TEACHING STUDENTS HOW TO CONSERVE ENERGY. 



S. B. Detwiler. 



There is a need in our colleges, particularly in the professional 

 schools, for instructing the students in the art of note-taking and 

 note-keeping, and in general business methods. College is pri- 

 marily intended to give the student a broad foundation for his 

 future work and to teach him the best methods of solving the con- 

 crete problems which he will meet in his profession. It is not 

 possible nor desirable for the student to acquire a great mass of 

 detailed information, since this has a tendency to cause him to 

 lose sight of the main purpose of his college work. Yet, it is 

 evident that the greater the student's mastery of the details of his 

 profession and of business methods, the more rapid will be his 

 progress when he begins practical work. It is also evident that 

 the greatest saving of energy will result from systematizing 

 routine work, which in the case of the student consists largely of 

 note-taking and reference reading. Frequently this work is made 

 more laborious and of no permanent value because of lack of a 

 definite system. 



Science is defined as classified and systematized knowledge. It 

 appears to be the duty of the college to teach the student of the 

 scientific branches, at least, how to classify his knowledge, and to 

 aid him in organizing some permanent system which will form 

 the nucleus of a readily available encyclopaedia of knowledge. 

 System and orderliness do not make the man, but they do save his 

 time and are almost indispensable to success in practical work. 

 The subject seems of sufficient importance to have a place in the 

 college curriculum, or to be taught by special advisers. 



A good system of filing information must be compact, con- 

 densed, capable of unlimited future growth, and broad enough to 

 cover the whole field of the profession. Above all things, it must 

 be so arranged that the information it contains is available with- 

 out waste of time. Experience has shown that the card system 

 is a very satisfactory method of filing, and it fills all of the above 

 requirements. Notes on lectures, in this system, are condensed 

 on 4 by 6, or 6 by 8 library cards of good quality. One card 



