How to Study and Teaching How to Study Part 12

_5. Encouragement of different rates of reading._

Finally, varying rates of reading should be encouraged, according to the nature of the subject matter. While some books should be perused very slowly and thoughtfully, others should be covered as rapidly as possible. In the case of many novels, for instance, the ideas are so simple that they can be comprehended as rapidly as the words can be scanned.

Many persons, however, can read only as fast as they can p.r.o.nounce the words. They follow an established series of a.s.sociations: first, the word is observed; this image calls up its sound; the sound then recalls the meaning. Thus the order is _sight, sound, meaning._ That is a roundabout way of arriving at the meaning of a page and is usually learned in childhood. It explains why many an educated adult can read very little faster silently than aloud.

Some adults read fast simply by skimming over the less important parts, which is often justified. Some, however, save time by a.s.sociating the form of a word directly with its meaning, leaving the sound out of consideration. Then by running the eye along rapidly they double and treble the ordinary rate of advance. It is said that Lord Macaulay read silently about as rapidly as a person ordinarily thumbs the pages; and he must have seen the individual words, because his remarkable memory often enabled him to reproduce the text verbatim.

The slow-reading adult can, by practice, learn to take in a whole line or more almost at a glance, in place of three or four words, and can thus increase his rate of advance. But habit is so powerful that the rapid eye-movement necessary in rapid reading, together with the direct a.s.sociation of the form of a word with its meaning, should be learned in childhood. To this end, children should often be timed in their reading, being allowed only a few seconds or minutes to cover a certain amount. Some exercises might be given them, too, so as to accustom them to taking in a considerable number of words at a glance.

Meanwhile, however, pains should be taken to avoid the impression that rapid reading is always in place. Matter that requires much reflection, like the Bible for example, may well be read slowly. It is not merely rapid reading, but varying rates according to need, that the teacher should encourage.

There is no expectation that children will learn to handle books as Carlyle did. But they should be guided by the same general principles, and should form practical acquaintance with these principles while in school. Ordinarily there is a striking contrast between the use of books in school and outside, and the different rates of reading in the two places afford a striking ill.u.s.tration. Text in school is taken up in a gingerly fas.h.i.+on, scarcely enough of it being a.s.signed for one lesson to get the child interested. Then this is reviewed over and over until any interest that may originally have been excited is long since destroyed. Thoroughness is aimed at, at the expense of life. In independent reading outside of school the opposite course is pursued.

In the reaction from the school influence children revel in their freedom to do the things that their teachers forbid, and they accordingly go racing through their volumes.

Both methods are at fault. The school handling of books is intolerably slow; that outside is likely to be too rapid. In general, the method of using books in school should more closely resemble that desired elsewhere. The school method is the first to be reformed. It is seldom wise to be so thorough in the treatment of a text as to kill it for the learner. As a rule longer textbook lessons should be a.s.signed in the elementary school, and less attention should be given to the minor facts. Then, if necessary, the same general field should be covered from another point of view, through another text. This change of method is already largely realized in our beginning reading, and partly realized in several other subjects.

CHAPTER VI

JUDGING OF THE SOUNDNESS AND GENERAL WORTH OF STATEMENTS, AS A FOURTH FACTOR IN STUDY

We have already seen that proper study places much responsibility upon the student. Instead of allowing him to be an aimless collector of facts, it requires him to discover specific purposes that the facts may serve. With such purposes in mind he must supplement authors'

statements in numerous ways, and also pa.s.s judgment on their relative values. This all requires much aggressiveness.

_The problem here._

A problem now confronts us that suggests even greater aggressiveness.

The statements that one hears or finds in print are often somewhat exaggerated, or distorted, or grossly incorrect, or they may be entirely true. Who is to pa.s.s judgment upon their quality? Has the young student any proper basis for carrying that responsibility?

_Pressing nature of this problem.

1. In reading newspapers and magazines._

This problem is forced upon one when reading newspapers, particularly during political campaigns. One paper lauds a candidate as a great administrator, while another condemns him as a doctrinaire. One advocates protective tariff and the gold standard, while another urges revenue tariff only and free silver. Among the news columns one article predicts war, while another discerns signs of peace. Russia is at one time pictured as moving fast toward complete anarchy, while at another time she is shown to be making important political advances.

The j.a.panese are praised for their high standards of life, and are again condemned for their immorality. Magazine articles show disagreements just as striking. Public men, political policies, corporations, and religious beliefs are approved or condemned according to the individual writer. What, then, is the proper att.i.tude for the reader? Is he to regard one authority as about as good as another, or is he himself to distinguish among them and judge each according to the evidence that is offered?

