How To Study and Teaching How To Study | Page 2

was certainly equal to that of a good farm hand,
for the same period of time.
This way of studying history seemed extremely ridiculous. But the
method pursued by myself and several others in beginning algebra at
about the same time was not greatly superior. Our text-book contained
several long sets of problems which were the terror of the class, and
scarcely one of which we were able to solve alone. We had several

friends, however, who could solve them, and, by calling upon them for
help, we obtained the "statement" for each one. All these statements I
memorized, and in that way I was able to "pass off" the subject.
A few years later, when a school principal, I had a fifteen-year-old boy
in my school who was intolerably lazy. His ambition was temporarily
aroused, however, when he bought a new book and began the study of
history. He happened to be the first one called upon, in the first
recitation, and he started off finely. But soon he stopped, in the middle
of a sentence, and sat down. When I asked him what was the matter, he
simply replied that that was as far as he had got. Then, on glancing at
the book, I saw that he had been reproducing the text verbatim, and the
last word that he had uttered was the last word on the first page.
These few examples suggest the extremes to which young people may
go in their methods of study. The first instance might illustrate the
muscular method of learning history; the second, the memoriter method
of reasoning in mathematics. I have never been able to imagine how the
boy, in the third case, went about his task; hence, I can suggest no
name for his method.
While these methods of study are ridiculous, I am not at all sure that
they are in a high degree exceptional.
Collective examples of study
The most extensive investigation of this subject has been made by Dr.
Lida B. Earhart,[Footnote: Systematic Study in the Elementary Schools.
A popular form of this thesis, entitled Teaching Children to Study, is
published in the Riverside Educational Monographs.] and the facts that
she has collected reveal a woeful ignorance of the whole subject of
study.
Among other tests, she assigned to eleven- and twelve-year-old
children a short selection from a text-book in geography, with the
following directions: "Here is a lesson from a book such as you use in
class. Do whatever you think you ought to do in studying this lesson
thoroughly, and then tell (write down) the different things you have

done in studying it. Do not write anything else." [Footnote: Ibid.,
Chapter 4.]
Out of 842 children who took this test, only fourteen really found, or
stated that they had found, the subject of the lesson. Two others said
that they would find it. Eighty-eight really found, or stated that they had
found, the most important parts of the lesson; twenty-one others, that
they would find them. Four verified the statements in the text, and three
others said that they would do that. Nine children did nothing; 158 "did
not understand the requirements"; 100 gave irrelevant answers; 119
merely "thought," or "tried to understand the lesson," or "studied the
lesson"; and 324 simply wrote the facts of the lesson. In other words,
710 out of the 842 sixth- and seventh- grade pupils who took the test
gave indefinite and unsatisfactory answers. This number showed that
they had no clear knowledge of the principal things to be done in
mastering an ordinary text-book lesson in geography. Yet the schools
to which they belonged were, beyond doubt, much above the average in
the quality of their instruction.
In a later and different test, in which the children were asked to find the
subject of a certain lesson that was given to them, 301 out of 828 stated
the subject fairly well. The remaining 527 gave only partial, or
indefinite, or irrelevant answers. Only 317 out of the 828 were able to
discover the most important fact in the lesson. Yet determining the
subject and the leading facts are among the main things that any one
must do in mastering a topic. How they could have been intelligent in
their study in the past, therefore, is difficult to comprehend.
Teachers' and parents complaints about methods of study.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to collect proofs that young people do not
learn how to study, because teachers admit the fact very generally.
Indeed, it is one of the common subjects of complaint among teachers
in the elementary school, in the high school, and in the college. All
along the line teachers condole with one another over this evil, college
professors placing the blame on the instructors in the high school, and
the