Part 12 (1/2)
I have also tested the matter out in other ways. I have experimented with a group of men and women, by reading a pa.s.sage of about a page in length, repeating the reading till the subject could reproduce all the facts. It was found that the person who acquired all the facts from the fewest readings remembered more of the facts later. It must be said that there is less difference between the subjects later than at first.
In the laboratory of Columbia University a similar experiment was performed, but in a somewhat different way. Students were required to commit to memory German vocabularies and were later tested for their retention of the words learned. It was found that those who learned the most words in a given time, also retained the largest percentage of what had been learned. It should not be surprising that this is the case. The quick learner is the one who makes the best use of all the factors of retention, the factors mentioned in the preceding paragraph--good attention, a.s.sociation, organization, etc.
Another experiment performed in the author's laboratory bears out the above conclusions. A group of students were required to commit to memory at one sitting a long list of nonsense syllables. The number of repet.i.tions necessary to enable each student to reproduce them was noted. One day later, the students attempted to reproduce the syllables.
Of course they could not, and they were then required to say them over again till they could just repeat them from memory. The number of repet.i.tions was noted. The number of repet.i.tions was much less than on the first day. On the third day, the process was repeated. The number of repet.i.tions was fewer still. This relearning was kept up each day till each person could repeat the syllables from memory without any study.
It was found that the person who learned the syllables in the fewest repet.i.tions the first time, relearned them in the fewest repet.i.tions on succeeding days. All the experiments bearing on the subject point to the same conclusion; namely, that the quick learner, if other things are equal, retains at least as well as the slow learner, and usually retains better.
=Transfer of Memory Training.= We have said above that there are many kinds or aspects of memory. It has also been said that we can improve memory by practice. Now, the question arises, if we improve one aspect of memory, does this improve all aspects? This is an important question; moreover, it is one to be settled by experiment and not by argument.
The most extensive and thorough experiment was performed by an English psychologist, Sleight. The experiment was essentially as follows: He took a large number of pupils and tested the efficiency of the various aspects of their memory. He then took half of them and trained one aspect of their memory until there was considerable improvement. The other section had no memory training meanwhile. After the training, both groups again had all aspects of their memory tested. Both groups showed improvement in all aspects because the first tests gave them some practice, but the group that had been receiving the training was no better in those aspects not trained than was the group receiving no training at all. Aspects of memory much like the one trained showed some improvement, but other aspects did not.
The conclusion is that memory training is specific, that it affects only the kind of memory trained, and related memories. This is in harmony with what we learned about habit. When we receive training, it affects only the parts of us trained and other closely related parts.
=Learning by Wholes.= We do not often have to commit to memory verbatim, but when we do, it is important that we should know the most economical way. Experiments have clearly demonstrated that the most economical way is to read the entire selection through from beginning to end and continue to read it through in this way till the matter is learned by heart.
In long selections, the saving by this method is considerable. A pupil is not likely to believe this because if he spends a few minutes learning in this manner, he finds that he cannot repeat a single line, while if he had concentrated on one line, he could have repeated at least that much. This is true; but although he cannot repeat a single line by the whole procedure, he has learned nevertheless. It would be a good thing to demonstrate this fact to a cla.s.s; then the pupils would be satisfied to use the most economical procedure. The plan holds good whether the matter be prose or poetry.
But experiments have been carried on only with verbatim learning. The best procedure for learning the facts so that one can give them in one's own words has not yet been experimentally determined.
=Cramming.= An important practical question is whether it pays to go over a great amount of material in a very short time, as students often do before examinations. From all that has been said above, one could infer the solution to this problem. Learning and memorizing are to some extent a growth, and consequently involve time.
There is an important law of learning and memory known as Jost's law, which may be stated as follows: If we repeat or renew a.s.sociations, the repet.i.tions have most value for the old a.s.sociations. Therefore when we learn, we should learn and then later relearn. This will make for permanent retention. Of course, if we wish to get together a great ma.s.s of facts for a temporary purpose and do not care to retain them permanently, cramming is the proper method. If we are required to pa.s.s an examination in which a knowledge of many details is expected and these details have no important permanent value, cramming is justified.
When a lawyer is preparing a case to present to a court, the actual, detail evidence is of no permanent value, and cramming is justified.
But if we wish to acquire and organize facts for their permanent value, cramming is not the proper procedure. The proper procedure is for a student to go over his work faithfully as the term of school proceeds, then occasionally review. At the end of the term, a rapid review of the whole term's work is valuable. After one has studied over matter and once carefully worked it out, a quick view again of the whole subject is most valuable, and a.s.sists greatly in making the acquisition permanent.
But if the matter has not been worked out before, the hasty view of the material of the course, while it may enable one to pa.s.s the examination, has no permanent value.
