-sets

between the numerous

diflferent

muscles and sense-organs of the learner, and be-

tween the learner as an individual and

his sur-

roundings or "environment" both of a material nature and of the kind

Nowhere basis

of

we term spiritual

or mental.

are these hints as to the skilful motor

mental processes,

e.g.,

learning,

more

appropriate than for the practice of observation.

HOW TO LEARN

58

EASILY

must be noted, however, for future reference, that these same principles of facilitation will be It

applicable repeatedly in different phases of oiu"

coimsel on easy-learning

— in imagining, in study-

ing, in reading, in thinking, in preparing for ex-

amination, and in actually performing this last

climax of supposed educational cruelty.

More

specifically for observation,

however, and

reduced to untechnical terms, expert observation requires concentrated attention (muscular adapta-

tion under fine voluntary control) to the entire object or process

details

and as

under observation, both as

to its influencing

to its

surroundings.

In

other words, there must be adequate realization of

the real nature of the object observed, and adapted attention, to

both

its

internal

and

its

external

Such attention based on knowledge

relations.

would seem to afford the best chance of the observation-process things

new

being

— new

the world as well.

with some

risk,

efficiently

productive

of

either to the individual or to

One might

almost, though

epitomize the practical advice

into informed, concentrated attention to the object

and

its relations.

There

is

a vast satisfaction, and almost a sur-

prise, in active observation.

There

is

no end, of

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES course,

to

"the miracle of nature", and ob-

an acquaintance with

servation gives us

Indeed

miracle.

makes

59

it

this endless

this

observation alone which

is

marvel

a student's

explicit in

mind. Laboratory-work, shop-work, studio-work, work, and

all

field-

the other familiar factors in present-

day practical education, are but systematized

The wide

material for first-hand observation. success of this

method

of actual, first-hand doing

(doing and observation are one) demonstrates

supreme importance and despite

its

its

its

thorough expediency

great expense of time and of money.

In some professional schools

it

has probably gone

but in no elementary school the world

too far;

over has

it

the kindergartens. sive" the facts

—

we exclude Laboratory work makes " mas-

gone nearly

far

and the

enough

if

^

principles of science,

them out and makes them

solid

fills

and substantial

so that they really affect the mind.

For

laboratory-work a practical point of advice

all is.

Follow the directions exactly and keep detailed and thoughtful notes of what you yourself particularly observe

and learn in

this practical

manner.

My

experience in the psychological and physiological laboratories has been that that

is

the

first definite

HOW TO LEARN

60

EASILY

step towards success, but very

many

students do

not follow the directions accurately

enough to be

well guided in their work.

work is highly

and very complex

specialized

not

Practical ;

so that

we should

to follow the directions exactly,

fail

while thinking

how

the

all

We

to develop the work.

should do no experiment save as a demonstration of

some extra-important fact. we should do no mechanical work in a mechanical way. Most experiments done

some

That purely

principle or of

is,

in a laboratory or

problems worked out in

work are intended

solely

field

as demonstrations of

some underlying principle, and if done in a mechanical

at

way the all

and

exercise is

is

worse than doing nothing

not even

rest.

When

and

true

thoughtful observation can be obtained thereby,

work

laboratory

developing of

all

is

the most rapidly mentally

kinds of study.

Demonstration

of the extreme value of first-hand observation

may

be had in the vast amount of money and of time

expended in the making, building,

fitting,

and

running of academic and industrial laboratories.

A

school without adequate laboratories

sistants can it

costs to

difference

and

as-

be run for a small fraction of what

run an institution with them, and that is

very largely a matter of laboratory

;

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES first-hand observational outfit

out

much money,

be offered at

all,

and work.

61

With-

then, such courses ought not

and indigent schools should

close

up.

Actual statistics based on careful and elaborate experimentation have recently thrown

on

this

modes

light

matter of the relative values of different

For example, Doctor

of instruction.

Mayman,

of

New York

J.

E.

University, has studied

and reports

physics in this regard,

"On

new

:

—

the basis of efficiency as measured by percental by lasting impressions on the minds of

attainments,

elementary school pupils, by persistence in memory, by encouragement of independent thought and self-reh-

and by popularity among the pupils the three methods rank as follows First, experimental method second, lecture method third, book method. On the basis of minimal time consumption in the actual teaching of the lessons, of arousing and holding interest and attention, and of the minimal expenditure of mental and physical energy, they rank as follows First, lecture method; second, experimental method; third, book method. On the basis of minimal time consumption ance,

:

;

:

by the teacher in the preparation of the lessons, they rank: First, book method; second, lecture method; Carefully-written experimental method. notebook work and neatly-drawn diagrams of science apparatus do not increase the pupils' knowledge of elementary science. The work in elementary science third,

.

.

.

HOW TO LEARN

62

EASILY

must be concrete, and must be based on the daily exand observations of the pupil. Elementary

periences

science in elementary schools should be largely, entirely, qualitative,

and not quantitative.

not

if

As regards

elementary science, elementary pupils cannot get the thought from the printed page. Simple diagrams are of

no material aid."

These conclusions of Dr.

Mayman

speak for

themselves.

One

practical application of these results of trial

and measurement

is

their demonstration of the

great usefulness, in the education of

a boy or

girl,

of home-laboratories, workshops, studios, printingoffices,

museums, and so on, so often indeed found

in the inner

"sanctums"

of

boys especially

—

such of them at least as are fired with native energy

and

interest in things in general

—

sites of activ-

by the boys themselves (at first) play. But how much in human value is this play! and how vastly more could it be made the foundaities called

tion of our school system

remember

effectively,

the reorganization which

system

still is

We

!

making is

it

certainly

must

a guide indeed to

on the way, that our

the system of Comenius,

if

not of

the ancients, mostly traditional lore from a time

when psychology and

physiology,

pendence of thought and

when the

of imagination

and

deof

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES feeling

and

glands were

of will still

63

on nerves and muscles and

undreamed.

In the address just quoted. Dr. Eliot says

:

—

"The changes which ought in the

to be made immediately programs of American secondary schools, in

order to correct the glaring deficiencies of the present programs, are chiefly the introduction of more hand, ear,

and eye work, such as drawing, carpentry, turning, music, sewing, and cooking; and the giving of much more time to the sciences of observation chemistry, physics, biology, and geography, not political, but geological and ethnographical geography. These sciences should be taught in the most concrete manner possible that is, in laboratories, with ample experimenting done by the individual pupil with his own eyes and hands, and in the field through the pupil's own observation guided by expert leaders. In secondary

—

—

schools situated in the country the elements of agricul-

ture should have an important place in the program,

and the pupils should all work in the school gardens and experimental plats, both individually and in cooperation with others. In city schools a manual training should

be given which should prepare a boy for any one of

many different trades, not by familiarizing him with the details of actual work ia any trade, but by giving him an all-round bodily vigor, a nervous system capable of

multiform coordinated efforts, a liking for doing his best in competition with mates, and a widely applicable skill of eye and hand. Again, music should be given a substantial place in the program of every secondary school, in order that all the pupils

may

learn musical

HOW TO LEARN

64

EASILY

and may get much practice

in reading music Drawing, both freehand and mechanical, should be given ample time in every secondary school program; because it is an admirable mode of expression which supplements language and is often to be preferred to it, lies at the foundation of excellence in many arts and trades, aflFords simultaneously good training for both eye and hand, and gives much enjoyment throughout life to the possessor of even a moderate

notation,

and

in singing.

amount

of

skill.

"The suggested changes in American school programs not make public school life harder or more fatiguing

will

for the pupils.

On

the contrary, observational study

and concrete teaching are more interesting to both children and adults than memory study of any sort; and whenever the interest of pupils is aroused, it brings out more concentrated attention and harder work, but causes less fatigue.

The obvious

utility of

mental labor

directed to a practical end increases the interest the pupils take in their work, tive effort.

To

and stimulates them to

effec-

use a good tool or machine and get the

competent to produce when in skillful hands, interesting than reading or hearing about the uses of such a tool or machine. Whenever, by the use of observational and concrete methods, the pupils' power of attention and of concentrated effort is developed, that power of attention once acquired can be results is

it is

vastly

more

exercised in other subjects.

This principle holds true not only of manual or bodily labor but also of games and sports, and of cooperation in rhythmical movements, like dancing. The power of concentrated attention

won in carpentry, turning, forging, or farm work is easily

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES transferred to

work

in reading, writing,

65

and ciphering,

or at a later stage in history, hterature, and civics

;

so

that the reduction in the so-called academic studies made to allow the introduction of observational studies

need not result in

less

attainment in the academic

studies themselves.

"For this great improvement in the conduct of American secondary schools a good deal of preparation has already been made. The new schools of mechanic arts, the trade schools, the various endowed institutes for giving a sound training in applied science, and such institutions as the

Hampton Institute and Tuskegee how to learn by actual seeing,

Institute are showing

hearing, touching,

and doing, instead

of

by reading and

committing to memory. They have proved that the mental powers, as well as the bodily powers, are strongly developed by the kind of instruction they give so that nobody need apprehend that reduced attention to memory subjects, with increased attention to the train;

ing of the senses, the muscles, and the nerves, will result in a smaller capacity for sound thinking and for the

an animating good

exercise of

will."

So much as to the taking of notes on the tablets of our memories.

on paper or on the

(in

Next, as to the taking of notes

the case of youthful remote pupils)

slate.

It has

been said sometimes even by adequate

university professors of

some

subjects,

take notes but train your minds!"

viewpoint

is

correct

and

"Do

Now

not

perfectly sanctioned

this

by

HOW TO LEARN

66

EASILY

psychology provided, always pro^jided, that we

immediately go home or to our rooms and run over in several

good textbooks the very topic that we

have just heard about

in the lecture or recitation.

The same thing may be accomplished by discussing a lecture with a party of fellow students. wise, in almost all

modern

notes is absolutely essential. are seldom place, only a

plete

list

met with

And these conditions In the

first

sufficiently

com-

in practice.

few students have a

of textbooks

Other-

subjects, the taking of

on any one subject; and

quite as few have the time or the occasion to review

and

discuss

the topic or subject immediately

after its presentation.

Therefore the taking of

notes would be one of expedience and whole, the best practicable means.

is,

on the

Now, on

cer-

tain subjects, even the suggested review, either in textbooks or

inadequate.

by conversation, would be quite

Of a lecture on organic chemistry,

for example, in

which large numbers of complex

compounds are

discussed, only a small fraction

could be retained by anyone,

or, in

any event,

only at a wholly improper expenditure of nervous energy.

The

objections to note-taking were

more

reasonable two hundred years ago than they are

now, for a century or two ago, a

man

of intelli-

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES gence and diligence could learn pretty

67

much every-

A

thing valuable that there was to be learned.

man in a few years could learn all the science and a considerable part of the literary knowledge of the

On

entire world.

and learning

the other hand, to-day science

specialties that

no man can learn

more than one per cent knowledge. so that they

up

in general are so divided in

into

a lifetime

of the world's substantial

Hence, written notes must be taken

may be

kept and their details and

endless interrelations conned

and learned at leisure

outside the lecture or the recitation-room.

Another point,

memory

is

not

already

that

the

Technically,

we

It is not like

an

stated,

developable.

cannot develop our memories.

ample chest (thorax) or a good it is

more

like

is

disposition,

a big foot or a large ear

:

we

but are

born with them and they cannot ordinarily be

improved with expediency. use of our memories, but

it

We

can train the

has been demonstrated

that to train the span of retention practically

is

—

we have a Memory is a birth-gift good memory or a bad memory or an ordinary memory and we can learn how to use it. impossible.

Notes, then, become practically part, too, because of the

essential,

economy

and

in

of nerve-force

HOW TO LEARN

68

EASILY

which the taking of notes implies. not be guided generally in practice actually can do

:

it is

what we can do economically

that counts as of most value. exposure, for example,

it is

In the matter of

not whether

safely to run risks of getting

whether risks.

it

is

It is

(We should by what we

we

are

pneumonia, but

expedient or unwise to run these

economy to stay

in the house for

a

few days whenever we have a bad infectious cold.

So

it is

with nerve-expense.)

Notes are essential as a means to the habit of logical thought.

the formation of

It is essential that

we

should arrange notes so that the facts and principles in

them

are presented in a systematic

and accurately and

Done

concisely.

manner

in this

way,

method

the taking of notes is the quickest

of

putting the mind in like logical order. Lectiu-es, again, are full of facts

and so are

text-

books, and one of the surest ways of providing the

subconscious mind with ideas to use,

and systematic arrangement

of

is

a studied

ample notes and In this manner

the frequent abstracting of them.

(probably through the motor activities required

by the

writing-process) the brain

series of

is

impressed by a

motor pathways as well as by a relatively

ample number

of sensory pathways.

An

impor-

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES tant factor in note-taking

be arranged

scientifically,

—

for example, like the

of

an elaborate

is

69

that the notes should

and that means

logically

adequate table of contents

scientific

The mind works

book.

continually on the principles of symbols and of

complexes, and notes are the best possible means of

providing economical food to the brain and to the

mind.

We

should have center-headings, side-

headings, under-lines, and, in

many

cases, the use

of different colored crayons for the impression of this essential logical subdivision.

means represent the many and type-faces

different sizes of type

in a printed book. of

notebooks

in the familiar fact that ideas

may come

Another lies

These manual

reason

for

the

use

out of the associating mind and yet be wholly lost to

that

corporation.

mind

unless secured for future in-

In the composition of

articles,

the

elaboration of explanations or of hypotheses, and especially

in

psychological

and

mathematical

analysis, this necessity for fixing the elusive ideas is

often

counts;

conspicuous.

Effective

mind

is

what

knowledge, systems of ideas, purposes,

understanding which idealistic logician

may be

used.

Sturt,

at Oxford, expresses

"Truth-seeking and

it

the

well:

truth-finding are subordinate

HOW TO LEAEN

70

to the formation of purposes of desires."

Many new

EASILY and the

satisfaction

products, especially

if

somewhat incongruous with the working mind, wholly escape, and perhaps escape for good, unless recorded where, in the practical sense, they

may be

made

learned, that is

usability

is

included in

usable,

— for

all real learning,

this

in the

kindergarten as well as in the seminar.

As

corollary of this approbation of note-taking

their value, often tremendous, as cues or stim-

is

knowledge and thought after

of

uli

many

years

after — the notes

thinker and every writer

— perhaps Every

are made.

realizes this thoroughly.

His notes serve the purposes of the sketches of the painter or the recorded themes, motifs, and

"snatches" of the creative musician. the old-time and of

In general

now outworn adynamic

notion

mind has sometimes unduly prejudiced the

value of notes, oftentimes the seed of a rich harvest,

immediate or remote.

It

enough

mind may produce things

realized that a

and then utterly

A

lose

is

perhaps not generally

them.

notebook should be

made

of large pages, loose

pages preferably, and unruled, so that

we

shall

not

be confined to handwriting of a certain

size.

If

unruled paper

is

used we have not only a chance

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES for

much more freedom

book

is

ideal.

important.

We

An

8

X

11 inch note-

Pocket notebooks are extremely should take a notebook with us

almost wherever we go, tious to learn broadly

go past.

but a

in that respect,

chance also for pictures.

71

we

if

are strongly ambi-

and accurately as the years

These "commonplace books"

in a

way

serve also as a history of our education.

In the taking of notes the use of abbreviaiions is

of the

We

utmost importance.

own;

easily a code of our

should develop

shorthand

indispensable for the student, but

is

almost

we can

easily

develop a useful system of abbreviations of our personal invention realize;

save

much more

,

quickly than

we

in the passing years such a system will

much

time.

These abbreviations are In

purpose of saving time, not paper. fountain pen, use plenty of acquire the habit of using

for the

lieu of a

soft pencils;

many

and

colored grease-

crayons.

Diagrams are sometimes in the taking of notes

as

much

;

of

immense importance

in general they are of value

according to their simplicity as at other

times according to their complexity

;

so

we must we often

not refuse to copy a diagram because, as hear, " I cannot draw." We acquire the habit of

HOW TO LEARN

72

drawing diagrams much

EASILY

fsister

and, when drawn, each expresses of the associative

mind.

than we

much

The making

realize,

for the use

of graphs is

of great

importance because a graph oftentimes

expresses

more than could whole pages

description,

— and far better,

Reviewing notes

is of

much

importance.

of

University,

on the measured

reviewing

:

^

Prof.

the Illinois State Normal

H. A. Peterson, says

of technical

too.

effects

of

—

"The purpose

of the study is to get some measures what reviews accomplish under conditions similar to those of school work. The subjects were normal school students in classes of from 45 to 75. The class was divided into two groups of about equal ability determined by means of a prose-substance test. All of

were then given 2| minutes for studying a passage 25 by an immediate recall (written) for which a maximum of 12 minutes was allowed. The aim was to reproduce as much of the substance as possiIn grading, one point was allowed for each idea. ble. A week later while one group was occupied with the class work, the other reviewed and re- wrote the passage, the purpose of this re-writing being simply for fixation. Two and one half minutes were again allowed for reading and a maximum of 12 minutes for writing. In some classes there were three groups, the third group receiv-

lines long, followed

'

In a paper read at a recent meeting of the American Psychological

Association.

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES ing a second review two weeks after learning.

73

Three,

weeks after first studying the recall which measured the effect of

four, six, or eighteen

passage, the final

the review came.

"The results so far are: After three weeks the onereview group recalls 1.89 times as much as the no-review group. After six weeks the one-review group recalls about 1.33 times as much as the no-review group, and after eighteen weeks the superiority of the former has sunk to about 25 per cent. After six weeks the tworeview group recalls about twice as much as the noreview group, and after eighteen weeks the former recalls 1.8 times as

much

as the latter.

"While the reviews here used were undoubtedly thorough, the results probably exceed the most common While the effect of the review, like that expectations. of the first learning, decreases rapidly at first, and later more slowly, a substantial residue remains after the sixth week. All of the results were obtained from the use of a single historical selection of only moderate diflBculty."

The reason

for these results

discuss in detail.

we do not need

They depend on the

to

principles

of habit-formation, that universal process under-

lying all that lives, which later on

need of considering

briefly in

we

shall

have

sundry connections.

Laboratory notebooks are extremely important in education.

They

are so especially because they

constitute the records of discovery and research so far as we, at least, are concerned.

Laboratory or

HOW TO LEARN

74 field

work on nature at

concerned, really

matter

EASILY

hand, so far as

first

we

are

research and discovery no

is

the facts have been discovered by others

if

before us.

Notes nearly always should be in our own words. Otherwise they are " cribs " for the mind's use and properly not notes at

all.

A

good lecture

is

explanation and not dictation of a set of cribs;

not description but explanation. there

is

far too

much

lecturing

studied review of textbooks

The same

tion.

is

and

far too little

by means

of recita-

equally true of books as of

Notes are of no

lectures.

In some schools

real educative use unless

or until they have been suflficiently worked over

minds as to be expressed readily

in our

words.

own

own

Therefore, the importance of using our

English.

There

is

no

rule for this better,

perhaps, than taking notes "just as

them

in our

to a

little sister

we would talk home"

seven years old at

simple and direct and explicit.

The subconscious mind facts

on the

fuses

and

retains the

principles of symbolic action,

continually elaborates them.

That

is

and

one of the

important reasons for taking adequate notes.

Each note should serve as a symbol by which the mind (and nervous system) can get hold of it

OBSERVATION AND TAKING OF NOTES and connect principles

We

it

for use with other facts

akeady

75

and other

secin-ed.

should keep our notes always posted up,

I

mean summarized daily in writing, but I do mean posted up in the brain. Notes which are do not

not reviewed become dead notes

days

It

!

is

(rests) in

a few

not really necessary to summarize

notes in writing in the notebook, but in keeping

them mentally posted up we to be abstracting.

would

like

second,

We

train the

should

our minds to be:

accurate;

third,

mind always

make

notes as

First,

abundant;

and,

logical;

we

fourth,

free.

Another thing worth considering, perhaps, the importance and notebooks

In the

(the

same being true

first place,

on in our

later

given

is

practical valv£ of preserving of

textbooks).

they often are practically useful careers.

by students soon

Many

of the courses

after leaving school are

practically the reproduction of the lectures

they have had in school

!

which

Second, good notes are

part of the mind just as our mothers and our sweethearts and our childhood-homes are parts of

our personality (see James's "Me"). that, our sons will,

More than

and daughters may, and probably

value them at some future time.

In a later

HOW TO LEARN

76

we

discussion

EASILY

consider our notebooks in

shall

relation to examinations.

Another important thing in the taking and the learning of notes

the forgetting of things which

is

should be forgotten.

It has

psychologist that forgetting

By

than remembering.

we may

is

been said by some only

less

important

glancing over our notes

important things and neglect the

select the

dead and adynamic things which are to be gotten

passively.

for-

Nothing once impressed,

it

by gross loss of cerebral tissue; the impression in some form continues during life. What we actually have in seems, ever leaves the brain, save

our recallable working minds fraction of

what

in

is,

then, only a small

some mysterious manner

impressed in our brains.

So

it is

relatively small portion of the notes

bered properly

;

things are quick,

education

;

the rest

minds.

can be remem-

may be forgotten.

and become active agents

Some in our

but some, too, are wholly dead for

and are (and should be)

lost

is

true that only a

us,

out of our effective

:

CHAPTER

III

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION In the previous chapter we ran over some

of

the practical considerations of observation and of

taking notes, both on the tablets of our memories (observation)

and on

How,

books.

tablets of paper,

practically,

we can

of these notes, both cerebral

the learning-process, process in practice stood,

is

— note-

further the use

and manuscript,

our next inquiry.

may be

in

This

analyzed and under-

and thus improved materially,

in

any given

mind. Imagination, as

we shall discuss it, may not be by suggesting what it is not

easily defined except It

is

not falsehood and untruth, but a most

sential it is

form

of

mental truth; and educationally

of great practical use

may wonder how

and importance.

doubt

is

We

we think of it, all. The reason

imagination, as

can be important in learning at for this

es-

that a wrong meaning of the

term "imagination" has crept into general un77

HOW TO LEARN

78

technical use, namely, that idea,

an error

that

is

EASILY delusion, a false

it is

of thinking, the seeing of false perception

not there ;

something

— in

other

words, error and falsehood rather than something

which is true and real and in every educational way important.

Imagination, on the other hand,

is

one of the most productive mental processes in the whole educative procedure. resentative

power"

shall see, involves

includes

many

It

of the mind,

much, since

is

but

in a

"the rep-

this, as

we

broad sense

it

of the active constructive oper-

ations of the mental

life.

Dean

J.

R. Angell, the

eminent psychologist of the University of Chicago,

emphasizes the two leading features of

imagination

when he writes that it

" is to be viewed

not only as the process whereby the ordinary practical affairs of

life

are guided, in so far as they

require foresight, but also the

medium through

which most of the world's

finer types of happi-

ness are brought to pass."

Surely a thing which

at once guides our lives of

much account; and

it is

not of

ination

less

may be

and gives us happiness

is

in the learning-procedure

account than elsewhere.

Imag-

denoted as the use of the mind

backwards or forwards, turning the mind into the past or into the future but not directly into

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION the present.