_2. In the use of books._

D'Aubigne's _History of the Reformation_ is an extremely interesting work; but it treats the Reformation from the Protestant view-point, and is on that account unacceptable to Catholics. The history of our Civil War presents one series of facts when written by a northerner; a very different series when written by a southerner; and a still different one when written by an Englishman. Shall the student of either of these periods adopt the views of the author that he happens to be reading? Or shall he a.s.sume a view-point of his own? Or shall he do neither?

Carlyle and Ruskin indulge in much exaggeration, relying on striking statements for increased effect. Shakespeare possibly intended to present an exaggerated type of the Jew in the character of Shylock.

Shall the student recognize exaggeration as such? Or shall he take all statements literally? Or shall he avoid doing either, preserving an inactive mind?

In his work on _Education_, Herbert Spencer states that "acquirement of every kind has two values--value as knowledge and value as discipline. Besides its use for guidance in conduct, the acquisition of each order of facts has also its use as mental exercise." Many students of education would a.s.sert that one very important value of knowledge is here overlooked, _i. e._, its power to inspire and energize, a value that literature possesses to a high degree. a.s.suming that they are correct, dare the young student pa.s.s such a criticism?

Or would such a critical att.i.tude on his part toward a high authority be impertinent?

The first paragraph in Rousseau's _Emile_ runs as follows: "Coming from the hand of the Author of all things, everything is good; in the hands of man everything degenerates. Man obliges one soil to nourish the productions of another, one tree to bear the fruits of another; he mingles and confounds climates, elements, seasons; he mutilates his dog, his horse, his slave. He overturns everything, disfigures everything; he loves deformity, monsters; he desires that nothing should be as Nature made it, not even man himself. To please him man must be broken in like a horse; man must be adapted to man's own fas.h.i.+on, like a tree in his garden."

At the bottom of the first page of the translation of _Emile_ by Miss Worthington is a note by Jules Steeg, Depute, Paris, bearing on the above first paragraph and running as follows: "It is useless to enlarge upon the absurdity of this theory, and upon the flagrant contradiction into which Rousseau allows himself to fall. If he is right, man ought to be left without education, and the earth without cultivation. This would not be even the savage state. But want of s.p.a.ce forbids us to pause at each like statement of our author, who at once busies himself in nullifying it." Opposing statements like these are certainly enough to place the student in a dilemma.

_Proper att.i.tude of the student toward authorities._

Here are contradictions in political and religious beliefs and news items; very different interpretations of historical events; exaggerations bordering on misrepresentations; and evident omissions and absurdities on the part of educational philosophers. The weather bureau represents Old Reliability herself, in comparison with authors.

What att.i.tude shall the adult student a.s.sume toward such contradictory and faulty statements? Shall he regard himself as only a follower, taking each presentation of thought at its face value, sitting humbly at the feet of supposed specialists, and carefully preserving in memory as many of their princ.i.p.al opinions and conclusions as possible? Shall he a.s.sume the position of a mere receiver and collector?

That is manifestly impossible, for that would mean an ego divided a thousand times. It would prevent the final using of knowledge by the learner, instead of directing its use wisely; for the many opposing ideas and cross purposes would nullify one another. Besides that, wise application requires far more than a good memory as a guide, since memory takes no account of the adaptations always required by new conditions.

Whether he likes it or not, the student cannot escape the responsibility of determining for himself the fairness and general reliability of the newspapers and magazines that he reads; he must expect bias in historians, and must measure the extent of it as well as he can by studying their biographies and by observing their care in regard to data and logic; he must scrutinize very critically the ideas of the world's greatest essayists and dramatists. If a philosopher, like Rousseau, offers brilliant truths on one page, and equally brilliant perversions of truth on the next page, the student must ponder often and long in order to keep his bearings; and if footnotes attempt to point out some of these absurdities, he must decide for himself whether Rousseau or the commentator shows the superior wisdom.

"Above all," says Koopman, "he [the student] must make sure how far he can trust the author." [Footnote: Koopman, _The Mastery of Books_, p.

47.]

"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to _weigh_ and _consider_," says Bacon. [Footnote: Bacon's _Essays Of Studies_.]

Every book we read may be made a round in the ever-lengthening ladder by which we climb to knowledge and to that temperance and serenity of mind which, as it is the ripest fruit of wisdom, is also the sweetest.

But this can only be if we read such books as make us think, and read them in such a way as helps them to do so, that is, _by endeavoring to judge them_, and thus to make them an exercise rather than a relaxation of the mind. Desultory reading except as conscious pastime, hebetates the brain and slackens the bow string of Will. [Footnote: Lowell, _Books and Libraries._]

The student, therefore, must set himself up as judge of whatever ideas appear before him. They are up for trial on their soundness and worth; he must uncover their merits and defects, and pa.s.s judgment on their general value. If he is hasty and careless, he suffers the penalty of bad judgment; and if he refrains from judging at all, he becomes one who "does not know his own mind," a weakling.

