"All the intellectual value for us of a state of mind depends on our after-memory of it," says Professor James. [Footnote: William James's Psychology, Vol. I, p. 644.]
Importance of memory.
In other words, there would be little object importance in reading, or reflection, or travel, or in experience in general, if such experience could not later be recalled so as to be further enjoyed and used. Want of reference thus far to memory does not, therefore, signify any lack of appreciation of its worth. No time is likely to come when a low estimate will be placed upon memory.
Usual prominence of memorizing as a factor in study, and the result.
How prominent memorizing should be, however, is a question of great importance.
The four factors of study that have now been considered are the finding of specific aims, the supplementing of the thought of authors, the organizing of ideas, and the judging of their general worth. These four activities together constitute a large part of what is called thinking. Memorizing—meaning thereby, in contrast to thinking, the conscious effort to impress ideas upon the mind so that they can be reproduced—has usually been a more prominent part of study than all these four combined. The Jesuits, for example, who were leaders in education for two hundred years, made repetition "the mother of studies," and it is still so prominent, even among adults, that the average student regards memorizing as the nearest synonym for the term studying. Repetition, or drill, however, is far from an inspiring kind of employment. It involves nothing new or refreshing; it is mere hammering, that makes no claim upon involuntary attention. When it is so prominent, therefore, it stultifies the mind, starving and discouraging the student and defeating the main purpose of study.
Reasons for such prominence.
If the work of memorizing is so uninteresting and even injurious, why is it made so prominent? There are probably numerous reasons; but only three will here be considered.
In the first place, memorizing is more superficial than real thinking, and people generally prefer to be somewhat superficial and mechanical. It takes energy to dig into things, and, being rather lazy, we are very often content to remain on the outside of them. Children show in many little ways how natural it is to be mechanical. For instance, rather than think the ideas adverb and present active participle, they will recognize words ending in ly as adverbs, and those ending in ing as present active participles. They will class words as prepositions or conjunctions by memorizing the entire list of each, rather than by thinking the relations that these parts of speech express. Young men and women, likewise, will memorize demonstrations in geometry rather than reason them out, and will memorize other people's opinions rather than attempt to think for themselves. Even though it is often really easier to rely upon one's own power to think than upon memory, it takes some depth of nature to recognize the fact and act accordingly.
Teachers show this tendency as plainly as students. In preparing lesson plans, for example, very few will get beyond what is mechanical and formal. The reason that recitations are so largely memory tests, too, is that teachers put mere memory questions more easily than they put questions that provoke thought. It is, therefore, a well- established natural trait that is back of so much mechanical memorizing.