How To Study and Teaching How To Study | Page 4

not usually signify much. A certain
college student, when urged to spend not less than an hour and a half
on each lesson, replied, "What would I do after the first twenty
minutes?" His idea evidently was that he could read each lesson
through and memorize its substance in that time. What more remained
to be done? Very few teachers, I find, are fluent in answering his
question. In practice, memorizing constitutes much the greater part of
study.
The very name recitation suggests this fact. If the school periods are to
be spent in reciting, or reproducing, what has been learned, the work of
preparation very naturally consists in storing the memory with the facts
that are to be required. Thinking periods, as a substitute name for
recitation periods, suggests a radical change, both in our employment
of school time and in our method of preparing lessons. We are not yet
prepared for any such change of name.
The literature dealing with method of study.
Consider finally the literature treating of study. Certainly there has
never been a period when there was a more general interest in
education than during the last twenty years, and the progress that has
been made in that time is remarkable. Our study of the social view-
point, of child nature, of apperception, interest, induction, deduction,
correlation, etc., has been rapidly revolutionizing the school, securing a
much more sympathetic government of young people, a new
curriculum, and far more effective methods of instruction. In
consequence, the injuries inflicted by the school are fewer and less
often fatal than formerly, while the benefits are more numerous and
more vital. But, in the vast quantity of valuable educational literature
that has been published, careful searching reveals only two books in
English, and none in German, on the "Art of Study." Even these two
are ordinary books on teaching, with an extraordinary title.
The subject of memorizing has been well treated in some of our
psychologies, and has received attention in a few of the more recent
works on method. Various other problems pertaining to study have also,
of course, been considered more or less, in the past, in books on

method, in rhetorics, and in discussions of selection of reading matter.
In addition, there are a few short but notable essays on study. There
have been practically, however, only two books that treat mainly of this
subject,--the two small volumes by Dr. Earhart, already mentioned,
which have been very recently published. In the main, the thoughts on
this general subject that have got into print have found expression
merely as incidents in the treatment of other themes--coming, strange
to say, largely from men outside the teaching profession--and are
contained in scattered and forgotten sources.
Thus it is evident not only that children and teachers are little
acquainted with proper methods of study, but that even sources of
information on the subject are strangely lacking.
The seriousness of such neglect is not to be overestimated. Wrong
methods of study, involving much unnecessary friction, prevent
enjoyment of school. This want of enjoyment results in much dawdling
of time, a meager quantity of knowledge, and a desire to quit school at
the first opportunity. The girl who adopted the muscular method of
learning history was reasonably bright. But she had to study very
"hard"; the results achieved in the way of marks often brought tears;
and, although she attended the high school several years, she never
finished the course. It should not be forgotten that most of those who
stop school in the elementary grades leave simply because they want to,
not because they must.
Want of enjoyment of school is likely to result, further, in distaste for
intellectual employment in general. Yet we know that any person who
amounts to much must do considerable thinking, and must even take
pleasure in it. Bad methods of study, therefore, easily become a serious
factor in adult life, acting as a great barrier to one's growth and general
usefulness.
CHAPTER II
THE NATURE OF STUDY, AND ITS PRINCIPAL FACTORS

Our physical movements ordinarily take place in response to a need of
some sort. For instance, a person wishing to reach a certain point, to
play a certain game, or to lay the foundations for a house, makes such
movements as are necessary to accomplish the purpose desired. Even
mere physical exercise grows out of a more or less specific feeling of
need.
The mental activity called study is likewise called forth in response to
specific needs. The Eskimo, for example, compelled to find shelter and
having only blocks of ice with which to build, ingeniously contrives an
ice hut. For the sake of obtaining raw materials he studies the habits of
the few wild animals about him, and out of these materials he manages