possibilities in this direction.

Accordingly the student, in reading a chapter or listening to a
lecture, should find the relationships among the smaller portions of
the thought that will unify the subject-matter under a very few heads.
If several pages or a whole lecture can be reduced to a single point,
it should be done. He should always remember that to the extent that
the supporting details are numerous they will have a cumulative
effect, thereby rendering the central thought strong enough to have a
permanent influence.

_The meaning of organization of knowledge, and its value._

Such grouping of ideas as has thus far been considered, although of
the greatest importance, is only the beginning of the organization of
knowledge. For thus far only the minimum unit of advance has been
under discussion. Asone proceeds in the study of a subject these
smaller units collect in large numbers, and they must themselves be
subordinated to still broader central thoughts, according to their
nature. This grouping of details, according to their relationships,
into points, and of such points under still higher heads, and so on
until a whole subject and even the whole field of knowledge is
carefully ordered according to the relationships of its parts, is what
is meant by organization of knowledge.

Sometimes an entire book is thus organized under a single idea,
Fiske's _Critical Period of American History_ being an excellent
example. In this volume the conditions at the close of the
Revolutionary War are vividly described. It is shown that great debts
remained unpaid, that different systems of money caused confusion, and