How to Study

by George Fillmore Swain

If you have problems assigned, solve them entirely by yourself, even if you make mistakes. Then, when those mistakes are pointed out, consider them with great care and discover the causes for them, and remedy them, so that you will not again make the same mistake or one analogous to it. You should delight in discovering difficulties which give you an opportunity to test and increase your strength and so avoid future errors. In the same way, examinations should be welcomed, not dreaded. The teacher does not mark you—you mark yourself; the teacher merely records the mark. Even if you fail in the examination, that should indicate to you what you lack, and so be a benefit. Indeed, it is better to fail than to scrape through.[[1]] There must be a line somewhere. The man just above the line passes, and the man just below the line fails. The former may not be as capable as the latter, but, having passed, he does not remedy his faults; while the man who has failed is required to remedy his. Huxley said that the next best thing to being right is to be completely and wholesomely wrong.

(d) DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS, WHENEVER POSSIBLE, BEFORE YOU KNOW THOSE OF THE WRITER You ARE STUDYING.—When you read, "From the above it is evident," stop, close the book, and see if you can state what is evident. When you have written this down, compare with the result reached by the writer. Practise such exercises in whatever form they present themselves. If your conclusions are different from those of the writer, in kind or in character, see which is right, or whether both are right. If you are right, why did the writer not reach your conclusion? Was it because it was not pertinent to his problem? Is it simply a difference of expression?

The process of investigating any subject is a process of question and answer. The student must first propound to himself a question, and it must be the proper question. He must be able to perceive what the proper question is, under the circumstances. Then he must give to himself the proper answer out of all the possible answers that are verbally correct, namely, the answer that affords a new vantage ground from which another question may be asked; and so the problem may be gradually unravelled.

Then again, many questions are indefinite, and can only be answered indefinitely; but to all questions a correct answer can be given, and the student must give the most definite answer the case admits of, and must gain the ability to qualify his answer or classify possible cases in such manner as may be necessary.

(e) IF YOU CANNOT SEE HOW THE AUTHOR REACHES A STATED CONCLUSION, BECAUSE HE DOES NOT INDICATE THE PROCESS WHICH HE FOLLOWS, DO NOT SPEND TOO MUCH TIME TRYING TO FIND OUT HOW HE DID IT, BUT RATHER SEE IF YOU CAN COME TO A CONCLUSION IN YOUR OWN WAY, THUS CULTIVATING YOUR OWN POWER AND INITIATIVE RATHER THAN FOLLOWING THE AUTHOR.—A good textbook should not make things too clear, or relieve the student of the necessity of exerting himself.

(f) LEARN TO GENERALIZE.—Draw the most general conclusion possible from the premises. Try to see if a general principle can be laid down. This is a most important faculty to acquire. At the same time, avoid the prevalent fault of hasty generalization, based on insufficient data.

(g) GO BEYOND THE BOOK.—Regard the book as suggestive and not final, as the assistant to your own powers that you are for the moment employing. Pursue the subject as much farther as you have time for. In this way you may develop a faculty for independent thinking.

(h) VISUALIZE YOUR RESULTS SO FAR AS POSSIBLE.—Train the imagination by perceiving results in your mind, in concrete form, and in imagining applications of facts and principles. Remember that use is the object of study, and try to see the use that may be made of what you have acquired.

We have seen that there are four main requisites for proper study, viz.: (1) Mental courage; (2) Understanding; (3) System; (4) Initiative. In addition to these may be mentioned (5) Proper habits and methods of work, under which head a number of minor but important suggestions may be made.