How to Study and Teaching How to Study

by Frank M. McMurry

The dangers in these conceptions, and the conclusion. 1. The danger in this conception of thoroughness.

On the other hand, it should be remembered that neglect of details in general has not been advocated; it is only a judicious selection among them. And such selection calls for no more energy or ability than selection among larger facts. If we can trust students at all to distinguish values among the larger thoughts—as every one knows that we must—there is the same reason for trusting them to distinguish the relative worths of details.

2. The danger in the alternative plan.

The dangers of the alternative plan should also be borne in mind. Suppose that a capable student is taught to let no trifles escape him. The danger then is that, to the extent that he is earnest, he will fall in love with little things, until his vision for larger things becomes clouded. He may always be intending to pass beyond these to the larger issues; but he is in danger of failing so regularly that he will come in time to value details in themselves, not for what they lead to; the details become the large things, and the really large matters are forgotten.

A former professor in a large normal school illustrated this tendency exactly. At sixty years of age he was an unusually well-informed, cultured man, but he had developed a mania for little things. He had charge of the practice department, and each fall term it was customary to receive applications from about two hundred students for the practice teaching for that term. Each applicant filled out a blank, giving his name, age, preferred study to teach, preferred age of children, and experience in teaching. These papers had to be briefly examined; then at four o'clock in the afternoon of the same first day all these applicants were to be called together in one group for instructions about their teaching. By this arrangement the practice teaching could be started off very promptly.

On one occasion in the writer's knowledge, however, this gentleman could not resist the temptation to blue-pencil every mistake in spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc., that he could find in this entire set of papers, which must have occupied nearly two hours. Meanwhile, this task was so hugely absorbing, he entirely forgot to notify the two hundred applicants that they were wanted at four o'clock, and thus one day out of a year of less than two hundred was largely lost for the practice teaching.

The main fault of half of the good teachers in the elementary schools to-day is over-conscientiousness about little things. Believing that every mistake in written work should be corrected, that the blackboard should be kept thoroughly clean, that each day's lessons should be carefully planned, that, in short, every little duty should be well performed, they putter away at such tasks until there is no time left for much larger duties, such as physical exercise, sociability, and general reading. As a result they become habitually tired, unsympathetic, and narrow, and therefore schoolish. It is a strange commentary on education when conscientiousness means particular care for little things, as it very often does among teachers. It is desirable that a teacher prepare each day's lessons in full, and that she do a hundred other things each day, as well. But when she cannot do all these—and she never can—it is highly important that she apportion her time according to relative values; for instance, it is far better that she omit some of her preparation of lessons for the sake of recreation, if recreation would otherwise be omitted. People are unfitted for the work of life until they view it in fair perspective. One of the important objects of abundant and broad educational theory for teachers is to help them preserve the proper balance between large and small things; and, owing to the common tendency to neglect the larger things for the smaller, one of the prominent duties of school principals and supervisors is to remind both teachers and students of the larger values in life in general and in study in particular.

3. The conclusion.

It is evident that grave dangers are at hand, whether one slights some details or attempts to master them all. But no matter what the dangers are, there is one right thing for the student to do, that is, to develop the habit of weighing worths, of sensing the relative values of the facts that he meets. Good judgment consists largely in the proper appreciation of relative values; and since that is one of the very prominent factors in successful living, as well as in study, it is one of the most important abilities for the student to cultivate.

Not only the equal valuation of all details, but the treatment of various rules and virtues as absolute, is likewise directly hostile to this habit of mind. Young people who are taught to be always economical, or always punctual, or always regular, are thereby tempted to substitute thoughtless obedience for exercise of judgment. It is not always wise to be saving. A certain college boy owned three pairs of gloves; one pair was so old and soiled that it was suitable only for use in the care of the furnace; the other two pairs were quite new. However, having been taught to be always saving, he wore the old pair to college during much of his senior year, and saved the other two. He was true to his early teaching at the expense of good sense.