are used in other colleges. A thorough training in English under a
good teacher is a good training in logic, for clear and logical writing
requires clear and logical thinking. Nevertheless, the writer strongly
advocates the study of formal logic also.

[5] "It is not enough to know, we must also apply; it is not enough to
will, we must also do."--_Goethe_.

{42}

III

THE THIRD ESSENTIAL FOR A PROPER METHOD OF STUDY IS SYSTEM

(_a_) DISCOVER THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA OF THE SUBJECT.--Strip off the
detail and get down to the root of the thing. See the really important
point. Then, after this has been clearly perceived and mastered,
arrange the details in their proper relations to the fundamentals. The
subject will thus have a skeleton, and upon this the details will be
placed. A subject of study thus viewed may be compared to the human
body, with its bony skeleton or framework, and all the various organs
and parts supported by it; or to a tree, with its trunk, branches and
leaves. Thus to consider the relative importance of facts, to sift out
the essential ones, will train the power of mental discrimination and
cultivate the judgment.

When this is done, subsequent facts relating to the subject can be
correlated with what is already known, and will in this way be easily
retained by the memory. Remember and observe Jacotot's maxim, "Learn
something accurately, and refer {43} the rest to that." Unessential
facts, or those of secondary importance, may be passed over in the
first reading, and left for a second or later reading, for a proper
method of study _always involves re-reading_, perhaps many times.

You cannot possibly know everything even of a single subject, hence the
importance of knowing the fundamental things about it and knowing them
thoroughly. Even if you gain but an elementary knowledge of a subject,
that knowledge may be thorough and should include fundamentals.
Thorough elementary knowledge must not be confused with _a smattering_.
The latter is worse than useless, and is marked by vagueness,
uncertainty, and failure to grasp fundamentals. But elementary
knowledge, if clear and definite as far as it goes, is valuable, and
the first step toward more complete knowledge. Many students deceive
themselves and others into thinking that they know something of a
subject, because they have looked into it, while their knowledge may be
entirely superficial and valueless.

When the fundamental p