79

Although one of the most con-

spicuous aspects of the nature of imagination, this is only one.

Memory productive sense,

is

,:ji

.

a form of imagination called

is

imagination.

another form

the

called

imagination, which, however,

we

re-

broad

a

Foresight, in

constructive

shall discuss in

a way to include a much more active process than

mind on the body is called organic imagination. Each form has notable practical concern in learning. Our present search is as to how this fact is so and as to the practical means of developing imagination, if not already ample and rich, in ourselves, and in our pupils Influence of the

this.

or students.

Let

us, then,

take up these three kinds of edu-

and

cative imagination, one after the other,

what we can suggest about them

in the

way

see of

practical use in easy learning.

Reproductive imagination

There

is

memory

or recall.

evidence that the nervous system re-

tains every clear impression

long

is

we do not

made on

as yet know.

it,

but how

A great many

cases

have occurred from time to time which demonstrate that in

some way

this

is

the case.

There

are three general types of retention-memory that

HOW TO LEARN

80

have more or

less to

imagination.

Some

EASILY

do with the reproductive these

of

"memories" are

hereditary and inborn, and are represented in the

—

The sneeze, the coughreflex, and the like, arfe more or less unintenThen there tionally performed and controlled. are some memories which are controlled further up in the brain, the instincts and emotions, having spinal cord

social

the reflexes.

as well as personal reference.

It

im-

is

portant for educative purposes that the latter

memories involve the previous kind as

The

well.

third type of the reproductive imagination

is

located in the upper extremity of the nervous

system

— in the cortex

of the brain.

These are

the latest additions in the evolution of the brain,

memories proper, and only a few of them are conscious at any one time.

These

last, like

the

preceding, should completely involve the other

two.

The fundamental

principle of habit

what

is

termines the usefulness of these forms of for

easy

recall

learning.

memory

Their respective power

of

depends on their relative influence on the

more conscious parts then,

de-

the brain.

There

one general learning-principle

— that

these three hinds of

of

memory should

is,

all

he given habitual

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION

81

yet conscious reference, as conscious as is volun-

Reduced from

tarily possible.

practical terms, this

the

skill

physiological to

means that we come again to

which we discussed

in the last chapter

conscious acquaintance with and mastery of parts of the

body that may properly come

—

all

(with-

out interference with function) under voluntary This

control.

is

one of the physiologic bases of

rapid and permanent acquirement.

every learning pathway

open

is

Here physical

acquirement of knowledge. ing gets

its

By this means for use in the train-

highest sanction and usefulness, as

the writer has set forth elsewhere at length.

The power of recall of what once has been remembered is one of the essential things for learnThe perfection of the memory-record is ing. beyond

control,

but

this

power

of recall

may be

We

must remember continually that the brain acts more or less on the symbolic system, using a method of shorthand

greatly developed.

symbols, which are in some brain processes;

in

in the

these are essentially neural or

neuro-muscular integrations. reviewing:

way impressed

order that

integration-complexes

Hence the need

these

may be

associations

of

or

connected more

intimately together, and as a complex with the

82

HOW TO LEARN

rest of the

mind.

more

Recall

useful, for facts

and

is

EASILY

thus

made

and

easier

their relations are sorted

out and oftentimes labeled with a name, as with all

By

"general ideas."

made

only thus they are

this

available for use at will.

Another practical point productive imagination

means and perhaps

is

for the use of the re-

that

should be im-

it

pressed vyith a feeling-tone of some

It is the

sort.

emotional tone of nearly everything of a mental nature which gives its

useful

it its

activity.

The exact kind

for this purpose is not so

fact that the

"push" and determines important as

is

the bare

we remember

associ-

Feeling and

the mind's great energizer.

fore, in general,

(or

is

memory always should be

ated with some sort of feeUng-tone.

not the idea

of feeling

There-

best our pleasant

very unpleasant) experiences.

At the

first

glance over our memories, that does not, perhaps,

appear obvious but in the long run true.

actual

experiment that young

least,

It

it

is

dis-

has recently been shown by

tinctly

remember best

school-girls,

at

their pleasant experiences.

In other words, other things being equal, we should study chiefly and should remember those subjects which are pleasing to us.

This

is

one of

the reasons for the privilege of selecting subjects i

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION study in school,

of

— the

83

"sanction"

the

of

elective-system. '

-When

the reproductive imagination (memory)

seems wholly perfect to the individual, the experience

is

called

we have an which

is

an hallucination.

hallucination

we

Thus when

perceive something

not really there at

This happens

all.

only under conditions of mental overstrain or of

derangement of some fection of recall

is

sort.

concerned,

So far as the perit is

quite impossi-

ble for a really perfect reproduction of the original

impression to occur.

The moral

of this discus-

sion of the imperfection of the imagination

the

memory

is

never exact.

Recall

is

is

that

never nor-

mally exact, and the student must act on this principle in all ways.

Nevertheless the reproductive imagination

is

often of very great service in learning, both in

the recall of words seen and heard continually, and the

like,

and

in picturing to ourselves for use the

We

conditions of hidden or absent structures.

have already noted how indispensable the visual imagination,

in

both

constructive aspects,

its is

in

reproductive

geometry, physics, and so on.

most equally true

in

and

its

anatomy, physiology,

many

The same

other

is

al-

sciences — in

HOW TO LEARN

84 fact in

most branches

EASILY The

of learning.

diflfer-

ence, for example, in the liking for or dislike of

geometry by students sometimes depends largely

on

their relative

power of

problems involved.

visualizing the spatial

Therefore,

we should

to its limit this poioer of seeing things

develop

in the mind's

eye — and of hearing them, and feeling them and

smelling terial

them and

world

is,

tasting them.

Thus the ma-

for educative purposes, extended

in far wider mental relationships than otherwise.

The second form discuss

is

of imagination

which we

For edu-

imagination.

constructive

shall

is by far the most imporThe reason that recall of our memory is never exact is that the mind is an active process, always doing something. The

cational purposes, this

tant of the three.

neurons are alive with energy and always develop their mental contents prevented. ination

heard

it

is

when not

in

some way

Thus speaking educationally, all imagmore or less constructive. You have

said that

we

swim out-of-water play tennis; we some-

learn to

in the winter-time, or to

times learn to love a person better during his absence, which proverbially

grow fonder."

These are

structive imagination

;

and

"maketh the heart

all

processes of con-

in the last case,

when

:

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION we

get back to the beloved person

realize the constructive difference.

course,

85

we sometimes All this, of

an important subconscious process

is

but in the human mind at

more power than

least,

imagination has

this relatively passive process

of subconscious elaboration.

A

research

^

made by the

illustration of the active,

writer gives a concrete

image-making "associ-

ation" in the minds of people

:

—

A STUDY OF IMAGINATIONS

To

"see things" in the ever-changing outlines

summer

of

bers of a

clouds or

fire,

among the

has doubtless in

men a Much of

em-

flames and all

ages been to

imaginative

source of entertainment and

delight.

the charm of this pastime

comes no doubt from the commonly accompanying circumstance of leisure, and from the novelty of exercising

an aspect

and given freedom.

of

mind

all

too

little

used

Another element in the

terest of the habit, however,

in-

comes from the end-

less variation in the forms which different per-

sons fancy from any given contour or in any

simple presented shape. *

For the purposes of

Published in The American Journal of Psgchology in January,

1898 (volume nine, number two).

HOW TO LEARN

86

EASILY

studying the reproductive imaginations of

and women, the psychologist might well

men

desire to

take the clouds into his control and bid them serve

him

not for a

To

;

but they are

moment

far

beyond him and

will

stay.

reproduce, then, under applicable and conconditions

trollable

human

these

familiar

fancy, the following simple

studies

of

means have

been adopted, and they constitute the complete apparatus, simple enough, of the investigation.

Chance

made by pressing gently a drop of common writing fluid

blots of ink,

with the finger

between two squares of paper, furnished variety

of

outline

(More

imaginable.

suggestions for the manufacture

all

the

explicit

and usefulness

of these characters introduced as psychological

by the author, may be found in the Psychological Review for May, 1897, page 390.) The bits of gummed paper 3 cm. square bearing the blots, scarce any one of which resembled any material

other, were then attached to cards convenient for

the hand and arranged in twelve sets of ten blots each, the

members

of

each set being numbered

consecutively from one to ten with Arabic and

the sets themselves in the.

back

Roman

of every blot-card

Thus bore a number by numerals.

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION which

it

87

The

could be registered and identified.

uncommonly

great interest of the subjects in the

research was largely due to the great variety in

the configuration of these blots, and to secure the

constant attentive effort of the subject

no easy matter, although sometimes

often

is

this

means

half the research done.

The vard

subjects were mostly students in the Har-

psychological

fessors

and

their

laboratory,

although

pro-

wives and one Latin-school

were among the

The range

rest.

of ages

girl

was

between eighteen and sixty-two and the average

The

nearly thirty-five. as

was convenient, no

made, and hence they

of culture

subject

set

from

employed

any

sort being

may be

relation to imagination

an average

subjects were

selection of

any

concerned, to have been

is

their particular social grade

and education.

some

said, as far as

In the case of every

brief sketch of his or her early life

was obtained as regards familiarity with various animal forms, and concerning fairy stories, mythology,

and the

like,

of watching clouds

and

as regards possible habit

and other natural forms

pleasure of the imagination.

It

was expected that

subjects raised on a farm, hunters,

would have a store

of

as a

and

artists

advantage over those of

HOW TO LEARN

88

Among

contrary habits.

the subjects were two

poets and two artists, and

toward the top

One

sponse.

EASILY

all

were well

and variety

in readiness

of these

of these

of re-

two poets made the short-

and the subject who had the a young man little fond of verse.

est average of times,

longest average

is

The experiments were conducted with the subjects always in normal condition as far as could

be learned, and at an average hour of the day as

Each was

regards fatigue and meals. instructed

"to

look

at

the

particularly

blot-card

always

right-side up, turning neither the card nor the

head;

to try to

employ the whole character

if

possible, not allowing it to separate into parts

while being observed

;

not to be too particular to

get a perfectly fitting object in mind, but to tap at the

moment

of the consciousness of the first

suggested image;

to react

promptly as possible;

by a sharp tap as

to report each concrete

object suggested as concisely as possible, with

any

suggested general action of the same, and, especially,

reaction

only such

details

by the tap."

as

occurred

before

The method

of the ex-

A

set of blot-

periments was, then, simply thus

:

cards being arranged in order face

down and a

stop-watch in hand, after a warning, Ready

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION

89

one second previous, a blot was quickly placed before the subject at his or her proper visual dis-

Upon

tance.

the discovery of the blot's Kkeness

to any object, the subject tapped and, the time

being registered, a brief description of the suggested object was recorded opposite the of the character; series of 120, or,

number

and so on through the entire more commonly, until decrease

of interest or evident slowing of reaction indi-

cated the beginning of fatigue (which was care-

and noted), when the experiment was promptly suspended for the time. None of the subjects had seen the blots before the

fully inquired after

time of the experiment.

As would be supposed

after observing the dif-

ferent characters as represented in the illustration,

most

What

of the replies to the general question.

is it ?

were various in the extreme.

This

variation is least in set number one, as the blots of that file were selected and placed together as

the

first

set,

that their relative easiness might

compensate for the novelty

of the experience

and

slowness of reaction in unprofessional subjects.

The

figures in the

accompanying table indicate

in seconds averages of the times for the ten blots

composing each

set.

In these results the inter-

HOW TO LEARN

90

EASILY

esting cases of apparent inhibition are included, it

being practically impossible to discriminate

such cases of exception from slow examples of associative

and

imagination,

no cases

hibition being long or frequent sentially

vitiate

the

average

of

of

in-

enough to

es-

any subject.

These periods of inhibition have an interest in themselves, for although of amnesic aphasia,

much

they

like ordinary cases

differ

from them in

that here the blocking seems to be

among the

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION

91

brain paths or currents representing objects in-

among those representing words, as is the common case. Perhaps for a minute or two

stead of

the subject would

staring at the blot, but

sit

wholly unable to see any resemblance in object,

and

this

it

to

any

wholly independent of any inher-

ent oddity of the character, and of inattention.

The

real nature of these inhibitions is

for further research to answer.

a problem

11 arising

from

confusion or indecision between two or more

resembling objects, such confusion or indecision

was

in these cases wholly a sub-conscious process,

appearing to the subject almost always merely as

a cessation of "mental activity."

The

often

considerable

number

vacant

of

seconds which elapsed between the application of the stimulus

and the reaction image,

oflEers

a

striking illustration of the entire sub-conscious-

ness of the processes of reproductive imagination,

but including in these cases much more.

Here

by the subject; the next thing in his consciousness was a name of some object resembling in some respect was presented a blot

or

many

process

of ink, perceived

the stimulus, so that a complicated

necessarily

intervened.

pigeon-holes of the brain

Many

ancient

must have been searched.

HOW TO LEARN

92

EASILY

and a comparison made with the contents

by a judgment

followed

some one

case,

of greater

of each,

agreement in

a choice thereof, and the calUng-

up and utterance

of a

name, which again became

And this often in a fraction of a Such, we may conjecture, is the general although the many attempts at intro-

consciousness.

second. process,

spection gave wholly negative results.

inquiry was

made

as to how, in

Frequent

what form, the

suggested object came into consciousness, and the

most frequent reply was that a name, articulate,

visual, or auditory,

said,

was

the first of the object ex-

Sometimes, then,

perienced.

it

was once or twice

the connotations of the object developed.

In some cases aphasia occurred and a hazy

like-

ness of the object coming hovered for a few

seconds or

lem

less before

the mind.

Here

is

a prob-

for research.

Instruments of precision for measuring small periods of time were not needed in these experi-

ments, but intervals of not over half a second ap^

peared in several instances, such reactions being as fast as regular time-reactions with

choice,

and much more

judgment or

characteristic of the re-

acting subject than of the blots on which the reaction

occurred.

The

longest time

required.

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION three minutes very nearly,

93

was by the subject

with next to the longest general time average also

of

the two next longest were by two students

;

decidedly

type."

"intellectual

Neither age

nor sex shows a distinct influence in these quantitative results

;

habits of living, on the other hand,

are clearly recorded in the figures as confirmed

by

knowledge of the various subjects' mental modes

and occupations.

numbers with

in the

From

The

intellectual

like corroborative evidence.

the grand average of

about ten seconds,

it is

all

of

the subjects' times,

apparent that the reac-

tions were slower than one

mate from a study

type appears

might a priori

the blots.

veloped noticeably in some cases. to observe that an equal

number

esti-

Facility deIt is curious

of subjects

were

above and below the quantitative average; also that the slowest and fastest were nearly an equal

number

of seconds

from the mean time, which

thus doubly appears to be a true average time of these 1920 reactions. test, this

valuable,

functions

mode

As a comparative mental

of experiment

representing

would seem to be

accurately

the

upon which wit and mental

mental liveliness

depend.

The

qualitative portion of this research has

HOW TO LEARN

94

more

than the quantitative, howbeit

of interest

its results

EASILY

nor

are not statable in exact terms

The

expressible in figures.

qualitative side better,

however, suggests the mysteries of association and of the imagination, deep in the nervous substance,

may

which future psychologists subject,

it will

Each

explain.

be remembered, was instructed to

report the fird object which the blot suggested to

him

A

in each of the 120 cases.

comparison of

these object-images gives, therefore, ciuious interesting results, tific

and leads into mazes

and

of scien-

conjecture.

In the case of no blot did over 40 per cent of the subjects agree on

any one suggested

several instances

no two

reminded

of the

same

object.

of the subjects

thing.

In were

These two extreme

blots are reproduced in Figure 1, the right blot,

XII,

X,

7.

FiGUBB

numbered X,

10,

10.

1.

having given the 40 per cent of

agreements, and the other, XII, those upon whose

name no two

7,

being one of

agreed.

Critical

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION

95

study of their outlines gives only one key to this great diflference in difficulty, namely, that the one

upon which there was agreement strongly gests the familiar figure of a

man

sug-

(with upturned

coat collar).

From out

of the 120 blots three

chosen here as examples for a subjects' for

answers,

greater

acters

full

report of the

the times 'being also given

These

completeness.

are reproduced in

Figure

respective descriptions follow

:

—

three 2,

VIII, 10.

III. 1.

FlGTTEE

m,

IX,

their

4.

1.

A. B. C.

Cabbage head. Animal with mouth open. Fairy on a cloud.

D. E.

Woman, seated, basket of vegetables in Top of an Indian's head, nose swollen.

F.

Grotesque Indian's head.

G.

Rabbit

sitting

char-

and

2.

Imagined Objeot.

SnBiEOT.

have been

hunched up.

Times. Seconds. 3.

46. 11-

her lap.

12. 4.

22. 16.

96 H.

HOW TO LEARN

EASILY

EDUCATIVE IMAGmATION

97

C.

Head

D.

Running animal

E.

Girl in

F.

Running pea-fowl, head on one

G.

Chimera.

H.

New

I.

Head

J.

Bat, flying.

47.8

K.

Two

20.

L.

Child falling from a tub, falling from overturn-

M. O.

Half of a sweet-pea bloom. Snake coiled around a stick. Horseshoe-crab.

P.

Hiunan head

of

an Arab.

a

8.

frisking.

2.

cap, seated.

tall

4.

side.

6.2

11.5

style lady's bonnet. of

some one-eyed

70.

creature.

33.5

shrimps.

ing stool.

N.

Why

2.

(left

3.5 3.

5.

part of blot only).

21.

one subject should see in a blot a "cab-

bage head" and the next an "animal with

his

mouth open", or why a professor should be reminded by a blot of "half a sweet pea blossom" and

his wife of a

"snake coiled round a

stick ", of

course no one can at present pretend to explain.

There

is

a temptation in such cases of association

as these to call the results the choice of chance,

but this means too Uttle

— or

too much.

It

is

clear that, as a general principle, the experience,

and

especially the early experience, of the subject

has important influence. the records

For example, study

of

shows that subject H., a purely

domestic woman, mestic objects

;

is

reminded most often

while subject O.,

who

is

an

of doartist

HOW TO LEARN

98

and student

EASILY

many

of mythology, sees in the blots

The

picturesque and fanciful things.

difference

between the imaginations of the coimtry and city bred

Altogether there

is clear.

is

evidence here

that the laws of the reproductive imagination,

still

for the most part hid in the neural paths, are substantial laws, tirely

of

which

may

one day be found en-

out and reduced to words and to more or

mathematical certainty of statement.

while

it is

something to establish,

if

less

Mean-

possible, in a

manner unmistakably demonstrable, the empirical conditions under which this "faculty " of

forms

its

marvelous combinations and

the imagination

is

one of the most interesting as

most important phases

well as

In particidar would

what degree,

if

at

mind per-

effects, for

it

all,

of mentality.

be interesting to know to

the fixed ideas, delusions,

and changed emotional conditions of what the Germans conveniently term der Wahn, influence and subvert the reproductive imaginations

who

persons

and

delusions,

deep as

The

of the

are the victims of these obsessions fixed into

their

mental natures

life.

pleasantness of this image-making phase

of the mind's process is distinct

and

is

not a

little

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION of the

permanent

reward

— an

satisfaction

which

of the labor of "acquiring

is

part of the

an education"

now somewhat

outworn and

99

misleading

expression, but none the less denotative of

meant

is

here.

what

Nothing more sharply marks

off

the boor from the gentleman than a lack of this creative fancyits

own sake,

It should, then,

be acquired

for

as well as for its educative usefulness.

Observe that here, too,

is

distinct evidence of

the motor basis of a psychic function as subtle

even as fancy

:

the suggested "object" came into

clear consciousness

most frequently

as

"a name,

articulate, visual, or auditory", in short,

a body-derived symbol, a motor again bobs up

Here

correlate.

our skill so often referred to in

these pages, the term in

itself

a symbol of fine

neuro-glandulo-muscular adaptation. aginings

always

These im-

were relatively free associations, and

they certainly

have an importance of

their

in easy, as well as in pleasant, learning.

own

Culti-

vate them, therefore.

We

have, however, in addition to this, the

ability to force the constructive imagination, just

as

we have the power

line of thought, for

sition",

an

essay, or

strenuously to work out a

example a book.

in writing a

"compo-

All real education is

HOW TO LEARN

100

EASILY

— by the unrolling of intelligence

developed thus

out of materials obtained everywhere and

and in

time,

all

We may have much knowledge and but not education without cess

of

When

and apply

conscious this

and more

conscious this

(technically "ratiocination"), scribe

even learning,

this constructive pro-

The more

imagination.

construction, the better

student.

is

useful for the called thought

which we

this

may

remarkable process, which we

There

is

such a large individual

ference in people that

two who

it

is

But none the

same statements less

we may take

example a musical theme, or a simple melody

commonly

called a tune; heard once, in

case, this

is

bits,

dif-

scarcely possible to

will agree to the

as to the facts. for an

in

try to analyze as a type of constructive

mentation.

find

more

deUberate constructive imagination.

It is really a very

well

shall de-

later.

It is interesting to consider a little detail

the

all

probability, mostly subconsciously.

my own

not recalled, save in the smallest

a bit here or there in attenuated form.

But

heard twice or more, then three or four days elapse with total submergence, that all

being heard from the melody.

ously enough,

it

is,

nothing at

Then, curi-

begins to become conscious,

now

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION and then a If

parts,

strain here or there of the air or theme.

hum

then I

101

or play a few strains, the missing

more or

complete, soon appear, but

less

gradually and in fragments, especially

if

I whistle

or play these fragments on some instrument.

Performance of some kind

We

to recall.

have to push the imagination-

The

association.

generally essential

is

process

actual

is

even to automaticity, even to

new tune

it

Obviously

the

If

attractive (a complex quality psycho-

is

logically), there is a distinct

and sing

repetition,

triteness.

it

until

it

has by this

of the effective mind.

tendency to

hum

it

more than tiresome. time become a real part

gets

Then, perhaps more or

less

actively, it sinks into the subconscious aspect of

the mind, having been repeated until tively unpleasant to

have

it is

in consciousness.

posi-

When

a tune has become

so familiar on a basis of pleas-

ure, it tends thus

to repeat itself even to dis-

missal.

It

is

in this

way

that the constructive

imagination works.

This

may be employed

as a useful type of this

form of imagination and from

may

this illustration

we

suggest more details adapted for the process

of learning.

Let us analyze a

what has taken place

in this

little

common

more

fully

experience

HOW TO LEARN

102

(by

learning

of

an

ordinary

constructive imagination)

the

sequence

more or

find six

less

EASILY

musical

of

obvious but yet arbitrarily

chosen elements in this process.

First, there is

impression on the mind, which

is

Second,

it.

we

scious integration, in in the case used as

an

subconscious

therein, or in the nervous system,

state

We

tones.

as

we may

find a process of uncon-

which period (several days

an

illustration) there is

no

awareness whatever of the integrative process that

going on.

is

Third, there

made more

a fragmentary

and the fragments are

flotation into consciousness

then

is

conspicuous by action, and by

a process of conscious

repetition.

