Very early in school life the pupil should be taught to look for and
make a list of the principal points in the lesson. If the lesson
starts with a Roman numeral I, the child should be taught to look for
II and III, and to see how they are related to I. An Arabic 1 usually
means that 2, and perhaps 3 and 4 are to follow; the letter _a_ at the
head of a paragraph should start the pupil to looking for _b_, _c_,
etc. And if the text does not contain such numbering or lettering, the
pupil should be led to search for the main divisions and topics of the
lesson for himself.

Of course these principles will not apply to spelling lessons, mere
lists of sentences to be analyzed or problems to be solved, but they
do apply to almost every other type of lesson. The best time to teach
the child to make the kind of analysis suggested is when we are
assigning the lesson. We can then go over the text with the class,
helping them to select the chief points of the lesson until they
themselves have learned this method of study.


5. _Drill as an aim in the recitation_

There is a great difference between merely knowing a thing and knowing
it so well that we can use it easily and with skill. Perhaps all of us
know the alphabet backwards; yet if the order of the dictionary were
reversed so that it would run from Z to A, we would for a time lack
the skill we now have in quickly finding any desired words in the
dictionary.

Certain fundamentals in our education need to be so well learned that