I now reproduce most of the plan always adopted in dealing with books whose contents, or the unfamiliar portions of them are to be mastered.
(1) You will not read the book with the rapidity with which some young ladies are said to devour the latest novel. They are often suspected of skipping pages at a time in order to discover the different stages of a plot, until a thoroughly aroused curiosity compels them to hasten at once to the last chapter to fall upon the denouement. This is not the style of perusal I contemplate.
(2) Nor is it to be supposed because you understand the method that it will therefore work itself. It has to be applied carefully and methodically at least once. This necessarily demands time, especially at first. Those who possess good health and good continuity, and a mastery of the System, accomplish the retention of a work in vastly less time than would be possible for them without the System, and the study is a pleasure instead of a task. On the other hand, those who are in the possession of poor health or of weak concentration, or who are overburdened with business anxieties, domestic cares or competitive worries, would very seldom, if ever, master any book in the ordinary way by mere repetition. These persons are extremely unfavourably situated to do justice to the System, and it costs them more time and trouble to master a book than the former class. A student admitted that he had carefully read a manual of English History completely through sixteen times, and then failed in the examination. To have obtained a lasting knowledge of this History by my method would probably have occupied him as long as he was formerly engaged in two or three of the sixteen fruitless perusals of it. There is, however, only one difference between this unfortunate student and the great majority of those who succeed in the examinations through cramming. He forgot all his historical knowledge before the examination—they usually forget theirs shortly after. In fact, a student or a man in advanced years who has really mastered any book so that he never has to refer to it again is a wonder. Take the memories of members of the learned professions—they are usually only reference memories. They know where to find the coveted knowledge, but they do not possess it or retain it in their minds. On the other hand, the student who masters a book by my method really knows the contents of it, and he is thus enabled to devote to other purposes an enormous amount of time in the future that other people have to spend in perpetually refreshing their superficial acquirements. Moreover, the average student who has carried out all my instructions can even now learn as much by my Method in any stated time as he could learn without my Method, and with equal thoroughness in many, many times as long a period! And if any one who has been pressed for time, or who has been in a panic about an impending examination, or who has been too much troubled with Discontinuity, too ill in general health, or too idle, to do more than superficially glance at my lessons—if any such person doubts his competency to accomplish as much as the diligent student of average ability has done, then let him turn back and really and truly MASTER my System [for he does not even know what my System is until he has faithfully carried out to the very letter all my instructions, unless he has been a pupil of my oral lectures], and then and not before he will probably find that the achievements of the average diligent student of my System are quite within the easy range and scope of his own powers.
(3) In regard to the subject matter of the book, you do not care to occupy yourself with what you are already familiar with, and in most books there are a great many things that you already know. In many works, too, there is a great deal of padding-matter inserted to increase the bulk of the book, and possessing no permanent interest. The expositions and explanations which enable you to understand the new matter usually take up a large part of the book, and sometimes much the largest part of it, and are not to be memorised, but only understood with a sole view to appreciate the valuable and important parts of the book—these expositions can be learned if desired—but they usually serve only a preliminary purpose. There is also very much repetition—the same matter in new dress, is reintroduced for sake of additional comments or applications. You do not trouble yourself with these iterations. The contents of a book which demand your attention are the IDEAS which are NEW to you, or the NEW USES made of familiar ideas.
Students who have not learned to exercise any independent thought often confess that in reading any book they are always in a maze. One thing seems just as important as another. To them the wheat looks exactly like the chaff. As an illustration that the power of Analysis is entirely wanting in many cases, I may mention that I once received a letter in which the writer had literally copied one of my column advertisements, and then added, “Please send me what relates to the above!” A modicum of mental training would have led him to say, “Kindly send me your Prospectus.”
LEARN FIRST TO MAKE ABSTRACTS OF WHAT IS NEW TO YOU.
A great authority on education says: “Any work that deserves thorough study, deserves the labor of making an Abstract, without which, indeed, the study is not thorough.”
A work which deserves thorough study is obviously one full of IDEAS, new to the reader, such as the student must master.
If you are thinking of making an Abstract of a particular book, awaken the utmost interest in regard to it before you begin. Are you sure that it is worthy of thorough study? Is it the last or best work on the subject? And if you advance, note in a separate memorandum book your criticisms on the author’s method and the soundness of his views. These criticisms will help keep up your interest in the Abstract, and at the close enable you to suggest modifications, additions, excisions, or a refutation.
Three things are required: (1) To learn how to abstract; (2) To make one, at least, such abstract; and (3) To learn it when made.