Fourth, there

integration

by

fective

be helped by motor performance such

if it

humming,

as

effort;

this is

of conscious familiarity or sixth, there is

Now

more

far

Fifth, there

ef-

on some

is

a stage

even of over-familiarity.

a real mental submersion, the

melody being present then as

all

by

singing, playing the tune

instrument, or whistling.

And

is

real knowledge.

I take it that all matters of

acquirement occurs more or

knowledge,

less in this

same

way, whether the precise learning be that of the Constitution of the United States of America, or

a

list of

the Presidents and their life-data, or the

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION irregular

French verbs, or the rule

103

for finding the

and absurd "rules"

cube-root, or the provoking

(seldom followed) of Latin grammar, or a set of propositions in geometry, or the physiology of the regulation of the body-heat, or the geologic periods,

or the theories of heredity, or what not.

The

process always seems to be in some degree the

same

as in the impression

new melody.

Let us work

our immediate purpose

The

;

—

and

out practically for

it

material to be learned

recollection of a

is

read through once

or twice, but, being relatively difficult, sciously

learned.

The

is

not con-

point here,

practical

is

the importance of concentrated attention on the

more

difficult

and arbitrary material

in a subject

of study, in order to impress the brain

more vigorously. too, as has

been

all

the

Retention would often be aided said,

by doing

this

study with

some emotional tone, preferably one of great determination or of enthusiasm, even anger;

not worry, a form of

The mind,

fear.

finding the material consonant

its acquisition expedient, works

within

itself

but more or

contents of the mind. of this interval

is

but

it

less also

The

obvious

:

—

and

over, not only

with the former

practical

"moral"

the value of review.

HOW TO LEARN

104

EASILY

which reinforces the impression on the brain. Another moral worry,

is

— implying

peace of implicit

mind and absence in

trust

the

of

sub-

conscious fusion-process of the mind.

Fragments here and there

we

ness, so that

are reminded that the

working on them, and thus should learn

float into conscious-

to attend to

is

kept at

mind

is

We

it.

our "subconscious", our

"oversoul."

At the next attempt

at learning (whether

a few hours away or a few days),

what we

conscious study, and

call

tegration easier than before. material to be learned,

and

liberately

carefully

confidence in the

we

Going over

after

once

it

be

effort is used,

find inthe

same

a few days, deor

twice,

lends

mind by showing that processes

are helping which are

unknown

to the student at

the time.

The

stint is

of the fact.

expression ductive,

then learned and we are conscious

Here work, and

— work on

making

it

especially

the material,

is

motor

very pro-

thus thoroughly familiar by

the instinctive pleasure of creation, of learning,

and on the physiologic of habituation. the material in

principles of imitation

and

The importance of working

over

some motor way (usually writing

it

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION or talking

to

it

comes out here

The

one,

if it

be only to ourselves)

also the importance of repetition.

then "forgotten", or so-called

is

but in reality

mind

in the

required, or is

;

material

forgotten; is

some

105

it is

truly learned

and

in the best possible

form for use as

when by chance the

association-cue

given.

Such are some

of the practical hints

may be

easy learning which

toward

suggested even in a

process as abstract as the constructive imagi-

The reader can do

nation.

similarly for other

learning-processes, but this or something similar is

the standard modus operandi of the learning

mind, at least when working on all series of facts

and

principles.

The

less arbitrary

difficult

and more

interesting the material, the easier this mental

process

is

principle.

and the simpler, although the same This

is

the process sometimes

as the association of ideas,

analyze

it

a

little

in

known

and we may try to

better in the light of the actual

association of the actual tune offered as a type.

A

practical point

may be

noted here.

If

the

desired thought or relation or whatever else be

the kind of associational process desired cannot

be produced by a few minutes of really concentrated

effort, it is

not

scientific to try further

HOW TO LEARN

106

EASILY

at that time without a break in the mental effort.

We

should rather await a brain refreshed by a

little

and helped by the subconscious

rest

in-

tegrative actions that are pretty sure to be set

going

by the conscious

When

the problem

later in the

is

effort

already

made.

taken up consciously again,

hour or the day or the week, the chance

of success, other things equal, will

be much im-

proved and that without risk of uneconomical Moreover, there

fatigue.

is

in this constructive

learning such a thing as absolute block of the will,

— else of course there would not be the em-

pirical, definite limitation

of ingenuity

and

in-

I recall an instance in which William

vention.

James, master in constructive thought, showed just this

phenomenon before a small

philosophy,

— he

said,

of strenuous effort, that

to

work out that

after

class

in

a minute or two

he had tried repeatedly

particular thought, but that

he could not advance his construction beyond a certain relatively incomplete stage.

Imagination of the thinking kind tends to

make cative.

more "massive" and so more eduMassiveness makes them easier to real-

ideas

ize in their actual

imaginable.

meaning; in

this case

more

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION The next ination

is

topic in regard to constructive imag-

the matter of complexes of mental units.

Knowledge

in

some way

is in

mental integrations.

of

107

the mind in the form

Morton Prince terms

"dormant ideas", but obviously some sense or other although not yet

these

physiology. relations

clear to

These mental units have dynamic

which they and the nerve-energy have

common,

in

units in

so that "ideas", especially

when

col-

ored by a definite feeling-tone, have an inherent

impulse to interaction.

made by

Therefore an effort should be student in

all

ways to

(1) as numerous;

permanent; and

(4) as

possible.

and

(2) as

is

The

make

complex;

(3) as active;

(5) as generally useful, as

process of so making

them

is effort,

at once imagination, thought, association,

and remembering combined.

make

the

these complexes,

Now,

(1)

we can

these complexes of the mind, these dormant

ideas or units of mental process,

more numerous

by taking notes, by observation, by thinking; in short by all the common modes of acquiring new concepts or ideas, or by

by

reading, talking,

expressing them. (2)

We

tically the

can make them more complex by prac-

same means.

HOW TO LEARN

108 (3)

EASILY

We can make them more active (a) by includ-

ing in the complex an emotion or a f eeUng.

constructive complexes in the

more active

also

by

stinctive or personal,

These

mind may be made

(b) developing interest, in-

and

(c)

by

association with

material which already has interest or emotional

tone for us.

William James has emphasized this

last essential fact in his

He

that

says

itself,

"any

may become

"Talks with Teachers."

object not interesting in

interesting through

becoming

associated with an object in \»?hich an interest It was likewise foimd by Pavlov and more recently by Watson at Johns Hopkins

already exists."

University (as discussed in the previous chapter) that there

is

no assignable limit to the

ness of the association that

made

the

in

nervous

shown

system.

same

arbitrari-

"artificially"

Nerve-surgery

thing, for, as has

been

in practice, a cut sensory nerve

may

suggests precisely the

often

may be

be sutured even to a motor nerve stump and the sensory essential

function

sometimes return in

completeness.

end to the power

all

its

There seems to be no

of association or of adaptation

possible in the nervous system, especially in its

more (4)

liquid gray-matter.

Permanency

of the

mental units or com-

:

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION plexes

may

be reached best by way of

tional tone; (b)

relationships

;

(d)

(a)

emo-

by the richness of the recorded by the intensity of the personal

(c)

when the perception first by the frequency of review

attention

and

109

;

takes place; these

among

other means, (5)

units

The is

of

utility

the mental complexes or

reached automatically by the mere avoid-

ance of thoughts and the type,

problems

and

like of the

which

theories

Scholastic

have no

deeper reality or basis in fact than the chance relationships of pure ideas, which often in reality

are only verbal quibbles.

For the most part, we

should think of and discuSs real problems with

some really

—

human applications, and human man or woman, too.

really

with some

Originality, ingenuity, grace, skill are terms for

various phases of the productive and efficient constructive imagination. lacks these

is

not educated.

the previous chapter, ination.

We may

becoming able ination,

even

A man

is

or

woman who

Skill, as

we saw

suggest a working rule for

in this line of constructive if

it

in

a kind of potential imag-

imag-

be in almost slang terms

Get posted; get energetic; get interested; get busy;

and TRY.

And

keep on trying.

In any

intelli-

HOW TO LEARN

no gent

mind trying develops

EASILY own personal how to improve

its

method, and we cannot be told

these methods in the subconscious mind.

Habit

makes it easier and easier to remember, and more and more productive as well as easier. Constructing and the general use of the constructive imagination itself

becomes after a while in

(something too of delight which

we always

have ready at hand) a vast pleasure and

delight.

Not only

willing,

is

in ideation

but in feeling and

the mental activity worth cultivation for

own

sake,

and

like virtue

and beauty

it is its

its

own

reward. Feeling-imagination lends emotional tone to

the mental process and so gives

it delight,

least satisfaction, as well as power.

be seen readily in poetry and in music.

or at

This

may

We have

discussed already the stheneuphoric index.

It

means simply that we expend more energy in doing things which we enjoy doing than in those which are unpleasant to portance of this matter

us.

is

The

practical im-

our excuse for

its fre-

quent mention. Imagination

is

at once a

most practicable and

a most valuable educative process.

and

scientific

research

Invention

would be improductive

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION without

One

it.

111

of the greatest pathologists of

recent times, Paul Ehriich, "discoverer" of Salvarsan,

spoke of his chemical imagination as

Here some

his "greatest asset."

may

my

of

readers

suggest to themselves that the use of the

imagination leads to what has been once and forever abandoned out of science and education as the deductive method.

constructive imagination

a

is

But the use

of the " not deduction ", not

dogma or

fitting of science to belief or to

opinion, but

is

sound and biologic method of In using

scientifically

structing a theory,

we

one's

willing to

promptly;

the only danger

throw

Examples are innumerable of

error.

The

ination

is

trial

it

indispensable

shown

error.

imagination, conIf not,

aside frankly lies

in

and

obstinacy.

of the great produc-

common method

this

and

first sees if it fits.

we must be

tiveness

mere

to

rather an elaborate case of the

of trial

employment

and

of imag-

in the planning of the Atlantic

cable, the telegraph, the wireless, the telephone,

the electric

light,

submarines;

others could not have

come

these and

many

into existence without

a preliminary activity of creative imagination. Theories,

hypotheses, philosophies,

possible without

it.

Imagination

is

are

all

at once

im-

more

HOW TO LEARN

112 useful

sidered

EASILY

and more used than in

educational

commonly con-

is

No

theory.

knowledge

can be made our very own without this creative process, often called "assimilation" to the con-

tents of the mind.

abstracting

is

Summarizing, reviewing, and

a practical and mechanical process Better

using the constructive imagination.

of

still

in the process of using our

best advantage

that

we have

is

memory

to the

thought, thinking things over

just learned

;

there can be no true

education without the essentials of this process, for

it

means

self-reliance,

independence,

even

manhood and womanhood. Thought over a study-topic tends, by association, to go beyond the original limits of the assignment as learned;

and

this is

Thus

pure imagination.

it

becomes

the basis of initiative, of ingenuity, and of originality, of all true creation.

The creation

of diagrams

and

illustrations is using

the imagination to a great advantage; process

The

is

and the

art in the making.

constructive imagination

may be

aided in

and consciously and deUberately developed by many proper means. In childhood it may be

fact

developed by the reading or hearing of fairy stories

"Swiss Family Robinson," and

all

such books;

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION later

on by the reading

Land

of

113

books as "The Fairy

Thomson's "Wonder

of Science,"

histories of discoveries, Sir

of Life,"

OHver Lodge's

presi-

dential address on continuity, the novels of Jules

Verne and H. G. Wells

by talking with fanciful and imaginative persons and often by an active ;

;

process of deliberate revery.

Another mode by which the creative imagination

may

be developed

cabulary, our

list

is

of

the enlargement of our vo-

words and the habitual use of

these idea-handles in writing. to

new

associations.

the dictionary

is

not used nearly so

should be for easy learning;

due to muscular

New

terms lead

In general, as we shall

its

much

disuse

is

see,

as

it

largely

not to mental indif-

laziness,

ference.

The

third kind of imagination which

tioned was the organic imagination.

we men-

This

may

be termed the influence of the mind over the body, suggestion, and this to

all

nowadays.

is

a very familiar word

Suggestion and

are strong and important processes

its

similars

in education.

Ordinarily our interests are unrealized and our best capabilities wholly unknown.

Millions of

indigent and neglected children are thus handi-

capped.

The playgrounds, camps, and the

like

HOW TO LEARN

114

EASILY

develop this knowledge, or at least show

do

The

so.

basis of organic imagination

is

how

to

strictly

a physiologic process, and I state each year with

more and more emphasis, the servation direct and

result of

much

ob-

otherwise, that there is

no

assignable limit to the voluntary control of the body.

This matter

may be

extended to the intellectual

subjects of education as well as to bodily education

proper.

Ideas that are inherently meaningful in reason;

human

or that are massive, full of detail (for

example, laboratory work and direct observation) or that are especially striking because of contrast-effects or

from other conditions, exert the

most suggestive influence and are thus the richest educationally and stimulate the imagination most.

None is

the

less,

the use of the organic imagination

perhaps more hygienic and ethical than nar-

rowly educative. to be well

But

this, too, is

and how to be happy.

education,

how

This invaluable

part of learning, the organic imagination, however practically here.

New

But

we must almost

valuable, all

the

Why Worry

books, and the

Thought, and Christian Science,

mind-cures

and some

psycho-therapeutics,

of

are

the

ignore

really

applications

all

the

scientific

of

the

EDUCATIVE IMAGINATION organizing of the organic imagination.

emotional suggestion which

is

of

much

115

This

is

value to

easy learning.^ • See G. V. N. Dearborn, "The Influence and Company. 1916.

of Joy."

Ldttle,

Brown,

CHAPTER

IV

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE

Many

wise minds have written volumes and

multitudes of wise essays on books and their

For such learning we

use.

may

refer directly to

Bacon, Montaigne, Carlyle, Emerson, and the rest

— at hand everywhere.

gest, in connection

But

I wish to sug-

with this matter of learning,

that the choice of books, both of textbooks indirectly

and

test, in itself,

of other kinds

and a

more

criterion in a

way

lihood of becoming well educated eral educability.

directly, is

—

of our gen-

Nothing gets our range more

quickly than our choice and use of books. lionaires

a

of our like-

Mil-

sometimes furnish the library of a new

home with books bought by

the linear shelf-

yard and, next to their space, think most of bindings.

But, as they, perhaps, finally

realize, there is

no known subtle influence passing

their

from an idea printed in a paragraph of a book to the subconscious

mind

of a near-by person 116

how-

!

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE may

ever great

117

be his desire to learn, or how-

ever closely surrounded with such printed symbols of ideas

The

he

may be

transfer

from the printed page to the cortex

means long and continuous unnumbered days and nights

of the brain

labor,

years of

of

it,

There cannot be a rule books.

Some books

their

for the actual study of all

require concentrated atten-

tion for their mastery, call

and some do

for thoughtful revery running

reading,

it.

not.

Some

along with

and some demand concentrated

attention ^to the books' ideas themselves,

if

the

reader would become really learned.

The amount

of time actually spent

on some

lessons in seventy-five classes in the University

Iowa has been reported by Professor Irving King ("School and Society", December 4, 1915). of

Of the 2567 students who answered the questions of the investigator about 61 per cent used one

and

on the particular lesson

as-

a half hours or

less

signments from which the

statistics

Eight per cent used one half hour or per cent three hours or more.

If

were made. less,

and 5

we may take

these figures as average values (and they are the

only available data at present and as far as they

go surely wholly

reliable)

we can judge

fairly well

HOW TO LEARN

118

whether or not we are doing our-

for ourselves

our time, and our money justice in the

selves,

we

effort

habitually put forth in reading or in

studying lessons.

we

lessons,

ages

If

we

are assigning ourselves

can judge roughly from these aver-

whether they are of average traditional

length and properly used.

the attention ing than

is

The concentration

of

far more important to easy learn-

the length of

is

Here

cation. far

EASILY

in the

its

continuous appli-

most certain way

is

quality

more than quantity. Thus Professor King's are more suggestive than really sig-

statistics

any one student.

nificant for

ported case

In any one

re-

might have been that the student

it

concentrated and learned not only faster but better

(as

we

who misused factor

others

shall

see shortly)

six-fold as

much

than another

time.

Still,

this

would seem to be averaged as much as the

and we need not suppose that

harm the

validity of the results.

As a

it

would

practical

point they suggest that one-and-a-half hours is plenty long enough for most students to spend on a lesson. is

more

If either too little or too

likely the latter,

much this

period

according to modern

physiologic ideas.

Despite the necessity of "keeping everlastingly

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE at it"

if

119

one would become really learned, and

the consequent need of using time to the best

advantage, (to the really best advantage) there is

small profit or none at

carrying books

all in

about in the pocket and in the school bag, as we see

many people do,

street cars,

and

in general this

does

it

most

for reading

on the steam

Of course

in other public places.

pure affectation.

is

cars,

Any one who

out of a serious intention of making the

of his

time

is

doing so on a real misunder-

standing, for usually the time

broken

to

is

much

far too

any adequate learning-com-

allow

pensation for the loss of rest of the eyes and brain,

and the

even though

woman,

it

loss of observation

be only downtown.

during travel,

Every man,

or child sitting across the aisle, every

dog

intelligent horse or

in sight,

is

a "book" for

study better, under such circumstances, than

most bookbinders have ever put together. fore it is idle to try to get knowledge out in a

Thereof

books

haphazard way, in distracted periods, each

lasting only a very short time.

"One

thing at a

time and that done well," and in this case only with

full

attention

!

In general the time to read

when we are alone, at least in quiet, with economy we can really make the is

for then

required

HOW TO LEARN

120

EASILY

book-cortex translation and transfer, and

the

let

cortical neurones rustle unafraid.

may make two

For our present purpose we classes of

books

:

textbooks and books which are

usable in this way, and others.

Textbooks are for is

direct, detailed

A

their purpose.

study; that

good textbook contains the

important facts and principles and the greater part of the essential information of the subject

on which

A

treats.

it

with other books,

is

textbook, as compared

very concentrated mind

food, while the other books are usually not con-

centrated.

Real familiarity

with

full

and

authoritative

textbooks is the backbone of educational information

and understanding.

means

liable"

too

Textbooks are our "old

of learning.

much emphasized

lectures

and

This can be scarcely

in these

days of

of other fashionable

tended learning.

The

many

modes

and as we

social

of pre-

intensive use of books

based upon the substantial, old-fashioned tation,

shall see

re-

is

reci-

a student can be very

successful in reciting to himself.

Relatively few

students adequately realize the importance in

the learning-mill of competent textbooks properly used.

:

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE For practical purposes

it is

121

advisable to con-

dynamic relationship between

sider the essential

the four obvious elements of the problem of learning from books

by the intensive study of them. These four elements we may denote as follows (1) the adequate textbook itself. (2) The real desire to learn its facts and its wisdom. (3) The forced and attentive study under the requisite pressure, great or small. (4) The transfer to the brain, and the associative process of interweaving with the knowledge and the wisdom already

—

there.

Of course there

effort.

When

its strongest,

is

every grade of learning-

the effort based on interest

is

at

the outlines and some details of a

whole new subject

may be

mind in a few weeks or even in a few days. That is to say, this may readily be accomplished by a person who knows how to study, how especially to control his muscles and so to force his voluntary attention fixed in the

along the desired and, therefore, the interesting line of

work.

generalized

Obviously we are back again to

skill,

the universal personal control

over at least the voluntary muscles. times actually surprising to observe

a

new

It is

how much

subject an active, vigorous boy

an eager, hurried man can learn

someof

or girl or

in a short time.

HOW TO LEARN

122

This "cramming", I suspect,

EASILY is

done in schools

even much more than most teachers realize.

Many

students everywhere almost entirely neglect study

day by day and then by a dynamogenic spurt and sometimes adequately,

learn the whole subject,

and now and then even permanently, within a week or so, or even a few days. In order to accomplish

they have to have this training-

this,

control of mind, which

body. of

how

is

really a training of the

But a student who to study,

how

lacks this knowledge

to steadily force his

mind

for repeated effective periods along hard, because definite,

directions,

cannot accomplish such

tensive acquirement either soon or easily.

in-

Such

students (and the great majority of learners are

must first learn how to study in way; or else use the ordinary traditional method for average students such as the average of this latter type) this

school everywhere provides

Here we are considering the use

of textbooks

by

a student who knows how to make the most of them. This dynamogenic process (the word's"

meaning necessity,

is

obvious)

and

is

is

a pleasure as well as a

widely open to

all.

But few

in-

deed realize that they possess this all-important

power

of rapid

and easy learning from textbooks.

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE

123

and

of transferring the textbooks almost bodily in a short

way

time and for good, into their minds by

of their brains.

The organism, body and

mind, has to be trained to

we may soon by doing

this

it.

call

Forcing the issuewith it

all

our might,

a habit.

This we

Probably

the intensive use of books.

in the long

most

the other hatid,

train ourselves once for all simply :

and by repetition making

may

On

run this

is

not very economical for the

of us, for "it takes a bit

out"

It

of us.

is

not what we can do, but what we can do economically that interests us in education.

It

is

im-

know how much we can do in emergency and to know the mechanism a new chapter in educathereof in part at least portant, however, to us

all

to

;

:

tional science as well as in psychology

and physi-

ology.

Professor

the

W.

B. Cannon and his associates in

laboratory of

physiology of

the

Harvard

Medical School have recently worked out further details of the relations of emotional excitement to ,

energy-expense in a

purpose of learning

non says: "The

way useful for our present how to study. Doctor Can-

close relation

between emotion

and muscular action has long been perceived. As Sherrington has pointed out, Emotion 'moves'

HOW TO LEARN

124 us,

hence the word

sity, it

developed in inten-

impels toward vigorous movement.

vigorous

the

If

itself.

EASILY

movement

of the

.

.

Every

involves also

.

cooperation of the viscera,

noticeable

less

body

especially of the circulatory

and the

respiratory^

The extra demand made upon the muscles that move the frame involves a heightened action of the nutrient organs which supply to the muscles

The researches here reported have revealed a number of unsuspected ways in which muscular action is made more the material for their energy

efficient

!

because of emotional disturbances of the

Every one

viscera.

have been noted

of the visceral changes that

— the cessation of processes in

the alimentary canal (thus freeing the energy

supply for other parts)

;

the shifting of blood

from the abdominal organs, whose

activities are

deferable, to the organs immediately essential to

muscular exertion (the lungs, the heart, the central

nervous system)

;

traction of the heart; effects

of

the increased vigor of con-

the quick abolition of the

muscular fatigue;

the mobilizing of

energy-giving sugar in the circulation;

creased coagulability of the blood; lation of the bronchioles,

Cannon]

— every one

[an in-

and the

di-

both demonstrated by

of these visceral

changes

is

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE making

directly serviceable in

the

125

organism more

effective in the violent display of energy which fear

or rage or pain involve."

Now this

"forcing the issue" through a book in

contest with one's natural inertia, not to say

frankly and truly oftentimes with one's natural or abnormal laziness, also comes to be explained.

This firm and

warm and

vigorous determination

to learn as fast as possible undoubtedly employs,

and gets

its

often perfect success from, just these

same dynamogenic processes. here would be

less

The bddily changes

conspicuous than in acute

rage or fear, but no psychologist can doubt that just the is

same they are

also in action.