=Function of the Teacher in Memory Work.= The function of a teacher is plainly to get the pupils to learn in accordance with the laws of memory above set forth; but there are certain things that a teacher can do that may not have become evident to the reader. It has been learned in experiments in logical memory that when a story is read to a subject and the subject attempts to reproduce it, certain mistakes are made. When the story is read again, it is common for the same mistakes to be made in the recall. Certain ideas were apprehended in a certain way; and, when the piece is read again, the subject pays no more attention to the ideas already acquired and reported, and they are therefore reported wrongly as they were in the first place. Often the subject does not notice the errors till his attention is called to them.
This suggests an important function of the teacher in connection with the memory work of the pupils. This function is to correct mistakes in the early stages of learning. A teacher should always be on the watch to find the errors of the pupils and to correct them before they are fixed by repet.i.tion.
A teacher should, also, consider it her duty to test the memory capacities of the pupils and to give each the advice that the case demands.
=Some Educational Inferences.=--There are certain consequences to education that follow from the facts of memory above set forth that are of considerable significance. Many things have been taught to children on the a.s.sumption that they could learn them better in childhood than later, because it was thought that memory and the learning capacity were better in childhood. But both of these a.s.sumptions are false. As children grow older their learning capacity increases and their memories become better.
It has particularly been held that rote memory is better in childhood and that therefore children should begin their foreign language study early. It is true that as far as _speaking_ a foreign language is concerned, the earlier a child begins it the better. But this is not true of learning to read the language. The sounds of the foreign language that we have not learned in childhood in speaking the mother tongue are usually difficult for us to make. The organs of speech become set in the way of their early exercise. In reading the foreign language, correct p.r.o.nunciation is not important. We are concerned with _getting_ the thought, and this is possible without p.r.o.nouncing at all. Reference to graphs on pages 190 and 191 will show that rote memory steadily improves throughout childhood and youth. The author has performed numerous experiments to test this very point. He has had adults work side by side with children at building up new a.s.sociations of the rote memory type and found that always the adult could learn faster than the child and retain better what was learned.
The experience of language teachers in college and university does not give much comfort to those who claim that language study should be begun early. These teachers claim that the students who have had previous language study do no better than those who have had none. It seems, however, that there certainly ought to be _some_ advantage in beginning language study early and spreading the study out over the high school period. But what is gained does not offset the tremendous loss that follows from requiring _all_ high school students to study a foreign language merely to give an opportunity for early study to those who are to go on in the university with language courses. A mature university student that has a real interest in language and literature can begin his language study in the university and make rapid progress. Some of the best cla.s.sical scholars whom the author knows began their language study in the university. While it would have been of some advantage to them to have begun their language study earlier, there are so few who should go into this kind of work that society cannot afford to make provision for their beginning the study in the high school.
The selection and arrangement of the studies in the curriculum must be based on other grounds than the laws of memory. What children make most progress in and need most to know are the concrete things of their physical and social environment. Children must first learn the world--the woods and streams and birds and flowers and plants and animals, the earth, its rocks and soils and the wonderful forces at work in it. They must learn man,--what he is and what he does and how he does it; how he lives and does his work and how he governs himself. They should also learn to read and to write their mother tongue, and should learn something of that great store of literature written in the mother tongue.
The few that are to be scholars in language and literature must wait till beginning professional study before taking up their foreign language; just as a person who is to be a lawyer or physician must also wait till time to enter a university before beginning special professional preparation. The child's memory for abstract conceptions is particularly weak in early years; hence studies should be so arranged as to acquaint the child with the concrete aspects of the world first, and later to acquaint him with the abstract relations of things. Mathematics should come late in the child's life, for the same reason. Mathematics deals with quant.i.tative relations which the child can neither learn nor remember profitably and economically till he is more mature. The child should first learn the world in its descriptive aspects.
=Memory and Habit.= The discussion up to this point should have made it clear to the reader that memory is much the same thing as habit. Memory considered as retention depends upon the permanence of the impression on the brain; but in its a.s.sociative aspects depends on connections between brain centers, as is the case with habit. The a.s.sociation of ideas, which is the basis of their recall, is purely a matter of habit formation.
When I think of George Was.h.i.+ngton, I also think of the Revolution, of the government, of the presidency, of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, etc., because of the connections which these ideas have had in my mind many times before. There is a basis in the brain structure for these connections. There is nothing in any _idea_ that connects it with another idea. Ideas become connected because of the _way in which we experience them_, and the reason one idea calls up another idea is because the brain process that is the cause of one idea brings about another brain process that is the cause of a second idea. The whole thing is merely a matter of the way the brain activities become organized. Therefore the various laws of habit-formation have application to memory in so far as memory is a matter of the a.s.sociation of ideas, based on brain processes.
One often has the experience of trying to recall a name or a fact and finds that he cannot. Presently the name or fact may come, or it may not come till the next day or the next week. What is the cause of this peculiar phenomenon? The explanation is to be found in the nervous system. When one tries to recall the name and it will not come to mind, there is some temporary block or hindrance in the nerve-path that leads from one center to the other and one cannot think of the name till the obstruction is removed. We go on thinking about other things, and in the meantime the activities going on in the brain remove the obstruction; so when the matter comes up again, the nerve current shoots through, and behold, the name comes to mind.