Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/227

Rh Asking questions is not necessarily a good thing. There must be reflection and an active use of the senses accompanying every inquiry of any value to the querist. And so it is in looking for definitions. To do this impulsively, and to be satisfied with synonyms, is not effective work. The element of thought and of association is wanting. Meanings thus acquired do not become a permanent acquisition: whereas thorough effort seldom allows the necessity of referring to a definition a second time.

The power to read well is also in proportion to the development of the power of association. This is a faculty in which we differ very greatly, and yet it is largely a matter of education. To one person a statement in physics will stand unsupported, until common facts are brought to his notice, while to another instances in support will flock unbidden from the household or the wayside. To some minds, passages in one author will spontaneously suggest passages in another; while other minds will fail to perceive the relation until accident or design brings it directly to their notice. It is true that memory is a large factor in this matter; but, independent of this, there is a readiness of association which may be acquired, and which is very essential. It is a quickness to levy on our own observation and experience when another's ideas are presented. Bacon advises, "Read to weigh and consider." When we do this, association is the most prominent faculty at work. In fact, according to our strength in this faculty we will weigh and consider. An author's sentiment will be flanked, as it were, on both sides, by phenomena from our experience to support or attack him. The degree of this faculty distinguishes the strong from the weak; the teacher from the learner; culture from crudeness. It means digestion, assimilation. It is in this faculty that genuine learning differs from mere memorizing; thorough acquisition from cramming. It vivifies knowledge; it is almost wisdom. This faculty is quite subject to cultivation, and no acquisition will so well repay the labor expended upon it. The attention is not given to it in our education which should be. To childhood and youth the different subjects of study stand as unrelated wholes. There is no interchange of thoughts and associations between different branches. An idea occurring in one subject does not bring up a closely-related idea in another subject. Pupils are not taught nor led to connect their knowledges. It is so by the force of circumstances. Every class-room has its own presiding genius which fellowships with no other. Every specialist tends to reproduce himself. Furthermore, there is a feeble association between what is learned from books and what is learned from practice. Life in the school-room and life out of it are separate existences. In the popular notion, book-learning is a sort of mystery, a peculiar power quite distinct from the common-sense and common experience of everyday life. The "connection of the physical sciences" has become a familiar idea. When shall we realize that there is a connection