(The same

true in other cases, notably worry, only that

here fear acts to depress, as

is its

wont, rather

than to stimulate.) This "learning against time" has been studied

by Doctor G. C. Myers of the Brooklyn Training School for Teachers. The work tested carefully

was the learning

of a list of unrelated words;

twenty-six normal-school girls were given the task, thirteen having all the time they wished to

use and thirteen being required to do the "stunt" in

"Ten of the twenty-four," Myers, "made perfect records, and

nine minutes,

says Professor

HOW TO LEARN

126

EASILY

the imperfect records were, on the whole, about as good as those of the

when the

that

first

This means

group.

knew they had only a

subjects

limited time in which to do the task, almost half

made

perfect records in the time in which a per-

was made by one

of the first group,

working without a time-limit.

Furthermore, one

fect record

know how many

does not

done the task minutes given. twenty-four less

nine

of the ten could

in a shorter

have

time than the nine

In addition, these ten out

made

of

perfect records in five minutes

time than the average time required by the

who made

perfect records in the first test.

Moreover, the second group, though belonging to the

same

class,

was a

little inferior

first

by themmake out a strong argument

in scholastic averages."

selves certainly

to the

These

results

—

everywhere in general corroborated by experience

—

for the

and

advantage of intensive

in doing.

Professor

summarized

"The retention

the

effort in learning

Woodworth,

of

contradictory results is

Columbia University

this question as follows

:

^

—

obtained according as

measured by the saving in re-learning or by

amount

recalled

make

it

desirable to introduce

A paper read before the American Psychological Association in December, 1913. '

:

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE

127

further variations into the study of the above question.

One

variation consists in avoiding the matter of individ-

and examining the learning and retenby the same individual. In one of the experiments reported, an Italian-English vocabulary of twenty pairs of words was to be learned from auditory presentation. After one reading, the experimenter gave the Italian words as stimuli, allowing three to five seconds for each response, prompting and correcting, and so continuing till each correct response had been given once. Overlearning was avoided by dropping each pair from the list as soon as it was learned but after all the responses had been corual differences,

tion of single associations

;

the experimenter read the whole list through once more. After an interval of two to twenty hours, the experimenter again used the Italian words as stimuli, and got the score of correct responses, and also a report of associative aids employed in remembering rectly

given,

any

of the pairs. " Under these conditions, the more quickly learned

pairs were the better retained.

Of the

Thus

pairs learned in 1 reading, 73 per cent were

recalled after the interval.

Of the

pairs learned in 2 readings, 72 per cent were

recalled after the interval.

Of the

pairs learned in 3 readings, 63 per cent were

recalled after the interval.

Of the

pairs learned in 4 readings, 58 per cent were

recalled after the interval.

Of the

pairs learned in 5 readings, 38 per cent were

recalled after the interval.

Of the pairs learned

in

6-11 readings, 27 per cent

were recalled after the interval.

HOW TO LEARN

128

EASILY

"Since the aided pairs (pairs in which the subject saw some relation between the terms or developed some mnemonic to hold them together) were both more quickly learned and better retained than the unaided pairs, the advantage of quick learning probably

But

in this association with aids. story, for

when the unaided

this is

lies

partly

not the whole

pairs are considered

themselves, the quickly learned

among them

retained than the slowly learned;

by

are better

and, indeed, the

quickness or slowness of learning makes more difference to retention where

We

are present.

no aids are present than where they conclude that quick learning favors

and aided learning favors retention each independently; but that the two influences work together, inasmuch as the best aids suggest themselves promptly and promote quick learning." retention,

But does

this speed

conduce also to retention

as well as to time-saving

work

and to mind-training? done remembered?

In other words,

is

Apparently

for this matter of the rapidity

it is,

so

of learning in relation to the retention of the

matter learned. Professor

W. H. Pyle

of the Uni-

versity of Missouri has studied accurately.

summary jects

of

the results reads:

His

"Twelve sub-

were tested for their rate of learning a pas-

sage of easy prose, and for their retention of the

passage after a lapse of twenty-four hours.

The

most rapid learners showed the highest percentage of retention."

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE Here again we are reminded, and

129

forcibly, of

the great importance, for economical learning, of

expending much energy for short periods

at

a time.

This matter can scarcely be too often emphasized as a practical point for easy learning.

Note-taking

just as essential in either the

is

intensive or the extensive use of books as in taking

we would do our learning both well and economically. The process required is some-

lectures,

if

thing like this

— Abstract

:

topic after reading

it

each paragraph or

carefully through twice,

and

own words our own words

write the gist of the abstract, in your so far as possible. will

ing,

Only the use

of

show that we really have abstracted the meanand that we appreciate the sense sufficiently

well to be able to write

inner understanding.

make our

If,

it

concisely out of our

on the other hand, we

abstract of a paragraph or a topic in

words before

us, in those of

the book,

it will

be

apt to degenerate practically into a process of copying, at least to some degree.

After a

little

taking, that

is

more

experience, the

motor note-

that on paper, will be discon-

tinued by most of us for

we

shall

soon have

dis-

covered that the mental part of the process of taking notes has been transferred to our reading

HOW TO LEARN

130

EASILY

In other words, after a

habit.

of this practice

and reading by

we

little

experience

shall find ourselves studying

and note-taking

abstracting

the

method, but without writing the notes save in our

them on the pro-

figurative sense of inscribing

ductive and constructive tablets of our brain. If

we

think

we

try along this line {i.e.,

same

abstract

time.

shall soon learn to

and extend) and read at the and

Note-abstracting

integrating

each paragraph or chapter or topic in the book is,

then, a very fundamental thing indeed, be-

cause in this

way we

symbolically impress on our

brains the gist of the matter in another part of

the brain and also in a wholly different manner.

Another highly important and often neglected practical practice (especially for is the

young students)

systematic use of a dictionary "alongside"

the book which they

are

reading.

general neglect of the dictionary

is

The very

one of the chief

defects of present-day learning methods, in

erature and in science, especially. neglect

is

the cause,

first,

This strange

of the surprisingly small

diction or vocabulary of

which so very many

educators are everywhere complaining.

second place, of

it is

lit-

In the

in part the cause of the lack

power to use good EngHsh.

In the third place.

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE it is

131

partly the cause of the lack of the thinking-

habit, because it terial for

means a lack

the mind's use.

If

of associative

we

ma-

really wish to

develop these three large and basal fractions of

an education, a good vocabulary, a good use of language, and a good thinking-habit, we shall cultivate intimacy with dictionaries, years on end.

As we

we should keep a

read,

list

of the words en-

countered which are not familiar, and effectively familiar, to be looked for and investigated in the dictionary.

The knowledge and mental breadth

thus acquired are rapidly accumulative and bear interest of valuable intelligence

compounded not

only semi-annually but every night while one

Doctor A. A. Berle has expressed

asleep.

in his timely

Home."

"Now

and suggestive "Teaching

it

is

well

in the

1

it

must be reasonably

clear that

to be used in the later education, the to get the ability to read them. training will see to

the choice will

fall

it

first

if

books are

thing to do

is

Therefore the child-

that wherever a choice

upon the word which

will

is

possible

be used in

books, rather than in colloquial assemblies. I think I have said elsewhere that half the children in our high schools cannot read their textbooks, and this is undoubtedly true. Through our entire grade system we *

MofiEatt,

Yard,

&

Company, New York,

1915.

HOW TO LEARN

132

EASILY

when we should be making made even before that, namely in the home. At first sight, this seems like making the home conversation stiff, and void of the vivacity which is said to be the chief charm of nonbookish talk. But my observation and experience lead stick to the colloquial habit

But

the book habit.

me

it

should be

to think that exactly the reverse

versation

is

is

true.

No

con-

so bright, so sparkling, or so enjoyable, as

that which uses words with precision and enables the

thought to play swiftly and with discrimination upon the fine shadows of meaning. Nothing enables one to use quotations with such telling effect. Nothing moves the

mind

reason

to greater expertness or appreciation.

why an

One

had so much purer have, was because the fine

older generation

speech than ours seems to old habit of reading aloud prevailed then, which introduced the reading vocabulary into the area of common

Children heard their elders use not only pure speech but the dialect of knowledge. They gained from hearing poetry and fiction and sermons and classic literature, read at the family fireside, a great instrument of comparison which was a thought-builder, second to conversation.

nothing.

"Obviously, then, intensive training must think first all the time of English, and that not

and foremost and

merely the pure English of popular speech, but the English of books."

The next few years advance along just psychologic wisdom.

will certainly

this line of

This

is

conceptual-efficient education,

develop

much

educational and

the road to true, to

the

essential

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE habit

productive

of

self-reliant

133

The

thought.

place for the student to begin this dictionary-use is

in his textbooks.

The

relation of

and ready use

ample diction

of very

many

(a large

knowledge

words), of thought,

—

and of intelligence is so close these three-inone are so wholly interdependent, that again, for

double emphasis,

it

is

suggested that the

continual use of the dictionary, especially of

an

ample dictionary of synonyms and antonyms,

is

among most

all

modes of educational "bother" among

essential, because directly the

especially for the young.

It

is

the

most productive,

most unfortunate

that our grade-system does not include a deliberate study of the English word-books, since

every

new word

new concept germ of a new

really learned is a

and

in general the ever-breeding

set

of

interwoven ideas

— relating

and

inter-

knitting without end, save as the cortical neurones

cease their associations and grow cold.

As a point

of practice the possession

of printing outfits

and eighteen for several

is

and use

by young people between

eight

of very great educative value

obvious reasons.

(1)

and

This kind of

play-work-study teaches orderliness automatically, for a disorderly printing shop, one in a general pi.

HOW TO LEARN

134

so to say, like the

mind

itself, is

It teaches the nature

(2)

EASILY self-destructive.

and choice

of words,

giving the student an intensive knowledge,

"massive" conception

of those, at least,

a

which he

up laboriously in his composing stick, adjusts the form, and distributes again into their

sets

in

compartments.

now, unfortunately, to some extent out of

(just

fashion) (4)

Printing teaches punctuation

(3)

and more quickly than any other method.

Hand-press work

is

an ideal form of me-

chanics for inculcating close observation, delicate visual

and kinesthetic discrimination by eye and

hand and is

a

fairly

A

finger.

on fundamental laws learns to

most

do

fine

careless

(5)

of physics,

work,

it

and

if

the student

rapidly develops the

and heedless into a person of

discrimination sight.

good hand-printing press

complex instrument, built and operated

touch

of

and

kinesthesia

fine

and

Composition of forms of type in or-

dinary, varied, job-work teaches the

new

printer

harmony and proportion, of emphasis, logical and perceptual, and taste in general which are at the very basis of our modern literary work, particularly in its more practical and comthat sense of

mercial

and

phases.

cleanliness,

(6)

as

Printing well

as

teaches patience

industry

and the

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE principles art, at

of

conducting a business.

once play, work, and study,

is

135

This

(7)

oftentimes

the start of a life-long interest in the publishing

At any

business or in engraving. ticed adequately,

it

gives a

rate,

boy or a

girl

if

prac-

a trade

or even a craft which anywhere might earn

a livelihood at

least.

and an appreciation

Newspaper this

editors

(8)

him

Printing gives a taste

of a well-made book.

(9)

have been developed before

by the production

Twenty type and a

of toy journals.

or thirty fonts of small

and varied

good hand-press, printing say

5X7

inches,

may

be considered, educationally, to be as good an investment for a hundred dollars as can be had; thirty dollars will accomplish the principles of

the same results.

We it is

should have as large a variety of texibooJcs as

This

possible for us to possess.

ment, rather than an expense;

it

is

an invest-

means an

come, not an intellectual or a financial

Most

we would

an important part

insist

on a

are,

of our minds.

If

definite, desirable

textbooks to be owned, the number at three on every subject.

deficit.

They

of these textbooks should be kept.

in a sense,

in-

number

may be

This number

of set

will

give us a considerable variety of points of view on

HOW TO LEARN

136

EASILY

the same branch of learning or the same sciences,

and make

for

wisdom as

well as for knowledge.

we should have

Furthermore,

expedient of collateral reading, all

we can out

for breadth of

as

is

to get

This adds in-

and makes particularly

details,

mind

much

we wish

of our textbooks.

and many

terest

if

as

in the subject

which we are

studying.

For purposes of completeness, and even of comparison with the principles of the present book, it

may be useful

of the ideas of

an

study. feel

(1)

:

The

W.

Wallin, of

requisites of

economic

J.

E.

must at the very outset

child

a definite, specific piypose or need in his study

— not

the vague, general aim to acquire knowl-

edge, culture, efficiency, specific will

Columbia Uni-

of

—

He writes "McMurry finds eight

St. Louis.

on how to study.

earlier writer

M. McMurry, made by Professor

Professor F. versity, as

summary

to have before us also a

power or

skill,

problem in the lesson assigned.

supply a vital interest to energize

calize

but some

and sustain attention;

it

will

This

effort, fo-

transform

knowledge-getting from a mere collecting of facts at

random to a

vant to the

discriminating choice of data rele-

specific

aim

;

and

it will

divert knowl-

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE edge into practical channels.

137

Pupils should

(2)

be taught to organize their reading matter around these leading points, and to subordinate the sup-

porting data in the order of value.

This involves

keeping the central thoughts clearly in mind, the rapid gleaning or neglect of the unessential details,

and the observance

in teaching.

(3)

of a certain procedure

Since the text must treat topics

fragmentarily, require the child to reconstruct

and supplement the text-book treatment by his own ideas and experiences. This requires the use

of

developmental

abundant

details,

instruction,

texts

with

emphasis on reflection as against

verbal repetition, and versatility in methods of reproduction.

(4)

Children should be encouraged

to assume a critical attitude toward what they read,

and to pass independent judgments upon

the credibility of the statements in print, owing to the fact that the latter are often exaggerated, onesided, inadequate or false.

(5)

They should

like-

wise assume an unprejudiced, tentative attitude

toward knowledge, because many

of

our con-

clusions are possibilities or probabilities rather

than established

certainties,

because our

atti-

tudes are so prone to become dogmatic and ultraconservative,

and because children

incline to base

HOW TO LEARN

138

on authority rather than reason.

their opinions (6)

EASILY

Studying also involves memorizing, but

importance has been

It

has been

education,

becoming

educational practice and theory.

made

the pack horse

practically

its

grossly exaggerated in past

of

synonymous with studying, so that

have rebelled against the intolerable

children

drudgery of school

much

usurped too

life.

The

attention,

drill

likewise has

and has been a

cause of educational waste,

prolific

instead of nourishing the child.

stultifying

This chapter,

in contrast with the others, is destructive rather

than

constructive

tendency.

in

(7)

Children

should be obliged to apply the information gained

through study, since use or adaptation to en-

vironment ities

and

is

the end-point of ideas, of the capac-

abilities of

animals and men, of the sub-

ject-matter of any branch of study whatsoever,

and

of all education.

as well as ideas,

This

and can be

is

the goal of ideas

realized not only in

manual and constructive execution but skillful

talking

also in

about the subject-matter.

Lastly, there should be

dividuality in study."

ample provision

(8)

for in-

(These are the most de-

sirably explicit directions for scientific economical

learning which have been published

present time.)

up

to the

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE

A

139

few words regarding books other tlian text-

books, and especially as to their use,

added properly

may be

in this connection, since often-

times these are important factors in our easy

They lend breadth to our education Some books, for example, written for popular sale, have much basal science and philosophy in them because they are often summaries of many other far more fundamental treatises. Most of them are fragmentary, howlearning.

as nothing else can do.

ever, rather than really integrative, their material

being chosen on other than a scientific basis by

some more or

less

incompetent person.

The

reading or at least the acquaintance with the

range and the main theses of numerous current

and older books on subjects studied,

is

a student

allied to that

being

in general quite necessary in order that

may be

A

accurately and wisely oriented

many books

and remain

so.

well read

apt to become a pedant and a crank,

just as a

is

thinker without

bookworm without thought is an

pedia and not a

man or woman at all,

encyclo-

— a passive,

useful vegetable at most.

Many

hard and serious students and scholars,

especially adults, read evenings, or even at other

times, purely for recreation

;

and many high-school

140

HOW TO LEARN

and

college students find time for

EASILY

much

reading

not directly related to their curriculum.

In the

early part of 1916 Professor J. Carleton Bell of

Brooklyn and Itasca B. Swett of the University of

Texas, reported the results of an investiga-

tion

which they had made into

the reading

interests of the high-school students of Austin,

440 of them

:

—

"With the girls, light fiction forms the largest part of voluntary reading. The general tendency is for this to decrease during the high-school period, but a decided fall in

the low tenth grade

is

by a

followed

rise in

the

high tenth and low eleventh. With the boys, books of adventure take the high place occupied by light fiction with the girls. On the other hand, books of adventure

with the girls drop to practically the same position as that held by light fiction with the boys. The interest .

in standard fiction increases with

we go upward through the

.

.

both boys and

grades.

The

girls as

short story

does not hold so high a place as might be expected either

with boys or girls. Its position remains fairly constant through the grades. With the boys, children's books take about equal rank with short stories. With the girls they are much more popular. Their popularity

we advance in the grades, remains about stationary. Biography and essays show a slight increase in popularity with both boys and girls, but they don't take a high rank at any time." with the

girls increases as

while with the boys

it

BOOKS AND THEIE EDUCATIVE USE

141

History, science, and fairy stories were found to be so

little

read that their variations were not

put into the graphic form.

maximum

provides the

and boys

—a

matter

that

numerously and joyously sults

may be

In general, flot

interest

for

both

brain-tired

will confirm.

girls

adults

These

re-

used as norms for the general reading

guidance of young people.

Books

after all are only tools;

are seldom

worn out

;

private books

and second-hand books are

of little sale- value, usually "fetching" only about

ten per cent of their original retail cost, even when

not far from new.

we should

For these reasons and others

not affectedly

make fetishes

of our books,

but rather use them for all they (and we) are worth. It

is

a lot better to "break the back" of a book

by

im-

than to be long bothered in using

it

proper and inconvenient binding.

It is far bet-

ter to its

harm

it

commercially by writing notes on

margins, than to miss the value of these notes

in our learning minds.

We

should

buy good

we can afford them, but if editions. The difference in the print, tions

the

its

if

like, if

edi-

not, cheap

paper, and

the reading-light be good, nowadays

is

not of relative importance for the simple reason that

now type and paper

are

much cheaper and

HOW TO LEAEN

142

therefore better,

EASILY

and that more reprints are made

than in former times.

Most work with books should be done daytime, for usually the nighttime tion

and

We

for sleep.

is

in the

for recrea-

frequently see a student

try to read (as well as to sleep) with a strong light

This

shining directly or indirectly into his eyes.

matter

of great importance, because a strong

is

light shining directly into the eyes irritates the

brain,

as

forenoon

well

is

(that which early night

the

as

eyes

The

themselves.

the best time for the best book work, is

is

original

and

intensive) but the quiet

a good time also.

It

well always

is

to insist on a good light behind the reader

and

not in front, unless the eyes be shaded by some-

kind of really opaque shade

— the

lucent or transparent green shade

A

direct,

most

unshaded

eyes.

A

is

usual trans-

not opaque.

electric light is too bright for

good kerosene lamp or two gas

flames (a naked flame and a mantle-flame mixed) is

much

better than direct electricity

electric light reflected

in

most cases such

from the light

is

;

strong

ceiling is ideal,

but

not suflBciently in-

tense for easy reading.

A

note-book should be near by,

reading,

provided

we wish

"handy",

really to

in all

learn the

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE and learn

book,

read the preface

should

and usually the introduction

of

may be

to

a book (however contrary

common

We

economically.

it

;

143

this advice

because the preface and the

habit),

introduction together usually orient us, set us going aright,

and

wise

sure to be aroused during the reading of

is

the book.

will satisfy that curiosity

If

our impatience positively cannot

be withstood, do by

two at the disturb the

all

means look a second or

may

last chapter, so that curiosity

mind any

We

further.

look over the table of contents, sary index, so that

better what,

if

we may know at

where we are in the book.

know

which other-

if

not

should always

not the necesall

times about

Then, too, we

shall

anything, to "skim", and of

what to lay permanent

hold.

In general, we

should be warned against skimming a book unless

we

are certain in advance that the

serves to be skimmed. of inattention;

This

is

book

really de-

essentially a habit

but, on the other hand, some-

times our attention can be used just in this

way

to the best advantage, 'provided we acquire the habit of picking out rapidly, as

essence of a page.

we skim,

This procedure

is

the real

allied

to

the process of abstracting, already considered. Certainly

much time

is

wasted in the slow reading

HOW TO LEARN

144 of every

word

EASILY

of certain books;

there are books

and books.

Remember

some

to represent

least,

We

that a book intends, most often at sort of a set of ideas.

should take this for granted anyhow, and

make

it

our sole business as a student in reading

the book to pick out these vital ideas.

essentially

means comprehension,

prisingly easy

;

yet

it

must be done,

Since this is

it

not sur-

since nothing

pedagogic will replace practice and careful training in this important matter. at

first

The young student

reads or studies a book, equally, from the

beginning to the end, putting the same amount of

time and

effort

on each page.

never works that way, outside of

But the mind books As we !

walked down the street yesterday looking in the attractive

windows our minds did not spend so

much time on some others;

things along the

at camp, last

made up our

way

summer, certain

on

as

salient

particular mental day,

and

no other camper's day as an unit was just

like

points

ours;

each one's experience

human

different for each

is

soul.

unique;

Our mind's

sociations, our needs, our interests,

should points.

select

Thus

what it

is

for us are the

in reading.

Ufe

is

as-

and so on,

most

salient

Francis Bacon

!

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE "Some books

familiarly says,

others to be swallowed, and

145

are to be tasted,

some few to be

di-

gested ", and more and more, with the ever-swelling and boundless tide of published books, old dictum appropriate.

We

is

this

each buy a copy of

the same elaborate book, printed from precisely the

same It

types, yet your

means more or

means to me

book

is

never like

less or differently

my book

to you than

it

and its meanings for its readers are Your books are not my books, although they be materially identical. They are not the same simply because your mind is unlike mine. Thus it is that in every book there are many ;

itself.

books for

many

get ours out of

minds.

every book

learn in reading

individual

words,

we should

should try always

we

read.

We

to

should

and studying to pick our own

"book" out

for ourselves,

We

of a volume.

In other

learn to note the part that

is

and learn not to waste time on those

parts of a book that are not for us, whether be-

cause familiar or incongruous.

Learn to read a book without reading on

the

Learn to get more than a quarter of it With the enormous number of the meat out books that are of real importance, no other method average

!

!

in

truth

is

feasible;

for

economical learning

HOW TO LEARN

146

nothing in the long run

is

more

the intensive, method.

this,

EASILY essential

than

Learn to abstract,

learn (as reviewers have to do) really to

become

famihar with the most of a bopk without undue

my

In

loss of

time

gist of

many new and

!

reviewing work, I learn the variously difficult books in

the course of a year, but (save exciting detective stories or novels) I read every

half a dozen.

The

We

of scarcely

training-road to this goal

abstracting a paragraph

a chapter by a page

word

is

by a sentence and then and so on to the end.

of notes

should be careful not to write into om- notes

of a

book our own ideas which have been suga

common

A few words as to periodical literature.

