WHAT 18 RESEARCH? 171 



comprehension of the laws of nature or understanding of the principles 

 which are symbolized by the language which the student may have 

 acquired ability to use fluently. In other words, a full knowledge of 

 the names of things may be acquired by study, together with ability to 

 talk fluently about them without much personal comprehension, or, as 

 we say, grasp, of the things described. This possibility I have seen 

 realized particularly among students who from their youth have been 

 rigidly trained in the old classical method of education. Men trained 

 strictly by this method understand words with precision and acquire a 

 full vocabulary. They may be able to speak eloquently on subjects of 

 which they know little. I have seen such scholars (juniors or seniors 

 in college), who upon receiving the clue to the subject on which they 

 were expected to write examination papers, could spin out a creditable 

 set of answers quite superior to those written by their less trained 

 (literarily) companions, whose real comprehension of the subject, as 

 shown by other tests, was vastly superior to their own. 



The pure student also may be said to be hindered from doing his 

 best by stopping to investigate either the meaning or the application of 

 the simple statements recorded in the verbal text before him. This 

 learning by rote is an evil result of carrying study to excess, but it is 

 also a definite aim of study pure and simple. A second result, more 

 or less evil and which comes also as a natural result of pure study, is 

 the tendency to lead the learner to accept, without question, the cor- 

 rectness of the statements he learns. He learns to depend upon others 

 for his knowledge, and thus the expression 'getting knowledge at 

 second-hand ' becomes an actuality for the pure student. Although a 

 successful student, he may fail not only to comprehend what he learns, 

 but fail to think for himself. Nevertheless, the learning of other 

 people's knowledge is an essential step in educating one's intellectual 

 powers for higher work. We must have a wide knowledge of words 

 and their meanings, and a good facility in the use of language, before 

 we can successfully carry on systematic thought ; and the more full and 

 precise his vocabulary the wider and deeper will be the possibilities of 

 both the investigator and the man of original research. Study is thus 

 an essential preparation for investigation ; but if the two be mixed too 

 early in one's educational progress, the results will be deficient by 

 virtue both of the inaccuracy of the learning and of the immaturity of 

 the investigation. 



A student who begins to investigate too early will, on the one hand, 

 degrade the quality of his scholarship, and, on the other, he will find 

 that the immature conceptions of science which he first forms must 

 often be abandoned upon fuller investigation ; or if retained will lessen 

 the value of his results and place him in secondary rank as an in- 

 vestigator. 



