How to Use Your Mind. A Psychology of Study

A better way is to read through an entire paragraph or section, then close the book and reproduce in your own words what you have read.

"Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider."

You cannot make a wrong decision if you have the facts before you and have given each the proper weight. When the solution comes, it is recognized as right, for it comes tinged with a feeling that we call belief.

tactual images of things touched; auditory images of things heard; gustatory images of things tasted; olfactory images of things smelled.

READINGS AND EXERCISES
NOTE.—Numbers in parentheses refer to complete citations in
Bibliography at end of book.
Readings: Fulton (5) Lockwood (11)
Exercise 1. List concrete problems that have newly come to you since your arrival upon the campus.
Exercise 2. List in order the difficulties that confront you in preparing your daily lessons.
Exercise 3. Prepare a work schedule similar to that provided by the form in Chart I. Specify the subject with which you will be occupied at each period.
Exercise 4. Try to devise some way of registering the effectiveness with which you carry out your schedule. Suggestions are contained in the summary: Disposition of (1) as planned; (2) as spent. To di

Notes you take now as a student may be valuable years hence in professional life.

You cannot make a wrong decision if you have the facts before you and have given each the proper weight. When the solution comes, it is recognized as right, for it comes tinged with a feeling that we call belief.

Stimulate brain activity by the method suggested in Chapter X, namely, by means of muscular activity.

Go slowly, then, in impressing material for the first time. As you look up the words of a foreign language in the lexicon, trying to memorize their English equivalents, take plenty of time. Obtain

A worthy ideal for every student to follow is expressed in the motto carved on the wall of the great reading-room of the Harper Memorial Library at The University of Chicago: "Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to weigh and consider." Ibsen bluntly states the same thought:
"Don't read to swallow; read to choose, for 'Tis but to see what one has use for."
Ask yourself, when beginning a printed discussion, What am I looking for? What is the author going to talk about? Often this will be indicated in topical headings. Keep it in the background of your mind while reading, and search for the answer. Then, when you have read the necessary portion, close the book and summarize, to see if the author furnished what you sought. In short, always read for a purpose. Formulate problems and seek their solutions. In this way will there be direction in your reading and your thought.