Who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep versed in books and shallow in himself.

[Footnote: Milton, _Paradise Regained_, Book 4, line 322.]

_The necessity of this att.i.tude in the acceptance as well as in the rejection of ideas._

The need of such an att.i.tude may be granted when the rejection of ideas is necessary. But there are many works that have been tried for ages and found undoubtedly excellent. There are many men, also, who are acknowledged authorities in their specialties. In the case of such books and men, where little if any negative criticism is to be expected, cannot the student set out merely to enjoy the merits and not bother about the defects? Can he not, therefore, abandon the critical att.i.tude and accept outright what is offered?

That depends on how much is involved in real acceptance. A wise young woman who rejects a suitor does so for reasons of some sort; her reasons should certainly not be less clear if she accepts him; on the contrary, they are more likely to have been investigated with care.

The rejection of a lover is, then, no more positive thing, involves no more intelligence and emotion, than his acceptance.

Again, a competent supervisor of instruction who accepts as good some recitation that he has observed, does so on the basis of specific points of merit that he has seen. Otherwise his acceptance is only flattery and is unacceptable to an earnest teacher. So, in general, the acceptance of any line of thought or action presupposes a consciousness of certain merits. Intelligent acceptance is thoughtful or critical.

There is a common idea that acceptance is far more easy and far less aggressive than negative criticism. The contrary, however, is probably true. The former idea is due to the fact that much acceptance, as of political and religious doctrine, for example, is only nominal or verbal; it is not intelligent or critical enough to be genuine. Any one can find fault, it is often declared; but the recognition of merit requires special insight. Rejection, therefore, is no more aggressive or positive than acceptance; and if one of these calls for a more critical att.i.tude and more mental energy than the other, it is probably the latter.

_Relation of the critical att.i.tude to sympathy and respect._

What is the relation of this critical att.i.tude to sympathy for an author? One of the essential conditions in the proper study of a book is that it be approached with an open, sympathetic mind. One must look at the world through the author's eyes in order to understand and appreciate what he says, and that is possible only when one feels high respect for him and is in close sympathy with him. To this end, it may be well at times for the student to annihilate his own personality, as Ruskin advises, so as to lose himself in another's thought.

If the critical att.i.tude were incompatible with such respect and sympathy, its value might well be questioned. But that is not the case. A sensible parent who is in closest sympathy with a child finds no great difficulty in seeing its defects and even in administering punishment for them. There are parents and teachers who cannot thus combine real sympathy with the critical att.i.tude; but they are too weak and foolish to rear children. Helpful friends.h.i.+ps among adults, also, are not based upon blind admiration; they presuppose ability to discern faults and even courage now and then to mention them.

One cannot be a true scholar without making a similar combination. The unquestioning frame of mind that allows a sympathetic approach to an author marks one stage in study; but this must be followed by the critical att.i.tude before the study is complete. That the two att.i.tudes are not incompatible is well stated by Porter in the following words: "We should read with an independent judgment and a critical spirit. It does not follow, because we should treat an author with confidence and respect, that we are to accept all his opinions and may not revise his conclusions and arguments by our own. Indeed, we shall best evince our respect for his thoughts by subjecting them to our own revision."

[Footnote: Noah Porter, _Books and Reading_, p. 52.]

_How daily life requires similar independence of judgment._

While the demand thus made upon the scholar seems great, there is nothing surprising about it; for the scholar's relation to an author is substantially the same as that of any adult to other persons with whom he has dealings. If you go to a store to purchase a pair of rubbers, you cannot surrender yourself complacently to any clerk who happens to wait upon you. He is very likely to be satisfied to sell you rubbers that are too long or too short, too wide or too narrow, or at least not of the shape of your shoes. Or he may want to sell you storm rubbers when you prefer low ones. Unless, therefore, you carry a standard in mind and reject whatever fails to meet it, you are very likely to buy rubbers that won't be satisfactory. The same is true if you go to a tailor for clothing; unless you know him to be unusually reliable, it is not enough for him to tell you that a coat fits; you must test the statement by your own observation.

Some years ago a house that I occupied in New York City became infested with rats, and, wanting to reach the kitchen from the cellar, they gnawed an inch hole through a lead drain pipe from the laundry tubs, that lay in their way. The hole was behind a cupboard in the kitchen, very close to the wall, and not easy to reach. If clean clothing was to be had, the pipe had to be fixed; but when a plumber was called in, he stated that a carpenter would be needed to remove the cupboard, and again to replace it after the work was completed.

The pipe having the hole, he added, would need to be taken out, and, as it was one arm of a larger pipe that had two other branches, the pipe with the three arms would have to be removed and another put in its place. The entire work was estimated to cost about fifteen dollars.