Thus the _unit of progress_ in study is made the single fact; the
whole of any subject becomes the sum of its details; and a subject has
been supposedly mastered when all these bits have been learned. This
might well be called the method of study by driblets. It is probably
safe to say that a majority of the young people in the United States,
including college students, study largely in this way.

While this method of study is bad in numerous ways, there are three of
its faults in particular which need to be considered here.

_Respects in which this method of study is wrong
1. Facts, as a rule, vary greatly in value_

In the first place, facts vary indefinitely in value. In parts of a
few subjects they do have practically the same worth, which is, no
doubt, a source of much misconception about proper methods of study.
In spelling, for instance, _which_ is probably as important a word as
_when_, and _sea_ as important as _flood_. In a list of three hundred
carefully selected words for spelling for third-year pupils, any one
word might properly be regarded as equal to any other in worth. This
may be said also in regard to a list for writing. Much the same is
true in regard to a possible list of four hundred words for reading in
the first year of school. In arithmetic one would scarcely assert that
4X7 was more or less important than 9X8, or 8/2, or 6-3, or 4+2. In
other words, the various combinations in the four fundamental
operations are, again, all of them essential to every person's
knowledge, and therefore stand on the same plane of worth.

To some extent, therefore, the three R's and spelling are exceptions
to an important general rule. Yet even in spelling and beginning