To-day

gested to us by the reading;

bad habit learning

of

is

this is

young students. slow and old-fashioned which does

not include at least a few of the special technical magazines.

Elementary study requires these as

collateral reading;

them

for

tion,

and to

and advanced study requires

advanced information and relate to ourselves

for integra-

the status of

public opinion and taste.

The importance

of bibliographies to students

can

scarcely be overestimated, because the knowledge of the

name and

title of

a volume or of an

article

—

!

BOOKS AND THEIR EDUCATIVE USE is

often the next-best thing to

Knowledge

session. essential,

its

147

actual pos-

of the available libraries

and the proper way

them

of using

is is

wholly necessary to the really progressive student.

Next

to really

first,

that

knowing a good book,

it exists,

very often this

is

is

to know,

second where, and third,

enough

All these factors of book-use count not only in

themselves, but also as indirect means of keeping

the

less

conscious parts of the

mind on

its

task of

arranging and pushing your scholastic work.

CHAPTER V YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

The

ordinary supposition

among educators

among the business-men

well as

of the world is

that the "thinker" of the average student not in order.

This,

we

"take"

all

as

is

it,

is

one of

the deepest of the objections to the present educational

system

— that

does not teach stu-

it

A

dents to think for themselves.

man knows how

truly educated

to think, and, moreover, he has

the process habituated and, therefore, in easy It

action.

is

said with truth that the present

school system does not educate as yet in this sense at

a

As a school-boy

all.

ker,

"I

bit,

am

but I haven't time.

things I learn to-day

Compare with that

said to Sir Gilbert Par-

sick of information;

of

Professor

University

"Any

this

:

—

I'd like to think

It's

stuff

me

with

and forget to-morrow."

remark

of a

gamin

John Dewey,

of

in

London

Columbia

examination of the prevailing modes of 148

YOUR "THINKER"

IS

IN ORDER?

149

show that the mere bulk of matter in books and lectures tends to swamp the native and active interests operative

instruction will

communicated

and

in intelligent behavior

ship

it

brings.

There

this

in the acquaintance-

matter remains un-

assimilated, unorganized, not really understood. It stands

on a dead

level, hostile to

the selective

arrangement characteristic of thinking."

These quotations express the opinion of "thoughtful" students, and this condition

same

A

the

in the school systems of the whole world.

dictionary has facts

and aplenty, but only

man

has thoughtful reason. Read Emerson on " SeK-Reliance

"To

is

all

believe your

you

own

",

—

thought, to believe that what

your private heart is true for all men, that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within more than the lustre Yet he disof the firmament of bards and sages. misses without notice his thought, because it is his. is

true for

—

in

HOW TO LEARN

150

EASILY

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienGreat works of art have no more ated Majesty.

than this. They teach us to by our spontaneous impression with goodhumored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of affecting lesson for us

abide

Else to-morrow a stranger is on the other side. say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be voices will

shame

forced to take with

own

oiu"

opinion from

another."

The reform

of the school

system in this respect,

that annual $ 800,000,000 system,

many

years, but

regard in a

self in this

to think,

—

:

Every one for

no

a matter of

and "learn himself" more or

manner, indeed, he order

is

may reform himfew weeks. He may learn

an individual

may

of us has

keep

his

some kind

less in this

"thinker" in

of a "thinker,"

really feeble-minded person, probably, is

reading this advice, and certainly no idiots these last

some atonic

by

definition

have no "thinkers."

cases our "thinkers"

and

small,

and not

But they may be developed them.

— In

may be said to be much use now.

of if

we

vnll to

develop

(These are the "thinkers" of the rela-

tively stupid people.)

In some cases our "thinkers" are well de-

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

151

veloped, but rusty and creaky and dried out; these need a thorough cleaning and oiling and

vigorous use.

(These are the lazy students.)

In some cases the "thinkers" have parts which are likely to break

down

at

any moment.

(These

are the illogical minds and the guessers.)

In some

(in

most) cases our "thinkers" are

but have the uncertain and

normal,

action of newness;

diflBcult

they are not used nearly

enough to make them run smoothly they should be cleaned with determination first of all, then ;

and energy.

oiled with intelligence

(These are

the average minds.)

To adopt

a more biological metaphor, unused

"thinkers", like

all

the other organs, tend to

atrophy, and fibrosis or sclerosis result of inadequate action. it is

as delightful as

it is

On

is

the neglectful

the other hand,

useful to take systematic

and so to become a strong or perhaps

exercise

even an intellectual athlete.

But how few

of

the vast, hurrying, heedless throng of adolescents

and

of

men and women can be made

to realize this

product,

is

!

a continual delight, and

essential process in the

factors

of

effectively

Yet the process, as well as the it is

the most

mind's whole action.

The

education are more numerous than

HOW TO LEARN

152

many

EASILY

suppose, and each one requires thought

and teaches thought

:

— the

home, the schools,

books, our assofciates, our vocation, the stage, travel,

the

church

the

state,

— learning

a

is

process of reaction to each of these.

All nine

factors contribute material for learning

which

is

valuable more or less in proportion to the thoughtfulness

act

and

which

activity with

on the learning mind.

is

a process

and develops in quality

of activity of personality,

and quantity

allowed to

it is

Learning

in proportion equally to the indi-

vidual's inherent fitness

and to the richness

effective environment.

Thought

or a part of it is like

stands for

and

fuel

—

it

INITIATIVE

reaction

is this

an active receptivity;

is

the heat coming from a

and

oxygen

This

it.

of his

is

fire arising

inevitable.

from

Thought

based on understanding

originality.

Girl-

and women-readers must

thinking process their

minds

feminine. clusions",

in

is

less explicit

proportion

as

realize that this

and conscious

The feminine mind "jumps at conhas intuitions, as we say. Intuition

has important educational bearings in the rection of If

in

they are really

economy and easy "learning."

we may

di-

^

trust for educational purposes our

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

common and wide who write

general experience and the

experience of numerous fiction,

there

is

denying that live

and

real,

life

now no

this

observers

acceptable reason for

popular concept, intuition,

and worthy,

is

therefore, of at least a

Some

brief scientific discussion. gists

153

and educators, certain

bolder psycholo-

of the vast educational

importance of "the subconscious", the subsensory aspects of mind, go further and maintain

that intuition

is

more

characteristically feminine

than masculine. In general,

it is

one of the

silent mysteries of

mind why psychology does not more

rapidly study

the tertiary sexual characteristics.

It

is

possible

that some would maintain that this bottomless crevasse of sex, which so completely divides the entire living world into

plementary halves,

does

two opposite yet comnot extend into the

peaceful animistic realm of mind.

however, I do not believe

it,

For my* part,

for I see, unless

my

vision be in vain, a forbiddingly large fraction

removed from the human nature which we psychologists crave to understand were sexual mental differences

smoothed out by some

titanic

and

inchoate "drive" of some futuristic suffragism,

omnimilitant in

its

powers.

At any

rate our

HOW TO LEARN

154

present contention

is

EASILY

that feminine intuition

fact in need of study as

is

a

an aid in economical

learning.

In the briefest possible terms, too concise, indeed, to be thoroughly scientific,

perhaps has as nature

—

A

(1)

seems that intuition

it

inherent character a fourfold

its

delicate

and

ill-realized affect or

feeling-tone anent the intuited situation;

more or

(2)

a

accurate process of comparison and

less

inference, usually not at all consciously appre-

ciated;

(3)

an understanding

much wisdom. And

of the causal situ-

ation, often with

acuteness and with far-

reaching

(4)

an

effective instinct

to trust the impression thus presented in the

mind, the instinct in the adult already being long habitual.

At the base then

of intuition stands solid

strong the appreciation of motivity, pretation of

human

purpose,

an

and

inter-

an habitual and

therefore automatic tendency to put ourselves in another's place, to

our very

own

as

if

make

his

they were

problems as

so.

much

Oftentimes, of

course, the situation involves the motivation of

numerous persons, not alone

of one, or

an im-

mediate comprehension even of a whole "social consciousness"

itself.

The

educational quintes-

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

155

sence of the intuitional process seems to be most

always an appreciation of motivity, of cause, but

more

when

typically

others than

in

when

in

ourselves.

Accepting Professor H. C. Warren's factors of purposiveness sent,

(forethought or anticipation, as-

the

potency-feeling,

self-notion,

and the

we may the appreciation by

sense of fitness) as adequate and keen,

claim that intuition involves

the intuiter of the potential purposive activity of the intuitee

(if

we may

for convenience use

such terms), the very essence of which activity

is

given to the former in ill-appreciated but none the less real adaptive, that

— the index

again of motor

feels, in short,

toward

demands on her part; for

perience basis)

occur —

as,

kinesthetic, terms

skill.

The

intuiter

the action, the behavior which the

other's attitude

consciously)

is

his

environment properly

and she takes

it

(sub-

granted (on an hereditary-exthat the natural behavior will

barring

caprice,

it

will.

Women,

no more than men, have clairvoyant powers (so far as science is sure) on any basis other than that of their

own

personal or inherited experience.

This experience seems to be adaptive, that

is

for

psychology, predominantly kinesthetic and motor.

HOW TO LEARN

156

EASILY

This kinesthetic motor criterion on which a

may

person

grasp

intuitively

an

"ejective"

(personal) situation would seem to account for

the emotional tone in the recognition, and

more surely

for the understanding of its personal

nature — two It

factors.

still

of our four suggested intuitional

may be

properly supposed not to

account for the third factor, an ill-appreciated

The

process of reasoning.

fourth factor, the habit

of confidence in the intuitive process, does not,

likewise,

need further explanation; however im-

portant,

it is like

But

it is

habituation elsewhere.

worth noting for educative purposes,

that the entire intuitional product,

is

affair,

save for

one of the highest possible

its

intelli-

gence and at the same time typically subconscious. Certainly

by the

fostering of its elementary

ponents — sense-discrimination,

com-

comparison,

the

simple feelings, understanding, the habit of tening it

to

one's

— intuition

over-soul,

is liable

as

Emerson terms

to development

the aid of life-efficiency;

it is

lis-

much

to

a possible element

of training for easy learning.

Intuition, then, total

situation

of

and the comprehension whatsoever

motive, which intuition implies,

sort is

in a

of

a

involving

way and

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

157

in a degree a real criterion of real intelligence in its

most

significant values.

From

this

deep way

of looking at the matter, the feminine

mind

is

more evolved, more intelligent, in short, than is the mind of the male. Obtuseness stands for relative lowness of

human-grade or

for abnormality;

which mind

intuition for a high degree of that especially

meant to

and the furtherance considerations

deserves far

serve

— the

is

safeguarding

of the individual.

From such

would appear that intuition

it

more study and consideration than

thus far has been accorded to psychologists.

It should

schools as a class experiment, logical laboratories as

it

by educational

be studied in the grade

a topic

and

in the psycho-

fertile in substantial

product. Incidentally

it

should rejoice every schoolboy

Land and Everyman that the biologic source of our very being, womanhood, undoubtin the

edly

is

the richer of the two sexes in this intuition,

this useful criterion of our

common human

always divine intelligence.

Is not this richness

a measure in a way of woman's superior ligence?

Women

and

girls

relatively

yet

intel-

do not

reason in the bald cold method of comparison,

but their

intellect

"gets there just the same".

HOW TO LEARN

158

EASILY

man

often better indeed than that of

with his

For

technical but mechanistic reason.

logic is

only a thin and cold echo of the deep voice of

human

the rich

Women

intellect.

have always

instinctively trusted to the products of the sub-

conscious thought in their souls.

So have

philos-

ophers of the highest rank, for example Emerson.^

A

recent example of the latter class

Poincare,

recently dead,

mathematics, an astronomer, a well

and thinker

medical journal

An

philosophy.

in ^

Henri

is

a great discoverer in

discusses at

known

editorial

some length

writer in a

his use

of thought in the subconscious mind, in part as

follows

"The

:

—

question

interesting.

how so great a mind works is extremely how he

Poincare has told the story of

reached his great discovery of the Fuchsian functions. It was not reached all at once, but by several steps.

The first and most important development came to him one evening when, contrary to his custom, having taken a cup of black coffee at dinner, he could not sleep and the idea of this new mathematical mode took form little by little under these unusual circumstances. The problems which were involved came clearly before his

mind and seemed too '

in

The author has

an

difficult for solution

further

suggested

article in the Psychological Review,

the'

;

so gradually

nature

XXIII,

of

6, 1916.

^Journal Am. Medical Assoc., LIX, 18, 2 Nov., 1912.

intuition

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

he put them away and succeeded in falHng successive steps of the solution

came

159

The him subse-

asleep.

to

quently, not as the result of deliberate study of the problems, but long afterwards and under most diverse circumstances, at moments when he was not thinking about them. They came to him as flashes of light, almost inspirations, as

it

were,

— once when he was just about

to put his foot on the step of an omnibus, again

when

he was crossing a boulevard, a third time in the midst of a geologic excursion with some friends, when the conversation was about ordinary subjects and had no relation at

all

to mathematics.

"Ordinarily mathematics at least

is supposed to be eminently intellectual and its developments are connected by the most rigid logic. It might be expected, then, that it would be only in the midst of deep thinking, even absorption of mind in mathematical subjects, that great new ideas would come; but Poincare believed that it was a subconscious mind that solved the problems. His explanation of this, which resembles that so often heard with regard to the inspiration of the poet or the musician, is that certain thoughts are passing through the unconscious mind all the time, and that, as in day-dreaming, we are never without groups of thoughts. Whenever one of these thoughts proves to be a partictilarly beautiful or strikingly novel concep-

some kind it attracts the attention of the conmind and then is retained. According to Poincar6's experience, then, like poetry and music, the sciences, including mathematics, owe their development not to the rational conscious mind so much as tion of scious

to the unconscious and involuntary faculties. There would seem to be a tireless force in man, a part of him

HOW TO LEARN

160

and yet not a part

EASILY

of him, working, thinking, develop-

which brings to the conscious entity, man, his best thoughts and discoveries. Poincare, for all his genius, was a sane and simple father of a family; he hin^self ing,

taught his four children."

This the

is

an example of subconscious thought in

constructive

which we have

process

dis-

cussed in our third chapter as the constructive "Stop, look, and listen I" to your

imagination.

own minds.

This

is

one secret

of learning to think

— one

which women, heaven bless 'em, have

known

instinctively

all

along.

by

conscious "thinker" going

permanent intention, and then it

now and then by Let

portunity.

us

Set your

deliberate, fixed,

listen I

actively giving

stop

the

sub-

Encourage it

full

op-

over-stuflfing

of

our minds, and thus give them every possible

We

opportunity to work. coal to get heat

from

it,

feed a furnace with

but some schools and some

individual minds are forever putting facts into

the mind but never providing place or time to use them.

If

thought be "the loved one" (as

it

might well become by association) the familiar quotation

is

very apt,

much

to the discredit of our

present educational system:

— "Never

the time

and the place and the loved one altogether!"

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

The

nature

thought

of

Thought

attention.

receive

shotild

161 brief

not revery, musing, fancy,

is

day-dreaming, although most so-called thought

a loose

just this,

notions or fancies. of

True thought

human

the nature of the

is

a more or

less

passive revery, for

expenditure of force,

as

it

important element of thought

tremely simple

:

stuff" than

involves the

is

The most

reasoning, al-

In principle, reasoning

are of value too.

it is

more

and other processes

association,

recall,

is

the psychological es-

sence of humanity well might do.

though

intimately

reason;

more productive, "sterner

precious,

is

associated train of ideas or

is

ex-

but a comparison of things

and then an inference from

the comparison,

what

Lloyd Morgan has strikingly called "thinking the therefore."

judgments

We

;

Thought, then, consists of two

a comparison, and an inference.

might

perhaps

develop

capability of intensive thinking in

tice

thought

these

several

somewhat the

by

actual prac-

mental processes.

as a series of efforts

Since

(we are not discussing

revery, which often certainly masquerades even in

good company,

name

of

thought)

under consists

the

better-sounding

of

two deliberate

(although perhaps subconscious) judgments, their

HOW TO LEAEN

162

careful discrimination,

EASILY

and then

their comparison,

we

with the essential, extraneous, mental process

term inference following,

it

not unlikely that

is

thinking of the more 'logical and mechanically

productive kind would be furthered by the dedevelopment of

liberate

separately.

(1)

these

powers

intellectual

In practice we might train and

develop our power of judgment by making carefully considered all

and deUcate judgments on

kinds of propositions, thus laying a firm basis

more productive forms

for the (2)

many

We

mental action.

of

by work

might, too, even

as subject of

experimentation in a psychological laboratory or

by

practice

and

effort in

many

other kinds of

place, develop

and

Indeed this

a neglected important function of

is

train our sense-discrimination.

the elementary school, as

we have already empha-

sized, that training of the senses, the

delicate

discrimination,

the

only

power

basis

of

of

ac-

curate judgment and comparison, which last in turn the (3)

fundamental process of the

Development and training

keen and novel inference

is

of the

intellect.

power

terms

little :

about

it

of

not so easily sug-

gested as a practical practice-procedure, for

know

is

we

save in the most general

— that inference

is

a process of judgment

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

163

based on a largely subconscious process of the association of ideas, the very essence of

mental activity in viously, inference

its

ideational

human

aspect.

an advanced and more or

is

Obless

"neural" form of association within or between the neurones in the parts of the brain-cortex

which are devoted to thought. least suppose that

if

We may

at

the preliminary processes be

developed and made vigorous and habitual, the

would

inferences

more

result

more frequently

usefully, leading to novel

and

and so to more

productive thought.

Learning and

all

mentation are related

to that

form of personal ability which we have denoted as skill. The judgment of comparison is, then, one of the basal

mental processes at the bottom of

thinking that ing research likeness,

is

^

is

properly so called.

by the

writer,

1

Journal

February

follow-

on the discernment

of

a simple discussion of the processes

which subtend rational thought

mind and

The

all

in the thinker's

brain.

of

Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods. The volume " Kinesthesia " in Moffatt, Yard,

third, 1910.

& Co.'s " Our Senses and What They Mean to Us " Series, 1917-18, ten volumes, will set forth the philosophy of skill and of abiUty in general.

HOW TO LEARN

164

EASILY

The Discernment op Likeness and op Unlikeness In particular the research aimed to help the analysis of the mental process

come aware Its method

of is

similarity

and

by which we of

experimental and

it

be-

dissimilarity.

reports the

simplified laboratory-judgments as to the like-

ness and unlikeness experienced in the case of

a

series of visual forms.

The experiments

of the

work were performed in the psychological laboraColumbia and of Harvard universities.

tories of

The simple-enough apparatus employed

consisted

From

of the blots of ink previously described.

about blots

five

hundred

6i these largely chance ink-

made on paper

on thick pasteboard

4 cm. square and mounted

of like size,

taken as they chanced to at random.

The backs

one hundred were

in a box, that

is,

quite

of the blot-cards

were

lie

numbered consecutively from one for ready identification.

to one

hundred

Besides these, four other

ink-blots were selected to constitute the

norms

with which the others were to be compared as to their respective likeness or unlikeness.

A

wire

frame to hold fixed the norm-blot convenient to

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

165

the subject's vision and a table on which the

century of blot-cards could be arranged ten-square in numerical order

completed the apparatus em-

ployed.

The

subjects employed in this research were

twenty in number; two were philosophical professors,

one an instructor, and two assistants in

psychology, while the rest, with one exception,

were students in the two laboratories where the experiments were performed, the exception noted

The

being a college graduate.

subjects were

all

males ranging in age between twenty and fortythree.

The

chief interest

and work

subjects lay in the art of music

whose influence

will

be noted

terests of the others

of

one of the

— a circumstance

later on.

were certainly

The

in-

suflficiently

varied to prevent the occurrence of bias in any direction

in

their

subjective

reports,

no one

avowing or evincing any particular prejudice as regards the nature of the processes under inquiry. All the subjects

employed were

sufficiently fa-

miliar with psychological analysis to afford both their introspection

and

the requisite accuracy.

their subjective reports

Here, as nearly always,

however, the chief stress was laid on actual actions rather than on

more or

less

re-

uncertain and

HOW TO LEARN

166

EASILY

ambiguous mental images and principle

bodily

that

on the

ideas,

express

reactions

better

than other means, even to the subject himself, his real

meaning and intention

— a fact too often

overlooked, perhaps, in the laboratory of psychology.

The method

of experimentation in detail

simply as follows

:

The hundred

was

blot-cards being

placed in order ten-square on the table before the seated subject and the

norm

in its

frame con-

veniently before his eyes and above the blots,

he proceeded to

select within fifteen

ten blot-cards out of the hundred

minutes the

most

similar in

form or shape to the norm, and to place them one side arranged carefully

and deliberately

in the

order of their judged similarity to the norm.

Meanwhile the subject reported how he apperceived the norm and what he considered its most essential

form

— characteristics and

peculiarities.

These subjective notes were recorded and the

numbers norm,

of the ten blots

and in

their

judged most

chosen

order.

like the

The time

required for a selection satisfactory to the subject

was

also recorded,

the reason

and at the end

of the selection

why each of the ten had been preferred, The process in the case of

concisely as possible.

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

167

judgments as to unlikeness was precisely the same, with the appropriate change in intention to

keep dissimilarity instead of similarity in mind.

The

subject was not allowed to turn any blot-

card about or to observe the characters from more

than one view-point, that, namely, directly in front,

but no objection was made to orientation

in imagination

so vary

the subject seemed impelled to

if

meaning to

its

lowed for the

sufficient reason that

ters so full of suggestive

blots of ink

justments

with charac-

meaning as are many

imagination

without

disturbing

deeply the judging and selecting process. this

al-

impossible to prevent their ad-

it is

in

This was

himself.

On

matter of position lay one of the interests of

the experiments,

for, in

the complexity of psychic

association, to turn a blot a

few circular degrees

make

entirely different ob-

is

often to

it

seem an

ject with quite different

meaning

for a particular

percipient.

Altogether,

about

nine

hundred

were recorded and explained, the

judgments

details of these

explanations from introspection on a basis of precise objective stimulus constituting

an interesting

study in themselves, which here we shall not touch upon.

We

shall

be content to indicate the

HOW TO LEARN

168

EASILY

general nature of the judgments as a whole

and

the principles of likeness and unlikeness which these judgments, so far as they go, empirically

demonstrate in the range of the experiments.

The nature

employed

of the apparatus

ob-

is

viously such that statistical results are for the

most part

and photographic reports

of little use

the judgments

of

made would have

numerous as to be impracticable.

to be so

Careful and

extended study and comparison of the sets of blots selected

by the various

subjects, however, brings

out several striking facts as to the mental process concerned, the most interesting of which are as follows

:

—

The average

size of these visual objects

that ocular contour-movements

not

much concerned

was such

probably were

The

in perceiving them.

projections, to be sure, tend after a while to

be

counted in an indefinite sort of way and their general shapes are,

and

directions noted.

The

blots

however, too small to need outlining and are

at once apprehended as units, just as are long

words familiar to

us.

Be that

as it

may, the most

conspicuous criterion of likeness and of unlikeness alike in these selections was relative massiveness.

