LEARNING- HOW TO LEARN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2286, 5 March 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

LEARNING- HOW TO LEARN.

[Tiie Lancet, December 11th.] In the course of his very apposite and suggestive remarks on the occasion of distributing prizes and certificates to the successful candidates at the London centre of the Oxford Local Examination on the Ist inst., Sir James Paget laid especial stress on the importance of " learning how to learn,'' and did full justice to the proposition that knowledge not immediately useful in itself may be the means of developing this power of learning in the mind acquiring it. This is a great practical truth, full of force and value. We arc not at the moment concerned to determine whether classical or scientific knowledge is of the greater worth, looked at frotn the strictly utilitarian standpoint. There may be wide differences of opinion on that topic, and it is 110 secrct to our readers that sve entertain a strong opinion that the growing neglect of classical studies is an evil to be deplored. The question of the instant, however, is the need of " learning how to 'earn." To every student, and especially the student fo the science of health and healing, who has to obtain something more than "a smattering" of many branches of knowledge, it is of the very highest practical importance to recognise this fact. The cultivation of the faculty of knowing is of incomparably greater moment than the mere acquisition of knowledge, lie is not the best of explorers or campaigners who is ttie most burdened with baggage, but he who Knows how to forage' well and how to make the best possible use of what he has or can obtain. So it is with the student : to know how to learn, so that when need arises knowledge may be quickly obtained, is a better provision for the business of life than is afforded by the largest or richest store of information packed away in the memory —perhaps so as to be inaccessible when wanted. If students for themselves, and teachers for their pupils, would insist on the importance of "learning how to learn," instead of cramming, there would be fewer disappointments in life, and greater and more enduring successes. The vanity of carrying a huge quantity of information for the sake of display is contemptible. The folly of attaching any real value to vast stores of knowledge is pitiful. The only brain property worth carrying about is the. power of finding at pleasure and learniug at will precisely what is wanted ; and this power cannot be acquired without considerable practice in the art of learning—an art which the student should make it a first object of his best endeavour to master.