How to Use Your Mind | Page 2

that more individuals will be helped,
inasmuch as the eliminative process has not yet reached its culmination.
In high schools where systematic supervision of study is a feature, classes are usually
conducted in Methods of Study, and it is hoped that this book will meet the demand for a
text-book for such classes, the material being well within the reach of high school
students. In high schools where instruction in Methods of Study is given as part of a
course in elementary psychology, the book should also prove useful, inasmuch as it gives
a summary of psychological principles relating to the cognitive processes.
In the grades the book cannot be put into the hands of the pupils, but it should be
mastered by the teacher and applied in her supervising and teaching activities.
Embodying, as it does, the results of researches in educational psychology, it should
prove especially suitable for use in teachers' reading circles where a concise presentation
of the facts regarding the psychology of the learning process is desired.
There is another group of students who need training in methods of study. Brain workers
in business and industry feel deeply the need of greater mental efficiency and seek
eagerly for means to attain it. Their earnestness in this search is evidenced by the success
of various systems for the training of memory, will, and other mental traits. Further
evidence is found in the efforts of many corporations to maintain schools and classes for
the intellectual improvement of their employees. To all such the author offers the work
with the hope that it may be useful in directing them toward greater mental efficiency.
In courses in Methods of Study in which the book is used as a class-text, the instructor
should lay emphasis not upon memorization of the facts in the book, but upon the
application of them in study. He should expect to see parallel with progress through the
book, improvement in the mental ability of the students. Specific problems may well be
arranged on the basis of the subjects of the curriculum, and students should be urged to
utilize the suggestions immediately. The subjects treated in the book are those which the
author has found in his experience with college students to constitute the most frequent
sources of difficulty, and under these conditions, the sequence of topics followed in the
book has seemed most favorable for presentation. With other groups of students, however,

another sequence of topics may be found desirable; if so, the order of topics may be
changed. For example, in case the chapter on brain action is found to presuppose more
physiological knowledge than that possessed by the students, it may be omitted or may be
used merely for reference when enlightenment is desired upon some of the physiological
descriptions in later chapters. Likewise, the chapter dealing with intellectual difficulties
of college students may be omitted with non-collegiate groups.
The heavy obligation of the author to a number of writers will be apparent to one familiar
with the literature of theoretical and educational psychology. No attempt is made to
render specific acknowledgments, but special mention should be made of the large
draughts made upon the two books by Professor Stiles which treat so helpfully of the
bodily relations of the student. These books contain so much good sense and scientific
information that they should receive a prominent place among the books recommended to
students. Thanks are due to Professor Edgar James Swift and Charles Scribner's Sons for
permission to use a figure from "Mind in the Making"; and to J.B. Lippincott Company
for adaptation of cuts from Villiger's "Brain and Spinal Cord."
The author gratefully acknowledges helpful suggestions from Professors James R. Angell,
Charles H. Judd and C. Judson Herrick, who have read the greater part of the manuscript
and have commented upon it to its betterment. The obligation refers, however, not only to
the immediate preparation of this work but also to the encouragement which, for several
years, the author has received from these scientists, first as student, later as colleague.
THE AUTHOR.
CHICAGO, September 25, 1916.

CONTENTS


CHAPTER
I.
INTELLECTUAL PROBLEMS OF THE COLLEGE FRESHMAN
Number. Variety. Lecture Method. Note Taking. Amount of Library Work. High Quality
Demanded. Necessity for Making Schedule. A College Course Consists in the Formation
of Habits. Requires Active Effort on Part of Student. Importance of Good Form.
II. NOTE TAKING
Uses of Notes. LECTURE NOTES--Avoid Verbatim Reports. Maintain Attitude of

Mental Activity. Seek Outline Chiefly. Use Notes in Preparing Next Lesson. READING
NOTES--Summarize Rather Than Copy. Read With Questions in Mind. How to Read.
How to Make Bibliographies. LABORATORY NOTES--Content. Form. Miscellaneous
Hints.
III. BRAIN ACTION DURING STUDY
The Organ of Mind. Gross Structure. Microscopic Structure. The Neurone. The Nervous
Impulse. The Synapse. Properties of Nervous