If

what we may

call

the norm-blot happened

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

169

to be noted as massive or as attenuated or as a

mixture of these two, selection was made acThis appears continually in the

cordingly. sults

the experiments.

of

re-

This difference was

noted immediately in practically

all

the cases

where animal associations did not occur, thus crowding

mental

it

out.

It implies, apparently, a funda-

criterion

form and gets

its

in

comparison-judgments

of

num-

bodily basis in the relative

ber of retinal local signs bunched in the perception rather than in ocular contour-movements. is

This

apparently the most conspicuous of the sorts of

"change

of

consciousness" which underlie

our

apprehension of likeness and unlikeness.

Another result of these judgments appears to be our excessive dependence on language-concepts for a clear awareness even of pure form.

In almost every case the choices had their

criteria

of sameness or of difference sharply defined in

words, expressed or not, of the subject.

How-

ever pragmatic in their life-philosophy,

these

all

subjects save one were obviously strong conceptualists.

They made no

progress in character-

izing the norm-blot to themselves until

had or

arisen in their

characters

minds to make

definite

and

sharp.

its

words

character

The

sensa-

HOW TO LEARN

170

EASILY mass

tional basis of the apperceiving process (a retinal

local

movements) by of the blots.

of

signs plus a tendency to contouritself

led to

no

clear apperception

Whatever the confused experiences

might be on perception

of the blots, there

was no

clear notion of likeness or of unlikeness,

no de-

cided change in consciousness, until ideation had

had

This would probably not be looked

its say.

for in a set of subjects outside of college influence,

where ideation

and the

who claimed and

taught too often as the end-aU

is

Indeed, the only subject

be-all here.

to have a true feeling of likeness

of unlikeness

was a student

enough as a student

of

of music, naive

psychology.

He

too

had the concepts associated with the respective blots,

and

but he avowed a distinct feeling

of dissimilarity

of similarity

which persisted.

It needs

only a glance at the sets of blots chosen by him

and compared with those his choices all

the subjects'

afar off: in only

of others to

show that

were by far the most satisfactory of

Even

sets.

The explanation

is

not

these simple bluish-black forms

two dimensions have so

many

characters

that to specify one, or two, or three, and com-

pare them by these leads to imperfect and misleading results.

On

the other hand, the "feel-

IS

YOUR THINKER" IN "ORDER?

171

ing" of likeness or of uulikeness implies a much wider acquaintance with the blots and fore,

the basis of a better comparison.

here

is

ciple

which he who runs

is,

there-

Related

obviously an important educational prin-

may

read.

These experiments, again,

illustrate the

high

stage which symbolism has reached in our social

mental process.

In nearly every case the subject

found

in

diflBculty

inhibiting

the reproductive

imagination of animals, starting from the

and extending to the blots chosen as it.

norm

like or unlike

This process was interesting, but, being for-

eign to the topic in hand, was excluded because

it

led to comparisons obviously artificial.

It was,

however, often oidy with

most

diflSculty that

of

the subjects could be induced to perceive the characters as mere chance-blots of ink, as masses of black color filling in

an absolutely meaningless

outline on a bit of white paper.

were not insisted on

If this inhibition

(as at first it

was not) the

subject compared imagined animals rather than blots.

One man,

norm was a

for example,

bird and thereupon chose ten "birds"

flying, standing, roosting,

eagles, storks

was not

promptly said the

swimming, swans and

and humming-birds.

difficult for

However,

it

the subjects to overcome this

HOW TO LEARN

172

EASILY

symbolic menagerie-habit, so to say, and to use other criteria then those suggested

by the

associ-

ative imagination.

The two preceding

results

from these simple

experiments (namely, the highly conceptual, and highly symbolic, characters of the class of perceptions here concerned) lead to suggestions as to the subjectivity of likeness as a mental fact.

One

thinks of Bradley's surprising collection of

"objects that do not exist"

when one

sees

how

various are the qualities ascribed to this set of

As a matter

objects.

of fact, these differ, for the

most part, only in mere outline, by which they may be arranged as

like or as unlike.

tanto to lose faith in

One tends pro

mere ideas raised in the

idea-overburdened mind when out of a hundred blots

compared with a norm one

chosen

"similar"

as

to

it.

sees seventy-one

Three blots were

chosen by each of seven subjects, one by six subjects, six

by

five subjects,

seven by four subjects,

by two subjects, and by only one subject these numbers

ten by three, sixteen blots twenty-six

—

applying to one norm, but being of average

When

sizes.

one laid out the sets chosen by the concept-

criteria the differences in

him more

forcibly

the blots often struck

than did their sameness.

Yet

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

each subject had

all

the time he wished for his

and made a deliberate

selection

liberate at least as real life

of his

making

Only very

173

choice, as de-

would usually allow

comparing actual experiences.

in

rarely,

moreover, would the actual

objective similarity in

life

be as narrowly confined

as in the conditions of these simple experiments.

Within the number of those subjects who chose their similar

than by

and

dissimilar blots

by

affective) criteria, there is

ideal (rather

a considerable

range of formal accuracy, dependent on the ideas

employed.

more

Some

essential

ideal

were obviously

criteria

than others and led to the selection

of a set of blots evidently like each other

norm.

Ideal criteria gave

and the

more accurate

results

in the dissimilarity choices than in the similarity is, as we should The awareness of

This

choices. principles. easier,

if

expect,

on

unlikeness

logical is

an

not a simpler, process apparently than

that of likeness, for the change of consciousness greater

and so

easier to appreciate.

is

At any rate, norm were

the sets of blots chosen as unlike the

much more

certainly unlike

"similar" blots chosen like

As we

pass, it

is

it

than were the

it.

not improper to note the in-

direct evidence afforded

by these experimental

HOW TO LEAKN

174

EASILY

results of the motivity

and dynamism of even con-

ceptual consciousness.

Ignoring the larger ques-

tions as to understanding, there

here ample

is

that such a cognitional process as

illustration

the comparison of bi-dimensional forms does not ordinarily find issue until the actual word symbolic of a concept

is

fairly clear in consciousness.

gives the subject the impression that

it

If it

"appears"

out of his vague subconsciousness (as often case) that

is

the

another problem that need have here

is

no further mention.

This conscious-becoming of

an actual word can mean nothing

else, it

seems,

than the innervation of those muscles and glands

whose proper coordination would utter the word.

Such dependence

of

an

intellectual

process as

general as that of a judgment of likeness or of unlikeness cular

upon the

mechanism

quently at hand. it is

activity of the

of speech

Here

it

worth in the doctrine

is

neuromus-

not any too

fre-

can be taken for what

of the relations of

body

and mind.

Were we

to summarize and fuse the notions

inductively suggested

by

this little research

we

could emphasize that judgments of bi-dimen-

when not geometric, are more acmade by "feeling "-criteria than by

sional forms,

curately

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

conceptual

criteria.

The

175

who paid most

subjects

attention to the actual visual sensations (retinal

and oculo-motor) as

objectified in looking at the

blots instead of thinking about them, best, that

most

is,

similar

and most

made the dissimilar,

selections. The former in choosing similar forms kept the change of consciousness at a minimum

by

their

method, for they retained

or less true image of the norm.

in mind a more The latter, the

on the contrary (but only

conceptualists,

after

innervating for the word), replaced the original visual image with a

and repeated

it

more or

less partial

concept

more

in their choices, but

or less

forgot meanwhile the shape of the norm.

The

practical application of this principle, familiar to

psychologists, to affairs, for example in the taking

and evaluation

of evidence in legal trials, should

not be further delayed, especially since rather

numerous researches along various (that of Cattell, for example) have

similar lines all

pointed to

the same really important fact that what or hear or feel

is

often determined as

we

see

much from

within as from without ourselves.

Another tioned of

is

result of this its

affective

work that may be men-

emphasis on the practical value impressions

in

comparison

with

HOW TO LEARN

176

Icnowledge that

is

EASILY

purely cognitional.

It is out-

side of the experimental results somewhat, of

course, but principle

it

may be

strongly believed that this

continually acting often to our dis-

is

advantage, and especially in education, in our relations with our generally experienced environ-

ment, and with each other.

As demonstrably

here, the learning mind, through too little atten-

tion to this matter,

is

led frequently to errors

that might be often avoided did

it

allow greater

and more nearly natural freedom to the sensational and

especially to the affective aspects of our

tal

process.

men-

In education we are undoubtedly

apt to overdo ideation and to underdo the affecphases of the developing mind.

tive

Greater

objective activity in the free realms of feeling

and

less

reliance

on the "apperception-mass"

would surely lead the child to see things as they are rather than as a

more or

less

formal and

hereditary association of ideas compels

him

to

think them.

The one

other result that appears most note-

worthy of those suggested by

this

work

is

its

evidence for the neuromuscular dynamic "basis" of

conceptualization

true,

perhaps not

—revidence

less

coming,

it

is

from within than from

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

without in

These chance-characters as a rule have

!

them a minimum

symbolism

— that

about as far away as

is,

in

certainty

conceptual

of

on the average, they are

shape from language-symbols

None

any forms that could be devised.

less,

as

177

we have

seen, they usually start

the

some

conceptual associations, more often, on the whole,

than trains of imagination, and they start these associations, so to say, without a push, without

giving bias in

them more than the needful minimum any one direction

energy but do not guide

— they

its

course.

of

introduce the

Under these

circumstances the association-time and especially the wholly subconscious start times.

Often, as

we have

is

very long often-

seen, the consciousness

was to introspection a mere confused and scarcely conscious jumble of more or less unpleasant strains in

and about the head, eventuating, however,

sooner or later in a word clearly thought or even

spoken aloud.

In the usual form of word-associ-

ation measurements, in the formerly so numerous researches on reaction-time, the symbol used as

a stimulus was either a printed or a spoken lan-

guage-symbol and therefore in the closest cerebral connection with the muscular innervations,

etc.,

of language-expression as developed in the brain

HOW TO LEARN

178

EASILY

when the individual learned to understand and speak and write. In these cases, on the other hand, the stimuli were no such familiar symbols, practically part of the language-expression

mech-

anism, but were rather almost unrelated stimuli,

None

abstract, so to say, rather than concrete.

the

less, after

a time the speech-innervations were

suitably set going. It

hard to believe that

is

this

of

difficulty

language-association under these circumstances

other than the difficulty of making

"new"

is

path-

ways, combinations, in the expression-neurones of the brain.

a

new

This means, probably, each time

struggle through unaccustomed innerva-

tions of speech-muscles.

There

is

apparently no

other neurologic basis for the confusion and the delay.

These

last

were both experiences un-

pleasant to the subject and tended, therefore, to

be eliminated by repetition and habit, possible;

if it

were

yet they were neither eliminated nor

much

shortened, at least within the limits of

these

experiments.

teresting,

this

Neurologically

slow

this

of

cortical

It is interesting, too, in

in-

and unpleasant fumbling

around of a sense-impression among the possibilities

is

(and nuclear?)

infinite

routes.

a broader way, philological

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

and psychological, the

human mind

roads, even the

179

in so far as it suggests that, in

as of old in the great empire, all

most unlikely

a chance

trail of

ink-blot form, lead sooner or later into the (mostly

muscular and

epithelial) innervations of language-

—

the one function characteristic of

expression

humanity.

As has already been suggested, these

stimuli were as far as possible

from language-

symbols of any language, and the outcome of the association-process was, therefore, striking

and suggestive,

all

however

the more

inferior

the

determination of likeness and unlikeness by this process as compared with the few cases where

the cerebral association remained of the affective aspect.

Recent advancement in biochemistry and pecially in neuro-metabolism has

suggestions

more

definite

by

far

made

es-

possible

than ever before

as the real nature in scientific terms of these

innumerable influences darting through the cere-

maze that psychologically we discuss as subHowever interesting, conscious associations. bral

however, such speculations

may

be, the broader

questions as to the relationship of mental "ener-

gies" to the forces

must outweigh

we know

as

chemic and

electric

in interest the purely physiologic

180

HOW TO LEARN

problem.

How

scientific

EASILY

can we designate for proximate

use the ultimate nature of the neuro-

gram, the memory-trace, the endless and perhaps "vestigia"

ineffaceable

And

ever

of

unique experi-

we could and did "connote" them, should we not forthwith find it quite impossible to discriminate the energies we described from the thing we speak of as consciousences?

ness,

with

if

its

dynamogeny,

sthenic its

and asthenic

conditions, its

varying qualities and quantities

and durations, and the other numerous characters

which

shares with the " somewhats " that

it

even the avowed dualist

(if

In

speaks of as energies?

he truly

exists stiU)

then,

why do we

fine,

not give up this two-faced terminology of a by-

gone time and speak the straight language that leads to clear thinking

and to

terms that are ultimate?

unknown what proportion

real

To in

knowledge in

the writer general

of

it

is

the

psychologically informed consider that ideation (as well as feeling

inter-knit with

and

willing)

is

immediately

("dependent on") the innerva-

and glands that would express the concerned ideas. One would almost assume tion of the muscles

that nearly

all

psychologists

who kilow their phys-

iology fairly well (they are none too numerous)

!

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

nowadays

would

thought,

chasm bridges

before

narrowing,

is

we

many

least,

across

of ideation

all

(the "physiology"

and thought), here it

in this research is

conscious,

and more or

it

becomes

only vnih definite innervation

less deliberate

and complete occurrence

dynamic muscular movements

that

would

One can dimly

words.

in

concept

the

an idea

goes, that

comes plainly "into the mind", that

express

perhaps

it;

shall look in vain for

may be

this

adequate evidence, so far as

of the

firm

itself

However

clearly

of

psychophysiologic

at

or,

fully realize it

the chasm

the

being thrown

are

we

presume the basis

thus

gradually

for

181

feel the similarity or dissimilarity

between two

chance shapes, but in most persons, too many, perhaps, the feeling

is

useless

and even oppres-

sive, until definitely expressible in

terms more feeling-tone i

And

this

definite :

that

and

is,

articulated,

"articulation" in

upon a phase

of

neuromuscular

distinct than those of a

its

turn depends

neuro-musculo-glandular

skill

just as in the opposite direction, speaking logically,

thought depends on comparisons, that it

is,

to say

once more, on determinations of likeness and of

unlikeness.

HOW TO LEARN

182

^ Professor

J.

H. Bair,

EASILY

of Philadelphia, sets out

the reasoning process, systematic thought, in a simple and untechnical of

some of

its f amiUar

way which

relieves logic

awe and unnaturalness

:

^

—

"It is true that, even logic, in order that it may develop the mind in an efficient manner, must be based on concrete data. The order of the development toward thought is: first the child has impressions.

Soon

it

and differences. The and discrimination begins to associate and classify the

recognizes likenesses

faculty of perception, recognition

appears. likenesses.

The

child

Assimilation or apperception takes place.

When it classifies the likenesses, i.e., assorts them according to their characteristics, labeling

is

inevitable

and

thus the concept is formed. "Every time the child puts an object in a class he passes judgment. 'This is a pencil.' He mentally assimilates this object with a class.

Each class

of objects

has a boundary drawn around it, and in passing judgment the child decides whether the object belongs inside that

boundary or

not.

Judgment

involves, therefore, per-

Judgment is unavoidably exercised where perception and discrimination take place, and discrimination and perception are impossible

ception and discrimination.

except with reference to the objective. exercises of judgment, discrimination

In formal

and perception are

not exercised and this shows the

futility of working beyond the bounds of concrete experience with children. "Reasoning is but one step in advance of judgment and implies judgment and all that judgment implies. '

University of Colorado Investigations, III,

2, April,

1906.

IS

And

YOUE "THINKER" IN ORDER?

183

can be shown that judgment formally than when developed incidentally in the ordinary processes of observation is it not equally true that training in observation is the best groundso

trained

work

if

it

is less

fruitful

for reasoning

?

we take the following men are mortal. John

"If *A11 is

mortal.'

observation?

Is

illustration of reasoning:

a man. Therefore John not the whole process a case of refined This can be illustrated by circles. is

Mortal beings have a large boundary, within which are a great many groups having smaller boundaries. One of these groups is man. Now if John falls within the circle of mankind, which fact is ascertained by judgment through comparison then he must also fall within the The point I wish to make larger circle mortal beings. in this analysis

is

that teachers should

make

it

their

primary object first, to stock the mind with facts to develop the power of observation and discrimination which are fundamentally involved in all higher forms of thought and secondly, where the higher faculties are exercised, to confine their activity within the realm If this point is comof the stock of facts in the mind. plied with in primary education it is certain that the results will be satisfactory. "The fundamental reason why children fail in their power to construct is not because the logical faculty is immature. But it is a fact of development that the logical processes do not function efficiently until the mind has a stock of information which constitutes the material upon which the logical faculty can work. The .

.

.

savage, or ignorant person, as well as the child ofttimes arrive at conclusions which are invalid because their

concepts are indefinite and their stock of information

HOW TO LEARN

184 limited.

The

primitive man,

EASILY when he hears wind

whistling through the boughs of a tree, thinks there

man

or a spirit

up there making the sound.

is a This con-

clusion he reaches because of his notion that sound

is

always produced by animate beings. To modify and to improve his reasoning his information must be exact and his ideas changed.

"The fact that in the Middle Ages arguments were advanced and conclusions supported which are no more tenable is no evidence that in these days the reasoning power is more subtly developed. Quite to the contrary the thinking powers of modern scholars are probably less exercised and developed than those of those early thinkers. What makes present day thinking more efficient is

the fact that for several generations the

students have devoted themselves to observing and collecting facts, not to getting acquainted with nature.

A century ago the whole spirit of science was to gather Earlier thinkers had and preformed ideas about things. When the ideas upon which a conclusion is based are not right no amount of intellectual legerdemain will make the conclusion right. "To lay the foundation for sound thinking the power of observation and discrimination must be constantly exercised and developed. Childhood is for training the facts

from nature

many

hand.

first

arbitrary notions

be observcomparing and reproducing. The foundation for the intellect is laid in this manner." senses.

Its principal school exercises should

ing, examining, handling,

This

or

something similar assuredly

essence of thought.

It is the

is

the

most productive

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

of processes because

it

alone of all mental processes

produces something new and rational.

on

rest often wholly

two

world go round orbit,

makes

things.

",

it

If

Ingenuity,

discovery

this simple

from the

ferring something

comparing

and

invention,

originality,

( ?)

love it

make

part

by

"makes the go around

revolve and so advance.

love, helps so to

in

process of in-

results obtained

thought makes

makes the days worth

185

its

If love

while, thought, as well as

the years.

Let us not forget the educationally important matter of the complexes of thought and imagination

and

feeling already discussed in the treat-

ment on the imagination.

much

The mind works

as

in thinking as it does in feeling, or in willing

on the symbolic plan. lightening

Morton

Prince, in his en-

"The Unconscious", has summarized

certain of the conditions of complex- or symbol-

formation, memorizing, and recall, in a

worth quotation

:

—

"Though the main conscious, so far as

it

way

well

teleological function of the un-

represents acquired dispositions,

is

to provide the material for conscious memory and conscious processes, in order that the organism may be

consciously guided in

its

reactions

by

experience, yet

under certain conditions neurographic residua ["braintraces"] can function as a subconscious process which

HOW TO LEARN

186

may

be unconscious,

by conscious

i.e.,

equivalents.

EASILY

without being accompanied The latter were classed as a

We saw reason any neurogram deposited by life's

sub-order of subconscious processes. for believing that

experience can, given certain other factors, thus funceither autonomously or as a mechanism embracing both conscious and unconscious elements; and that this was peculiarly the case when the neurogram was organized with an emotional disposition or instinct The impulsive force of the latter gives energy to the former and enables it to be an active factor in determining behaviour.

subsconsciously,

tion

factor in a larger

.

The organism may then be

subconsciously governed

in its reactions to the environment.

.

.

.

"We may

foimd evidence showing that a conserved idea undergo subconscious incubation and elaboration,

and that subconscious processes may acquire a marked degree of autonomy, may determine or inhibit conscious processes of thought, solve problems, enter into con-

and in various modes produce all sorts of psychophenomena, (hallucinations, impulsive phenomena, aboulia, amnesia, dissociation of personality, flicts,

logical

etc.)

.

.

.

"Evidence has been adduced to show that life's experiences, and therefore acquired dispositions, tend to become organized into groups. The latter, termed for descriptive purposes neurograms, thereby acquire

a and they may become compounded into larger functioning groups, or complexes, and still larger systems of neurograms. Whether their origin is remembered or not they become a part of the personality. Such complexes and systems play an important part by determining mental and bodily behavior. functional unity;

YOUR, "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

187

Amongst other things they tend to determine the points of view, the attitudes of mind, the individual and social conscience, judgments, and the like, and, as large systems, may become 'sides to one's character.'" This

is

the very latest scientific word on thought

and ideas as they most part

stream

in that truly

mind.

of

of thoughts, unlike

ing

but for the

just outside of the conscious process,

immersed deep the

persist in the mind,

"Wundtian myth",

This

store

most other

On

by being drawn upon.

of

ideas,

stores, loses noth-

the other hand,

it

can be added to indefinitely without any crowding, for the useless material

into the scrap-pile

is

continually being put

— forgotten.

In discussing learning to think, there are practical points to be noted

:

(1)

six

a realization of

the necessity and the joy of thought to education

and to success;

(2)

development of interests as

various as possible, provided they be not too diverse (3)

and too numerous at the same time;

an abundance

of clear ideas

especially of relationship;

(4)

("concepts"),

a habit of con-

centrated attention along more or less "rational" or logical lines;

(5)

a thought-habit developed debating, reflection), and

by

practice

(6)

the opportunity for thought, (time and rela-

(writing,

tive solitude).

HOW TO LEARN

188

The

EASILY and

realization of the necessity

The average boy and

thought.

learning that

is this

prove this to him.

will

But observe the advertisements schools

Without

!

a

thought,

Experience alone

this initiative, this imagination.

(sometimes precept!)

has no way of

girl

what counts most

the delight of

doubt

of the eflficiency

experience

shows

overwhelmingly that just this chiefly makes the difference

broader

more or in

between a narrow supplied

life

by a

life

wages and the

of

Everyone has

salary.

but only a few use

less information,

thought and so do things which

old things in

new ways

— which

a.re

is

it

new, or do

the next best

accomplishment. Development of

interests.

In a previous chap-

ter the absolute necessity of interest for learning

has been pointed out.

The

necessity

is

still

surer for thought, for true wisdom, for real education.

If

we develop

interest in

the subconscious will think

by the while

we

if

are doing something

we have

subject,

out by association,

it

aid of the imagination,

volves, as

any

given a chance, else.

This in-

seen repeatedly, an affect or

feeling-tone to furnish the motive power.

An

abundance of

relationship.

The

clear ideas, especially ideas of

relation

of

language

is

im-

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

189

\

mediate here, as has been pointed out recently by Dr. A. A. Berle, in the second chapter of his

"Teaching in the Home", already

interesting

quoted in the discussion of books and their edu-

Harvard College has recently made

cative use.

an extensive investigation tending to develop the study of English along this basal Une of

mate

and dominant

relationship to our primal

Ideas

intelligence.

essential;

by

of

inti-

are

relation

especially

their very nature they tend ac-

tively to associate educatively,

and

their elab-

oration should be a systematic part of aU school

work.

