were taught to memorize in studying. The number who had given any
careful instruction on proper methods of study to their own pupils was
insignificant. Yet these 165 teachers had had unusual training on the
whole, and most of them had taught several years in elementary
schools. If teachers are so poorly informed, and if they are doing so
little to instruct their pupils on this subject, how can the latter be
expected to know how to study?

_The prevailing definition of study._

The prevailing definition of study gives further proof of a very
meager notion in regard to it. Frequently during the last few years I
have obtained from students in college, as well as from teachers,
brief statements of their idea of study. Fully nine out of every ten
have given memorizing as its nearest synonym.

It is true that teachers now and then insist that studying should
consist of _thinking_. They even send children to their seats with the
direction to "think, think hard." But that does not usually signify
much. A certain college student, when urged to spend not less than an
hour and a half on each lesson, replied, "What would I do after the
first twenty minutes?" His idea evidently was that he could read each
lesson through and memorize its substance in that time. What more
remained to be done? Very few teachers, I find, are fluent in
answering his question. In practice, memorizing constitutes much the
greater part of study.

The very name recitation suggests this fact. If the school periods are
to be spent in reciting, or reproducing, what has been learned, the
work of preparation very naturally consists in storing the memory with