There is certainly a valuable truth in these maxims, and some people, therefore, accept them at their face value. Calling to mind that many of the greatest discoveries have hinged on seemingly insignificant facts, and that the world-renowned German scientists are distinguished by infinite pains in regard to details, they conceive that the student is primarily concerned with trifles. Knowing that the dollars will take care of themselves if the dimes are carefully saved, they reason that knowledge is properly mastered if the little things receive close attention. It becomes their ambition, therefore, to let nothing that is little escape them. In this spirit the conscientious student, largely identifying conscientiousness with thoroughness, keeps a special watch for little things, feeling that the smaller an item is the more fully it tests his thoroughness, and the more meritorious he is if he attends to it.
The influence of this notion of thoroughness upon practice has been marked in some schools. And since spelling furnishes excellent material for testing care for details, that subject has often been given high rank partly for that special reason. I have known one large training school for teachers in which for twenty years and more probably more time and energy on the part of both faculty and students were expended on spelling than on any other single subject. It was unpardonable not to cross the t or dot the i, not to insert the hyphen or the period. Having written a word in spelling, it was a heinous offense to change it after second thought, and a dozen misspelled words per term seriously endangered one's diploma at the end of the three-year course.
No one can deny great merit to such strenuousness. So definite an aim, applied to all subjects and relentlessly pursued by a whole faculty,—as was the case in this school,—compelled students to work till they overworked, and the school was therefore regarded as excellent. Yet this conception makes thoroughness a purely quantitative matter; it accepts thoroughness as meaning throughness or completeness, signifying the inclusion of everything from "beginning to end," or from "cover to cover."
2. The correct notion of thoroughness.
This notion of thoroughness, however, is certainly wrong in opposing all neglect; and the above-quoted maxims show themselves, in their disregard for relative values, to be only half truths, In the school just mentioned there was small emphasis of relative worths and of the use of judgment in the choice of objects to receive one's attention. As thoroughness consisted in attention to details, little things became per se worthy of study, and comparative worth was on that account overlooked.
But, as we have seen, there is no hope of mastering all the ideas connected with any topic, so that the student must be reconciled to the exercise of judgment in making selection. This choice must be exercised, too, among the details themselves; it is not confined to a selection of the large thoughts in distinction from the details. Details vary infinitely among themselves in value; some, like the horseshoe nail, easily bear a vital relation to large results; others, like the use of a hyphen in a word, in all probability bear no important relation to anything. Those that have this vital relation are essential and need careful attention; the others are non-essential and deserve for that reason to be neglected. In other words, thoroughness is a qualitative rather than a quantitative matter; it is qualitative because it involves careful selection in accordance with the nature and relation of the details. The student, to whom thoroughness is a question of allness needs mental endurance as a chief virtue; the real student, on the other hand, requires constant exercise of judgment. In brief, the proper kind of thoroughness calls for a good degree of good sense.
The thoroughness that is here advocated implies no underestimate of little things; it only condemns want of discrimination among them. Even the painstaking German scientist is no devotee to all things that are little. Carrying on his investigation with reference to some definite problem, he is concerned only with such details as are closely related to it. If he is uncertain just what so-called little things do relate to it,—as has been the case, for instance, in the investigation of the cause of yellow fever,—he carefully investigates one thing after another. But in so doing he discriminates very sharply among details, throwing many aside without hesitation, briefly examining some, and finally settling on certain ones for exhaustive study.
It is only those little things that are thus related to something of real value that deserve attention. The mathematician is a stickler for little things. He insists that figures should be plainly made, and that 1 + 1 should never be allowed to equal 3. He is wholly in the right, because the slightest error in reading a number, in placing a decimal point, or in finding a sum must vitiate the whole result. Little things of that sort are called little, but they are in reality big.
It is unfortunate that such matters are often called trifles, for a trifle is usually supposed to be something that is of very little account; the name thus misleads. Such details are essential; other details are non-essential. It would be well if people would more generally divide details into these two classes, and apply the term trifles only to the latter sort. By neglecting non-essentials one could find more time for the details that are essential. Neglect of some things, therefore, instead of being opposed to thoroughness, is a direct and necessary means to it.
One cannot deny that this notion of thoroughness has its dangers, for it places the responsibility upon the student of using his own judgment. That is always dangerous. If the student lacks earnestness, or insight, or balance, he is bound to make mistakes. He is likely to make them anyway; and he may merely pick and choose according to comfort or whim, and do the most desultory, careless studying. It would be easier for him to "look out for all the little things" than to discriminate among them, for intelligent selection requires more real thinking.