The

habit of the use of thesauri (dic-

synonyms and antonyms) is easily acquired, and there is an amazing interest in the relations of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs tionaries of

—

things, their qualities,

what they

do,

Knowledge about these very relations

and how.

is essential.

Especially important, then, are these books of

synonyms and antonyms. When the habit using them has been acquired, they do much

of

to

develop thought, as well as clearness of expression

work

and

literary style;

logically

they help the mind to

and systematically.

For emphasis

it is

worth while repeating that

words are dynamic and make up language and.

HOW TO LEARN

190

EASILY

moreover, they serve to connect

with the brain

it

and thereby with the remainder

of the

body and

the rest of the individual's kinetic world.

Words,

then, are the indispensable handles of our

human

thinking,

symbols of our energy-expense, and

so of our humanity

itself.

The

closeness

and

the depth of this dynamic relation are worth its

general educative im-

Mtiller

was undoubtedly the

strong emphasis, for

portance

is

supreme.

Professor farthest-

Max

and deepest-seeing

searched the depths of his writings the reader

of

all

who have

human speech. It is to may best turn who wishes

a knowledge of the philosophy of words. "We arrive in the end ", says he, " at roots, and every

one of these expresses a general, not an individual,

Every name,

idea.

if

we analyze

it,

contains a

by which the object to which the name was known." ("Science of Language",

predicate applies

London, 1861, Vol. general idea;

skill,

and

Page

predicate;

the personality to

becomes the

I,

its

356.)

Language-root

bodily action relating

kinetic environment, thus

logical series of ideas linking speech,

intelligence.

Language

is

the dynamic

index of a world of energy in relation to ourselves,

and the kinesthetic sensations are the more

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

191

immediate personal and mental index of

this

IS

dynamic

relationship.

Here once more, and more

may

haps, the reader

explicitly

see for himself the neces-

Here obviously

bodily control) for clear thinking.

the basis, or part of

of talent living

"mental"

fosters

And

of the

undoubted heredity

Normal

because right-living means of sleep,

abundant nourishing

and the generations hand down

;

its results.

in our sense, for the reasons suggested

skill,

just

it,

as well as "bodily."

skill

good health, plenty food

per-

what we have termed "skill" (complete

sity of

is

still,

above,

fosters

and

language;

therefore

thought; and therefore intelligence; and therefore, generally, real success

This

happiness. life, is

;

and

therefore, finally,

concatenation, this

chain

of

as certain as the great sun's energy in our

and physical education

muscles, learn to

make

it

clear

and

will

one day

certain to everyone.

The habit of concentrated attention is necessary This concentration should be for in thought. short -periods along lines not disagreeable to the

human

rationality.

Concentration

sinks

ideas

— how

we do not

yet and cannot imagine.

Attention,

more deeply

know

as

either

reflex

into the brain

or voluntary,

however exactly

it

HOW TO LEARN

192

may

EASILY

act, is certainly essential,

but save in cases

of exceptional individual interest, such as that in discoveries, like,

emergencies, inventions, and the

attention can be concentrated properly for

only short periods of time.

Professor

W. H.

Pyle, of the University of Missouri, as a result of

experiments on practice work, in using a devised set of characters instead of the ordinary letters,

found that the adult's ideal period for concentrated effort of attention

He

says

"The

:

^

—

is

only thirty minutes.

object of this investigation was to determine

the proper length of period and the proper distribution

The experiments were begun in February, 1910, and have been continued to the present time the subjects at all times as many as eight or ten were mostly seniors in the University of Missouri, and the practice has been in type-

of periods in drill or habit-formation.

;

—

writing, shorthand,

—

memory work and

in learning to

write in arbitrary characters instead of with the ordi-

nary alphabet. The method was to give the subjects practice for a certain length of time, requiring all to use the same procedure, then the subjects were divided into two groups. One group was then given practice using the same procedure as before, while the other group used the method then being tested. The first or control served to give a measure of ability of the *

Paper before the American Psychological Association in Cleve-

land, 1913.

YOXJR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

IS

193

when using the same method. After this method was perfected, the only material used was the subjects

arbitrary alphabets which seemed best to serve the purposes of the experiment.

"The

results, in brief, are as follows

:

On

the whole,

30 minutes seems to be the best length of practice period. In some cases, shorter periods seem a trifle more advantageous, especially in the early stage of practice or habituation. But, generally speaking, one gets

ample returns

in habituation for practicing

up to

the point of fatigue, which, in our experiments proves to be 30 or 40 minutes for most subjects.

Eighty

minutes, the longest period used, proved decidedly

disadvantageous, especially in the early stage of habituation.

Generally speaking, daily practice seems to give

better returns than the

same number

of periods dis-

tributed on alternate days or in twice-a-day periods.

However, there

is

some evidence that

in the early stage

of habituation, the second practice on the same day

and that, later on, alternate days may be the best distribution. While practicing twice a day does not give, on the average, as good returns as once a day, if we count the same number of periods, it gives much better returns if we count the number of days, the subjects, of course, having twice as much practice as those working once a day. That is to say, if one does not count the time, it pays to practice twice a day, at gives good returns

least

till

we

gain considerable efficiency."

Professor Daniel Starch of the University of

Wisconsin,

economy

of

in

1910,

studied

the

different periods of

summarizes his findings thus

:

—

comparative

work,

and he

HOW TO LEARN

194

EASILY

"The purpose of this experiment was to determine the and distribution of periods of work to economy in learning. The learning consisted in associating numbers with letters. These associations relation of the length

were formed while transcribing prose into numbers. "One group of persons worked 10 minutes at a time twice a day for six days. The second group worked 20 minutes at a time once a day for six days. The third group worked 40 minutes at a time every other day for six days.

"The records show that the 10-minute group improved more rapidly than the 20-minute group and the latter improved much more rapidly than the 40-minute group. The 20-minute group transcribed on the average 31 more letters in every five minutes than the 40-minute group and the 10-minute group transcribed on the average ten more letters in every five minutes than the 20-minute group."

Thus we

see that ideas "stick" best

when they

are impressed in periods of only thirty minutes or less,

two or three times a day.

this as a rule for

thinking —

it

We may means

the

portance of keeping the brain always rested. is

far

time.

more

essential

use

imThis

than the saving of mere

Muscles, especially in gross masses,

may

be fatigued without nervous harm, (in fact this kind of fatigue makes for sound, restful sleep)

but never the nerves.

There are nine thousand

million neurons or nerve-units, weighing only a

!

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

few grams altogether, in the human cortex this

may be

they

seen

We

are.

how minute and

should not

fail

the brain

may be

trained so

from

:

subtly dehcate

to appreciate this

fear of their easy liability to fatigue, for

very real educational matter.

195

it is

a

At the same time we need not coddle

Most people undoubtedly do coddle their brains, but usually from human laziness, not it.

because deeply wise in hygiene Habituation

thinking

the

to

Habit

'process.

makes thinking much easier than it is at first. Habituation makes thought a continuous subconscious process. Just as we know that worry is

worse for the health than an occasional fright;

and

just as a steady drinker suflFers

harm than the man who

logic

more patho-

goes off on an

occasional drunken spree ; so, on the other hand,

the continuous use of thought most impresses the brain.

The

habit of learning-interest must be

but

acquired;

comes more or

this less

mental attitude soon be-

permanent.

all

kinds, of course, are

It

is

"the

first

heard, and

upon. all

all

less

step that counts"

accumulative.

we have

habit grows with what

Thought

of them.

more or

Habituations of

is

a habit,

it

subconscious

often feeds like

In order to acquire the thinking-

HOW TO LEARN

196

habit, other habits

may have

sometimes, broken,

(a)

The

EASILY to be bent

^

or even,

general principle

is

that in proportion to the stability of the nervous

system of the individual, according to age, or vigor,

may

a habit be suddenly bent

of existence,

a habit

(b)

A

second process of displacing

And

busy normality.

is

sex,

down out

a third,

(c)

is

replacement with some other more useful habit.

In general, students who are apt to read these pages can break short flict

A

off

whatever habits con-

with the thinking or the study habit.

and

sixth

element in easy thinking

last

is

opportunity for thought, in time and in relative

Many

solitude.

"too busy" (but with

of us are

far less productive things) really to live or really

We

to think. thought.

especially is

individual

us 'should

way

room

much

young

solitude, for

too continuously

people.

Each

in-

and occasionally requires

separate,

separate

make

time,

Most of manage in some

self-communion.

alone, or else

to spend considerable

forest, '

make

People are often

together,

dividual

should

time alone in the

along the seashore or brookside, or even

See for a recent discussion of habit-bending G. V. N. Dearborn

"Habit and Malocclusion", Medical 1915, 727-732;

and "An Ideal

Physical Education Review,

XXI,

Record,

(Jift for

7, 1916.

New York,

88, 18, 3 Oct.

Your Children", American

IS

own rooms.

in our

The

197

gentle exercise of

a

or of a slow bicycle ride which requires

stroll little

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

attention for

itself is

occasion for thinking

an ideal stimulant and

— uidess the attention wan-

The time to be alone now and then should be had somehow. Oftenders outwardly too much.

times schools are too crowded to allow their stu-

We

dents to think.

can properly

even as

afford,

a matter of dollars and cents, to take an extra year in school,

if

by doing

the time so used

think;

so

we can

learn to

a rich and certain

is

investment, not an expense.

In default of a

better time, a half hour after

waking and before

rising is

many

a good time in which to think.

Indeed,

people have their most productive and

original

thoughts

occur to them

time in the morning, early, after a

at just

this

good night's

brain rest, for the unconscious grist of the night

then tends to become conscious.

system

will

opportunity be given

This advice

to

and

if

an

it.

make

well considered, not

practicable

The nervous

generally be found thoughtful

an

thought-time at any cost idle notion.

expedient.

In

fact,

It

is

it

is

wholly is

very

often a matter of dollars and cents and of ad-

vancement, and not one only of developing our

198

HOW TO LEARN

soul

and personality, which much

EASILY

has not yet learned to value at

its

of the world

worth.

Robert

Browning's familiar three stanzas express this so

we repeat them here. They are from "Rabbi Ben Ezra", a poem of efficiency, of human life, as well as of God well that

:

"Not on

—

the vulgar mass

Called 'work' must sentence pass.

Things done that took the eye and had the price O'er which, from level stand. The low world laid its hand, Fotmd straightway to its mind, could value in a trice

But

all

And

fingers failed to

the worid's coarse

So passed

in

thumb

plumb,

making up the main account

All instincts immature. All purposes unsure.

That weighed not as

his work, yet swelled the

man's amount

Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act. Fancies that broke through language and escaped All I could never be. All,

men

ignored in me,

This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped."

Thought, world,

makes

sonality,

and

like

and

cents.

almost nothing else in the whole

for both of these, for

for success as

human

measured by

per-

dollars

IS

YOUE "THINKEE" IN ORDEE?

199

Rules for thinking are wholly unnecessary even

The normal human mind,

young student.

to a

always knows how, as part of

normality.

its

man

Possibly no other animal knows how, but

knows how, and

The only

do

so

all

normal boys and

explicit rule for thinking

Acquire the habit!

is,

In plain language

it

girls.

seems.

it is laziness,

that more than anything else prevents this habit of thought, for with all its interest

become a

to learn to think, to

ways easy

in this resistless

and delight

thinker,

is

not

al-

world which never

Some really do not know how to think, but only, we may be certain, because they have never tried to learn. The vast majority are stops

its

hurry.

just simply too lazy to put their thinkers in order

And

and to use them.

this

is

so,

curiously

enough, notwithstanding that constructive mental action is

most

A

a great delight as well as by far the

practically productive process of the mind.

few of

my

readers

may

here be "thinking" or

even saying in annoyance, "I did not buy

book to be did not, but some

accused of laziness."

how

to learn easily,

No

indeed,

this

you

you did buy it to learn and one of the most essential of

things to be learned for this purpose

is

the utter

incompatibility of learning and indolence.

Were

HOW TO LEAEN

200

otherwise,

it

learning

little financial use, for

EASILY

would be of

relatively

common

millionaire

every

would be a thinker, and each whilom tramp a millionaire.

He who

over

ceited

become con-

really thinks can never

supposed

his

learning.

We may

adopt the traditional colored preacher's attempt to

make massive

simile's

the idea of infinity despite the

inconsistencies

on

examination:

close

imagine a small bird hopping to and fro from

Boston to San Francisco, carrying at each west-

ward

mouthful of water from the Atlantic

trip a

into the Pacific

was empty

an

—

Ocean

this

was

future

infinitely

:

when the Atlantic this

time.

at last

man's suggestion of

But

so

is

human

thought in comparison with the eternal miracle of Reality.

Its

eternal interest

is

a vast de-

and the

interest "grows with what it feeds Our thought and imagination grow best when the mind is fresh, for then the neurons are stimulated and actuated by the desire for acSleep and play are as essential for thinktivity. light,

upon."

ing as for other biologic things.

more than

mind makes

in

any other mode

profit

of

In thought, action,

out of sudden gleams of

out of inspirations;

the

light,

and play often stimulates

IS

YOUR "THINKER" IN ORDER?

201

the Imagination and leads to the development of something

The time

new

of

in thought.

day

in relation to the quality

and

the quantity of the work accomplished in thinking has run,

much

practical importance in the long

and despite widely-varying personal habits sleep and play the scientific status

work and

of

of the matter has worth while practical interest.

Professor ginia,

W. H. Heck,

of the University of Vir-

has studied the matter by grading the

arithmetical reasoning of 255 girls and 212 boys

grammar

(average age 14.2 years) in a

"The number

examples done in the after-

of

noon was 0.68 per cent greater than ing ;

school.

in the

morn-

the per cent of examples right in the after-

noon was 3.22 per

cent, less

than in the morning."

This result has been corroborated by

done at Lynchburg and

in

New

York.

like

work

Thus we

see that while the speed of such thinking in the

afternoon

accuracy

is is

practically that of the forenoon, the distinctly less.

I

have the impres-

sion derived both from personal experience and

from sundry researches, that the most productive hours in the whole twenty-four, qualitatively

and quantitatively 10 30 A.M. to :

12

together, are the hours from :

30 p.m.

Then

certainly

the

HOW TO LEARN

202

quality is at its highest,

work

of creative

and

way

aind for

this is particularly true

— thought

For the integration

EASILY

in its broadest sense.

of our thinking in a

broad

making our opinions and ideas at

once more coherent, more intensive, and more conscious,

no method exceeds

of ivritihg definite

some

topic-title

is

the often-hated

its

writing involved the com-

amount

pletion of a certain definite

a

"com-

our early school-Hfe — hated often-

times just because

activity in

each with

Obviously for

not too narrow.

learning purposes this

position" of

in usefulness that

or essays,

articles

definite time.

to our education which

This

may

is

of real mental

a kind of debt

not be, like "Micaw-

ber's" note-debts, paid always with other notes,

Bacon "maketh an exact man," but writing, too, makes a boy or girl, as well as a man, not only consciously aware of what is known and thought in his more or less hidden naind, but makes that more precise and its relations round about more real. And also more numerous. In other words, writing much on sM topics not too other promises to do.

reminds

us,

narrow,

clarifies

Writing, as Francis

and extends our ideas and makes

them also more dynamic.

Nothing

be active oral debate, can do nomically or so well.

else,

unless

it

this either so eco-

CHAPTER

VI

EXAMINATION-PREPAEEDNESS

All

kinds of instructors

frequently

suggest

that

who hold examinations the

direfuUy

dreaded

"exams" will take care of themselves if systematic work be done vigorously and conscientiously throughout the course.

may be

cordially emphasized, although,

true and important of

This statement

it

may

be, there

however

is little

hope

making students, male or female, young or

married or

old,

single, civil service or naval, in the

elementary school or in the university, indolents or "greasy grinds", believe

upon

it

it

long enough to act

to any appreciably profitable extent.

They never have done

so (save one or

two wise

ones here and there) and they probably never will

!

Nevertheless the fact holds that

study properly and cally, the

conscientiously

examinations vnll take care of

There are a number is

and

of reasons

important, but one that 203

is

why

if

we do

scientifi-

themselves..

the matter

very important

HOW TO LEARN

204

concerns the

eflPect

work counts

too.

of

On

EASILY But

worry on the mind.

the marking system of

we

E

upward to A, if we take our ease E's and not A's. Ease and E's go together. The chief requirements of proper study for this specific purpose of "making good" on exams,

may be

divided into three parts.

necessity for conscientious,

(1)

shall get

The

entire

thoughtful study;

for

an adequate amount of real study with the attention It seems surprising that students do

complete.

not effectively take for granted this matter of plain

common

posted

we

up

sense.

(2)

The

daily in the brain,

keeping of our notes

and thus everything

learn integrated with the preceding acquire-

ments.

we have taken no make some from our

If

begin to

textbooks, and from our

notes,

we should

lectures

memory,

and our

for these will

certainly be better than anything else for this

examination purpose. ination mark, at least

To

get a good exam-

we should have somehow a weekly

or

a monthly review, because, as we have seen

already, review tion of

(3)

is

the chief means to the integra-

any subject

in our minds.

Notes should be

kept on the analytic plan of complexes or symbols

which have been already explained, headings, subheadings, and so on, on rational systematic lines.

;

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS

205

Such subconscious preparation is theoretically the best and proper way. Examinations are incidents,

and not ends, and they are a necessary

evil to every instructor,

student.

If

even more than to every

study for examination

done along

is

these lines, in this general manner, learning really learning.

No

In addition there

is

is

no worry.

worry-excitement arises in the mind, as the

"critical" time approaches, no phobia to disturb

and even undermine the mental and bodily processes,

and to disarrange the ready

of ideas.

There

is

a vast waste of energy in worry

fear) starves the brain

fear (worry

is

on

food over-fast.

itself its

On

association

by using up

the other hand, the prospect and the cer-

tainty of an examination provide the requisite

emotional tone to give study creteness

and

practicality.

its

necessary con-

Examination

is

thus

an incentive to vigorous study and therefore more or less necessary educatively as well as merely expedient.

If these

to be necessary

by

' '

ordeals

' '

had not been shown

centuries of world-wide expe-

rience, it is absolutely certain

they would have

been abandoned, for they constitute to the conscientious teacher

agreeable

and instructor the most

and laborious portion

of

dis-

the entire

HOW TO LEAEN But

educative work.

EASILY examinations

at present

are undoubtedly a necessary factor in the process of

Nothing can take

learning.

real

portant part, nothing, at

least,

that

is

their

im-

now

over

the pedagogic horizon. Theoretically, examinations should be always

at

unannounced times, thus training the student

in continual preparedness of attention to the daily

and insuring a degree

work which can be ob-

tained in scarcely any other way.

This expecta-

tion develops the important subconscious habit of

"attending to business."

power

of

then of using

it

to its utmost, mental

This, as President A.

life,

—

turning our

this

power

mind

to

at an unexpected

depend on such form

efficient as

is

any

amination

on demand

occupations

Oral examination

them all. a means of

is

many

ability.

of

The

Harvard

and vigorously

reqixired topic

moment;

It

is

is

generally far

the

more

testing our ignorance or

knowledge of a subject than nation.

of

required frequently in

of clearly

Oral Examinations. ideal

dynamogeny.

Lawrence Lowell

University points out, real

It trains, too, in the

suddenly turning our attention and

is

a written exami-

universal objection to the oral ex-

that

it

requires too

much

of the

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS examiner's time, far too costly expert.

much

of the

It requires less

207

time of some

on the part

of the

student than does the written examination, but

more on that

greatly

one, however,

of

Any

the instructor.

who has taken

a university doc-

torate examination, in the focus of a concave

mirror of kind but preciates that for finding out

a

how

little

For

it is

is

ap-

inquisitors,

the method above

it is

difficult subject.

ination

searching

all

others

a student knows about this reason oral

coming more and more into

use.

exam-

Here

possible to ask fifty questions instead of five

The examiner can almost

or ten. ational

see the associ-

machine work, and therefore can judge

himself whether

it

be adequate or not; he sees

the living mechanism product.

and more

for

and not only

itself,

Theoretically,

its

should be more

there

oral examinations in all kinds of schools,

in the higher grade-schools, for example, as soon

as

it

may be

arranged;

this

matter

is

making

progress, especially in the medical schools.

Written examinations are a make-shift, but they are

much better than nothing.

Oral examinations

are far more psychological than written ones, and give the really efficient mind and knowledge a

much

better chance.

About

as

many,

I take

it.

HOW TO LEARN

208

EASILY

mentally by the inability to

are handicapped

write explicitly as are disparaged talk

to

quickly,

and

briefly,

far as the student's welfare is

by the

inability

intelligently.

is

So

concerned, there

no good reason to suppose that oral examina-

tions

On

would be a handicap.

the contrary, in

the long run, the widely demanded training in

would be

of

quick

reply,

use to almost everyone.

This,

repartee,

in

self-possession,

much

too, is at heart a

wit,

matter of adequate physical

training, as "skill", already sufficiently discussed.

Oral else

examinations

require

save real knowledge.

self-poise

above

all

Both require a reason-

able expression-intelligence. Practical Examinations such as are given in

physiology, physics, chemistry, and similar subjects

are

the

ideal

versal unpopularity

and

their difficulty.

Their

examinations.

uni-

shows well enough their value

They

are the only kind of

examination that show our real and practical

They make a

what we can do, actually perform, rather than what we have efficiency.

test of

merely learned about, second hand.

Undoubtedly

they are overdone in some professional schools.

The proper amination

place in general for the practical exis

in

the normal

school,

for

there

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS teachers are trained, and they must

209

know how

things actually should be done.

Writing Examinations.

In written examina-

tions, at least, knowledge as to the range

and kind

of questions asked in previous examinations right

and not a

The

privilege.

possible scope

is

a

and

methods are very numerous, and the student, necessarily has

therefore,

range"

of the examiner,

presents

it.

of

it is

or other;

refuse this, although

examination-papers

no competent examiner it will

make

personality, too, of the

bit of careful study.

young

much

general,

like

it

is

worth a

may seem

Here

other folks.

human, natural

aid of the students.

edge of the examiner

intelligence

is

to

and

where

comes to the

In certain cases, a knowlis

only

knowledge of the subject is

more arduous.

examiner

Strange as

will

the thoughtful

pupils, the usual instructor has fads

habits

he

certainly the psychological

of preparing his examinations

The

This

of the subject as

each student to get access to them in

some way work

and

If the previous

are on display,

duty

a right to "get the

less

of

important than

the examination.

a personal, confidential point which should

not be published widely, for some non-human logicians

do not yet understand the need for a

HOW TO LEAEN

210

EASILY

knowledge of the motivity of human behaviour

and possibly might deny their humanity. Plenty of sleep for a week or more before an examination

is

Every hour

well

so

worth whatever time

spent

it costs.

worth at least treble

is

what you might expect unless you understand the

eflBciency-advantage

of

Sleep clears the

over those that are fatigued.

cobwebs out

brain-units

rested

and memory, so that

of the brain

the nine billions or so of neurons can work in association far better than

General

invigoration

greatly improves the

Therefore

powers.

when they

of

the

are fatigued.

especially highly expedient during the

up the whole organism and put

"on edge."

it,

we tone

as the athletes

At examination time

sirable that the digestive tract

order.

few weeks

In this way

before examination-time.

say,

organism

entire

memory and the reasoning much outdoor exercise is

it is

de-

be in good working

Thus we may avoid that

feeling of toxe-

mic headache and general malaise which

is

in-

compatible with clear thinking and with accurate work.

A

light

breakfast

digested food

is

or

a

light

lunch of easily

necessary before an examination,

on the physiological principle that the blood, which

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS is

211

limited in quantity, cannot be both in the brain

and

On

stomach at the same time. other hand, a hungry person cannot think in the

(nor can a cold person).

the

readily,

This light meal, a short

time before an examination, might very well include a cup of

provided the student This

or tea, not too strong,

coflfee

accustomed to

is

its

use.

obviously not a good time to try experi-

is

ments as to the personal reaction towards drugs of any kind. Alcohol is harmful to all mental (and bodily)

effort.

A studetit sometimes gains much the entire material of the

before

the

hy looking over

examination immediately

A

exam,ination-hour.

large

amount

should be surveyed in a short time, — ten minutes or so on the whole subject matter, — not by any

means a long time enough to In practice this

is

tire

the reader.

often extremely productive in

suggesting partly forgotten facts and principles

which

(as experience

shows) are just those re-

quired a short time later. If the

examination

is

to be written, prepare at

least two fountain pens, well

Or sharpen

and

clean.

four or five pencils which are neither

too hard nor too cils

filled

soft.

Or have both.

are too hard, the examiner

is

If the

pen-

apt to be reduced

HOW TO LEAEN

212

EASILY

when he reads the " book " too soft, it is diflScult to make

to mild pedagogic anger

whereas

if

they are

a neat paper. is

is

This matter of writing-materials

more important than the average student apt to consider, so if "marks" be of any obfar

ject (and

aminee

sometimes they appear so to the ex-

we might

!)

follow to good advantage the

habit of the newspaper-men

who

use a large

num-

ber of soft pencils and write large and legible

Did students

script.

into

ters

in general take these

mat-

consideration fewer examiners would

sympathize with Ralph Waldo Emerson when he says in his "Journal":

"What

a pity that

cannot curse and swear in good society.

we

My

page about consistency would be better written thus:

'Damn

Consistency'"

— which

is

good

psychology for several reasons.

So much

few practical points as to fre-

for a

paring for an examination

The next

search

is

as to the scientific

of actually doing the examination.

attitude as

problem set

is

we

manner

Our mental

actually approach this concrete

of the

utmost importance.

We should

about an important examination with a grim

up" bodily, as the stujvhat we mean by dyna-

determination to "eat dents say.

This

is

it

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS

213

mogeny, which has been already referred to previous pages.

in

This appears psychologically in

the form of a conscious determination, a powerful

determination reinforced by a strong self-suggested feeling of encouragement; gestion plus

an emotional

Cannon's laboratory, we

mogeny depends

in part

it is

auto-sug-

Since the work in

tone.

dyna-

realize that this

on the increased amount,

however, minute, of adrenin in the blood, but especially, perhaps,

"dynamogeny"

This

there.

an increased supply is

a

of sugar

matter

of

great and practical importance, and no longer the perfect mystery that

it

used to be.

This

is

an

extremely important power, and for the writing of

an examination or the doing otherwise

examination, world, even

is

it

not

kill

the difference in the

man who

is

shaken

him, enjoys a far better chance

really will not kill

him than does one who

by the prospect

of undergoing

sad and irresponsible disease.

force in this

would be

and

an

the contrast between failure and

over-frightened

this

of

pneumonia with a firm determination that

it shall

that

all

all

In the same way the

success.

into

may mean

it

human organism

diflBcult

this force

There

of ours

is

a

which

it

sometimes to stay in bounds,

can be used in the successful per-

HOW TO LEARN

214

EASILY

formance of examinations as well as elsewhere.

Reduced to

means the more

scientific terms, it

or less controllable force of the influence of the

mind over the body no assignable

to which there

is

at present

limit.

As we enter an examination-room, if there be any choice, we should choose a good light without having to face the unprotected brightness of the

open sunny sky, which would in varying degree the brain.

irritate

We

ample

should choose a place

where there

is

combined

of these minor subconscious strains

all

rest for

the elbows, for

on the central nervous system count fatiguing examination

cool rather

We

than a

a long and

and help to weary and

We should choose

retard the action of the brain.

a

in

warm

place in the room.

should insist that the room should be ade-

quately and amply ventilated, because that

it is

should be open to the air than too re-

it

stricted.

The

ideal approximates to

good out-

door conditions of breeze and dampness. best temperature

ment and the raise

better

is

The

65° Fahrenheit, for the excite-

attention of the

work

is

sure to

the personal temperature somewhat and

this, in

combination with a too

would produce a flow I

warm

of sweat

atmosphere,

which would be

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS and so

uncomfortable tention.

On

distract

215

thoughtful

at-

the other hand a chilly person can-

not think readily.

As

in all other

forms of long mentaj

strain, the

wise student frequently will rest his eyes and the

muscles of his head and neck by looking around the room.

This changes (lengthens) the focus

of the eyes

and thereby

rests all parts of this

At

extremely delicate seeing-mechanism.

least

once in every fifteen minutes a minute or two is

used with the greatest economy in looking

around. It

is

almost impracticable to say

penmanship.

The matter

is

much about an

undoubtedly

important one from the student's point of view,

and not

less so certainly

The obvious run

fact

is

than from the examiner's.

that plain writing in the long

of emotional examiners distinctly tends to-

ward high marks. fine or faint,

The

writing must not be too

such as that

drawing-pencil;

and

it

made with a very hard

must not be too

to read because of poor handwriting. illegibility

that

is

puts the examiner in bad

diflSicult

Relative

humor and

a bad "policy" for the examinee.

It

is

worth while to put plainly on the examinationquestion papers given to the studejits that "the

HOW TO LEARN

216

EASILY

answers should be concise and systematic, and the writing must be plain." It

is

inexpedient to enlarge here upon the

necessity of good English, yet there less,

is,

a widespread tendency in schools of

none the all

grades

in the United States to use the English of all

written examinations,

if

those that are oral,

riot

This

as a test of the general intelligence. of the important things for the

general intelligence. ing of examinations

is

one

advancement

of

The reading and the gradis

positively the worst of all

school-work, especially where the school

is large.

know reads more than thirteen " Under hundred exam-books " in a college year One

instructor I

!

these conditions

we

should expect that the

ings of the average examiner

stand

much

further strain

uncontrollable resentment. legible English,

feel-

would be unable to

and remain

free

from

Therefore write good

on the general

principle,

if

on no

other basis.

Do

not think that

an examiner

is going to take

anything "for granted"; theoretically he should

not and in practice he

and

may

Details, then

explicitness (facts) are wholly necessary for

the securing of high marks. true

not.

statements,

It

is

statements,

showing knowledge and under-

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS standing, that count;

the more of them, the

more credit-marks a student serve that not

from

ness, all

words are statements

"hot air" should be It wastes the

ination. iner,

all

which

is

But ob-

receives.

Using the slang because of

it.

217

left

!

far

its explicit-

out of an exam-

good humor

of the

exam-

a very costly kind of waste under

the circumstances. words, that count

It is ideas in :

in fact,

general,

not

words that do not

express any ideas are rather worse than nothing,

because they waste the time and precious patience of the examiner.

It

is

spects the examination

dent and

obvious that in is

many

re-

a test between the stu-

his examiner.

Pictures and diagrams, especially

when labelled way of partly

and explained by text, are an ideal writing an examination, and oftentimes students deficient in the power of good English or of good handwriting, can remember pictures and sketch and

label

them when they cannot

pUcitly the conditions.

portant

power

of

This in

education,

remembering, of understanding,

describe ex-

itself is

this

and

an im-

faculty of

of

repro-

ducing pictures and diagrams, and here of great

and granted

use.

In long examinations where the hours are apt

HOW TO LEARN

218

to be crowded, as in

many

EASILY professional exami-

nations, the examiner should not object to the

Schematic arrangement

syllabus style.

is

of the

utmost importance in writing a paper which

We

to be high-marked. to

matter

this

ment, for

will

it

attention

called

already — sub-divisions

properly logical headings.

an examiner

have

We may

is

under

be sure that

always appreciate this arrange-

relieves

him

of needless

work and

shows, at the same time, that the student really understands, in a psychological way, the material

which he has

offered.

but conciseness

is

means brevity only ness and clearness

Conciseness

is

important,

not necessarily brevity;

it

so far as consistent with full-

— the omission of unnecessary

words.

Good humor in

life,

more

is

important, as in other situations

in this writing of examinations,

in

an oral examination.

intelligence of

many

and

still

Here the native

individuals shows itself to

the best advantage, as they realize, for dons and professors,

are

human

pect

it.

motto.

much

and even state boards all, little

as

All our wits and a

bit

after

of registration,

some students of wit I

sus-

might be our

But not too much humor, and not too some examiners think it undignified

wit, for

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS to smile,

and so discount the work

ous student. fatal in will

Flattery and

titles

of the

219

humor-

are absolutely

an examination, for the average examiner

not stand them.

In general, confidential

notes appealing to some person

who

is

interested

or to personal relations of the examiner are not

highly productive of scholastic success

— nor are

graphic pictures on the last page (such as have

been seen) showing a weeping female on her knees begging for A's (or at least for a D).

We

should plan out the entire time allotted for

the examination, allowing so

many minutes

for

each question with an ample time for review at the end.

It

is

to remember the

a good plan, having done

—

this,

limit of time to

be devoted to

necessary,

return after-

each question and,

if

wards to an unfinished answer. On the other hand, provided the question can be satisfactorily answered or answered as

fully as is possible,

we

should go immediately to the next question. It

is

an extremely common

error,

harmful to the average student,

and one highly

to

hurry through

an examination and not really think, or at succeed in recalling, what he really knows.

least

Ex-

aminations test intelligence and this hurry shows that there is none of it present. There is no excuse

HOW TO LEARN

EASILY

for this, save in highly professional examinations

which the examinee

in

to write rapidly

moment

at

is

given just time enough

what he should, with

all for

scarcely a

search-thinking or for recall.

An

examination ordinarily should give some time

for

thought on each question, and

highly

is

it

important that this time should be so used.

at

first,

common error,

also, to

think well and hard

So push the mind well

in the early part of

It is a

the examination, but to stop the effort when a little

tired,

partly

although the examination be only

completed,

slighted.

the

or they should do so,

weak

as to

make

being

test the entire intelligence,

and one

a proper student whose mind so

half, even,

latter

Examinations

is is

not intelUgent or so little trained or

this mistake.

of writing one-half, or as

much

as

paper and then saying the "time

The

may is

old trick

be, of the

up"

or

time to finish," of course deceives no one. last question is just as

and

it is

important as the

first

the student's business to be sure that

answered as well as the

good marks.

Bluffing

the long run, even

now and then.

first, if

is

if it

dead

"no The one, it

be

he be looking for

fatal to success in

does hit the pass-mark

This occurs as a pretense of having

knowledge which we know perfectly well we have

EXAMINATION-PREPAREDNESS

221

not, trusting that the hurried examiner will mis-

take mere words for the statements required.

We

might expect that the feminine mind would

be more successful in

We is

than the masculine.

this

should not confuse this with intuition, which

appreciated subconscious knowledge.

times there

is

more

in our subconscious

we realize and only by

Often-

mind than

the actual expressive motor

reaction of trying to write

it

do the associations

which occur in the mind show themselves

in

consciousness.

We

should not judge an examiner's

own.

It

is

mind by our

generally true and germane, explicit,

ideas that count,

and not our particular notions

of these essential ideas.

Examinations require above learning)

outcome.

self-possession

Adequate physical

and continuous, like

will

a highly successful training, systematic

help us to this self-possession

nothing else save actual practice in this highly

human is

for

all things else (save

educational art.

to cheat our learning

cheat ourselves.

To

avoid examinations

mind; to flunk them, to

.

INDEX A's

204.

vs. ease,

Abbreviations,

Brain-training, 196.

Browning, Robert, 198.

71.

Abstracting, 130, 146 f. Accuracy of thinking, 201.

Adjustment, 45

;

and

Cannon, W.

see Skill.

B., 123, 213.

Care-freedom, 104.

Affect, 82, 212.

"Cat-naps

", 21.

Affectation of studiousnesa, 119.

Cattell, J.

McK.,

Air, 18.

Change, impulse to, 14. Choice of books, 116.

Alcohol, 211.

48, 176.

Allen, Grant, 12.

"Christian Science", 114.

Allotment of examination-time,

Coffee, 211.

Collateral reading, 2, 136, 139.

219.

Amateur

printing, 133

Analytic plan in 68 f, 204, 218. Angell, J. R., 78.

ff.

note-taking,

Artists, 11.

Attention, 68, 103, 191

Bacon, Francis,

f.

116, 144, 202.

Bain, A., 12. Bair, J. H., 182. Bechterew, V. M., 66. Bell, J.

C,

Companionship with scholars, 3. Complexes in the mind, 107 ff., 185 ff. Concentration-periods, 22. Concepts, see Words. Conciseness, 217 f.

Conditioned reflexes, 66 f. Conscious study, 13. Constructive imagination, 84 Control of self, 114. Conversation, 30. Coriat,

X, 140.

Bentham, Jeremy,

I.

H., 24.

Cramming, 28

12.

f,

122

f,

Berle, A. A., 131, 189.

Cranks, 139.

Best of

Creation-time, 142, 201

life,

43.

Bibliographies, 146

f.

Blots of ink, 86, 94

f,

Bluffing, 220

f

164.

Debate,

125.

f.

202.

Deduction, 111.

f.

Body, sanction of, 50. Book, W. F., 10.

Definition of education, 36, 38. Details, 216.

Book-English, 131 Books, 116.

Determination to learn, 125. Dewey, John, 148 f. Diagrams, 29, 71 f, 112, 217.

f.

Bradley, F. H.. 172.

223

INDEX

S24

Dictionary, 113, 130 f. Difficvilty of being educated, 42. Directions for practical work,

59

Explicitness of observation, 45.

statements, 216

f

Eye-strain, 142, 215.

f.

Discussion, 30.

Factors in educating,

Distractions, 14.

Pacts, 216.

Doing, 25, 59.

152.

False-study, 15.

Dollar-value of education, 34 Dozing, 15. Drawing, 64, 71 f.

f.

Fatigue, 8, 14. Feeble-mindeduess, 47, 49. Feeling-imagination, 110.

Drill-periods, 192 f

"Feeling" of likeness, 170.

Drudgery, 3. Dubois, Paul, 24.

Femald, W. E., 49.

Dynamic

Dynamogeny, 212

J

Feeling-tone, 82.

aspect of mind, 41

174, 176, 189

'

f,

Fetishes, 141.

Fiske, John, 40.

f.

122

9,

ff,

206,

Food, 18. Force, 99.

f.

Forgetting, 76, 105.

Ease

vs.

A's, 204.

Good humob,

Eating, 210.

Economics

of

an education,

of happiness, 44

Economy,

34.

218.

Grace, 109.

Graphs, 72.

ff.

ix, 1.

Educative imagination, 77.

Habit, 80, 195

Effort in learning, 43

Habit-bending, 196. Hall-Quest, A. L., 39 Hand-writing, 216.

f

Ehriich, Paul, 111.

Elective system, 83.

W., 49, 63 ff. Emerson, R. W., 116, 149 Emotional tone, 82, 212.

Happiness

Eliot, C.

English, 113, 131 Essays, 202.

ff,

f,

212.

189, 216.

Euphoria, 18. Examination-room, 214. Examination-preparedness, 203ff. Examinations, 28. Examination, oral, 206 ff. practical, 208 f written, 209 f Examiner, 209, 218 f. Exercise, 17 f. See also Physical Training. Explanation in lectures, 74.

is

f.

dynamogenic,

191.

Harvey, N. A., Headache, 17.

12.

Health, 16 f. Hearing, 25.

Heck, W. H., 201. Helmholtz, 37. Hot air, 214 f, 217.

Human

ff.

nature, 119.

Hurry, 219 f. Huxley. T. H., 35 Hypertension, 21.

Idea-germs, 133. Idea-picking, 144.

f.

6,

.

INDEX Ideational physiology, 178

Lowell, A. Lawrence, 206.

ff.

Lunch, 210

Illiterates, 43.

Imagination, 26, 77, 85

Index, stheneuphoric, 4. " The Influence of Joy", x,

4.

Ingenuity, 109, 112. Inhibition, the essence of hu-

t,

164.

Integration in observation, 45.

women,

157.

Intensive effort, 28 f, 122, 125. Intensive use of books, 121, 141. 39, 46, 188.

Intuition, 152

Investment,

Modes

of instruction, 61

Money-value of joy, 4 Morgan, Lloyd, 161.

Motor

learning, viii.

Milller,

Max,

f.

f.

See Skill.

190.

Miinsterberg, H., 12, 53

158.

ff,

ff.

Muscle-adaptation (perception),

34.

vii,

ff.

Mill, J. S., 12.

Inspirations, 159.

f,

ff.

27, 67, 79.

Mental complexes, 107 Meyer, Max, 12.

Initiative, 112, 152.

Interest, 1

McMtort. F. M., 136. Marshall, H. R., 12. Massiveness of ideas, 106. Mayman, J. E., 61 f. Melody, the learning of a, 100 Memory,

manity, 13. Ink-blots, 86, 94

t.

ff.

Imitation, 24.

Intelligence of

225

47.

James, Wilulam, 20, 75, 106, 108.

Music, 63 f. Myers, G. C, 125.

Janet, P., 24.

Names as concept-handles, 92,

JelUffe, S. E., 24.

Joy, influence

99.

of, 4.

Nerve-waste, 17.

KiNEBTHEBiA,

163.

See

also

"New

Thought", 114.

Note-books, 70 f Notes, 75, 142, 204. Note-taking, 26 f, 44, 129, 142.

Skill.

King, Irving, 117.

Labor, 117. Observation, 44, 119. "On edge" for examination, 210. Opportunity for thought, 196.

Laboratory-work, 69.

Laws

of association, 98.

Laziness, 2, 199. Lectures, 16, 74. Libraries, 2, 147.

Oral debate, 202. Oral examination, 206 ff. Organic imagination, 113.

Light for reading, 142.

Originality, 109.

Leisure in school, 197.

writing, 214.

Likeness and unlikeness, 164 Lodge, Oliver, 113. Logic, 158, 182 ff. Logical notes, 68.

fi.

Over-soul, 156. Own words, 74.

Pain,

8.

Parker, Gilbert, 148.

INDEX

226 Pavlov,

Quick summary before examina-

J. P., 109.

Pencils, 211

f,

213.

tion, 211.

Penmanship, 216. Pens, 211 f. Perception, 47. See also Skill. Performance, 101, 104.

Ratiocination, 100.

Periodicals, 146.

Reading of children, 140.

Permanency

Reading-light, 142. Reflexes, conditioned, 66

of impression, 108

f.

Personality of examiner, 209

f

"Petering-out", 220. Peterson, H. A., 72.

See

191.

Physical training. training

(skill),

viii,

62

ff, 67, 81, 99, 109, 121, 163, 181, 191, 208, 221.

Physics, 61

f.

Fhydolo^c

requisites for study,

16fiE.

Physiology of ideation, 178 S. Play,

ff.

ff.

Rest, 194.

Retention, 128. of text-books, 136. Revery, 161. Reviewing, 29 f. 72 f, 81, 103 112, 204. Ribot, Th. A., 24. Rote-leaming, 16. Rules, 103, 199.

Sanction of the body, 50. Satisfaction from education, Schematism in notes, 27 f,

Plot, 141.

Poincar^, H., 24, 158 ff. Posting-up of notes, 28 f, 76. Practical examination, 208 f

work, 59, 73 f. Precision of mind, 36

f,

Preparedness 203 ff.

for

Morton.

W.

68,

School-time leisure, 197. Scientific American Supplement,

f

ix.

examination,

Seashore, C. E., 21. Seeing, 26. Self-possession, 221.

36

24,

186. Printing-presses, 133 Profanity, 212.

Psychology,

43.

218.

Prefaces, 143.

Pyle,

f.

81, 47.

200.

ix,

Play-work at home, 62.

Prince,

62

ff,

educating,

Reproductive imagination, 79

education,

also

60

in

Relaxation, 20 f Repetition, 66, 105.

Pestalozzi, H., 26, 53.

Physical

189.

Reform

Persistence, 109.

Physical

Reaction, 35, 39, 42, 174, 176.

ff.

Questions, 209. Quick learning, 128.

107,

Self-unrealization, 113

f.

Sense-training, 45, 47

ff,

52.

Sexual characteristics, tertiary, 153.

vii f

H., 128, 192

ff,

Sidis, Boris, 41. f.

52 ff, 57, 81, 99, 109, 121, 163, 181, 190 f, 221.

Skill, viii,

Skill

and

learning, 26.

Skimming, 143.

.

INDEX Sleep, 19, 21, 200, 210. Solitude, 196 f.

Tools, 37. Training, physical, see Skill. Tranquillity, 20 f, 196 f.

Spencer, Herbert, 12. Spinoza, 5 f. Starch, Daniel, 22, 193.

Stedman, T.

Travel, 46.

L., ix.

Stheneuphoric index, 4

Uniqueness op books, 144 f,

7, 13,

110.

Unlikeness, 164

ff,

52.

requisites, 136.

Utility of impressions, 109.

f.

"Stuffing," 148. Sturt, Henry, 69

Variety op text-books, 135

f

Verne, Jules, 113. ViatiUty, 178 f. Viscera in emotion, 124

Subconscious", "the, 24 f, 168 ff, 185 e. Subconscious learning, 23, 104, 158 ff.

Visualizing, 26, 84.

Suggestion, 113.

Vocabulary, 113, 130

Suzzallo, Henry, 30.

Von Hartmann, Eduard,

Swett,

I.

f.

f.

f.

24.

B., 140.

Syllabus-style, 218.

Wallin,

Symbolism, 171.

Warren, H. Waste, 11.

Synonyms and antonyms,

133,

Waste

189.

Tables of contents,

143.

Taking of notes, 44. "Talks to Teachers",

20, 108.

E. W., 136.

C,

154.

in schools, 31

ff.

Wholeness, 29, 81. Will-to-learn, 39.

Wit, 218. Wits, 218.

Temperature, 214. Text-books, 120

J.

Watson, J. B., 55 ff, 108. Wells, H. G., 113.

Tea, 211.

Women's

ff.

intelligence, 167.

as vertebrae, 120.

Woodworth, R.

in variety, 30.

Word-books, see Dictionary. Words, 113, 131 ff, 133, 189 ff,

Text-book study, 121. "Thinker", 148, 150 f. Thinking, 3, 23, 187 ff, 199.

Thomson,

161,

J. A., 113.

Thought, see Thinkinq.

Time

f.

173.

Unscholarly individuals, 1. U. S. Bureau of Education, 30,

Sthenic index, 13. Study, 13. time, 117

227

of day, 201

f.

S.,

126.

216.

182

ff,

Work, 3, 117, 198. Worry, 8, 17, 114, 206, " worth to God,"

213. 198.

Writing examinations, 209 ff. Written examination, 209 f.