DISCOVERY 



93 



means of which recall takes place, and the organisation 

 of the existing mass of knowledge into which the new 

 experience is to be received. It is, to say the least, 

 an open question whether all of these factors may 

 not be improvable. If they are improved by our 

 efforts, we have made our power of remembering 

 greater ; in other words, our memory can be said to 

 have been improved in the only sense in which that 

 phrase can ever bear anv real meaning. 



If all of this be admitted, the problem of improving 

 the memory resolves itself into the problem of dis- 

 covering how to improve our ways of remembering. 

 A considerable amount of work in experimental psy- 

 chology' has been devoted to this question because of 

 its importance in pedagogy. In the space at my 

 disposal it wiU be possible only to give a brief outline 

 of the discoveries which have been made, and of these 

 I propose to discuss only those which have practical 

 bearings. We may take each of the above four 

 factors in turn and examine the grounds on which we 

 may beUeve in its improvability. 



Perhaps the most obvious of the variable factors 

 which affect the efficiency of our memorisation of a 

 task is the amount of attention we give to it. The 

 variability of the factor of attention can be strikingly 

 shown by the fact that the efficiency of learning is 

 sometimes increased by such a distraction as an 

 external noise. This is apparently because the presence 

 of the distraction makes the learner concentrate more 

 intensively on his task. The importance which we 

 all attach to this factor is fully justified by the results 

 of experimental work. An intense, fairly uniform 

 and persistent concentration of attention is necessary 

 for efficient learning. This can be secured partly by 

 interest in the subject to be learned, or merely in the 

 act of learning. In the learning of nonsense syllables, 

 and to some extent in aU learning b}' heart, this con- 

 centration of attention must take place by voluntary 

 effort. The power of making such an effort effectively 

 appears to be one which can be very much improved 

 by practice. The effectiveness of the concentration 

 can also be increased by due precautions as to the 

 conditions of learning, e.g. by avoiding the making 

 of such long sittings that fatigue is seriously interfering 

 with the concentration of attention. 



The investigation of memory has revealed two 

 distinct types of learners whose essential difference is 

 supposed to lie in the nature of their attention. These 

 are rapid and slow learners. The first learns quickly 

 and easily, is readily disturbed by outside distractions, 

 and forgets quickly. The slow learner, on the other 

 hand, settles down to his task with difficulty, learns 

 slowly, is little influenced by distractions, but retains 

 what he has learned better than the other. The 

 difference appears to be that the rapid learner is able 



quicklv to concentrate attention on one task to the 

 exclusion of others, the slow learner adjusts his 

 attention less quickly and less exclusivel}'. They may 

 be said to be respectively intensive and extensive in 

 their attention. It is difficult to say that one of 

 these characters is more desirable than the other, 

 since clearly both kinds of attention are valuable, but 

 in different situations and in different walks of life. 

 A German psychologist, Meumann, has suggested that 

 they are not mutually exclusive qualities, and that 

 the most desirable type of attention is that which 

 combines both. In this case, both intensity of atten- 

 tion and e.xtensity should be independently trained in 

 order to obtain the highest efficiency in learning. 



In order to illustrate the contribution whichlaboratory 

 study can make to our knowledge of efficient methods 

 of learning, we may take the question of the part 

 and the ivhole methods. This is now so generally 

 understood that a very brief reference to it will suffice. 

 The uninstructed person, required to learn a long 

 poem by heart, adopts what is called the part method ; 

 he divides the poem into sections of such a length that 

 he can conveniently learn one at one sitting, he learns 

 these at successive sittings, and finally learns them 

 combined. Experiment proves conclusively that, 

 despite the wide prejudice in its favour, this is a very 

 inefficient method. The alternative method, in which 

 the whole poem is read through at each sitting a few 

 times or only once until it is learnt, is found to require 

 a smaller expenditiure of time and to result in a more 

 efficient memorisation. It is not difficult to see why 

 this should be the case. There are many elements of 

 waste in learning b}' the part method ; the formation 

 of unnecessary associations between the end of each 

 verse and its beginning which must be unlearned 

 when the verses are connected together, the greater 

 number of repetitions of the earlier verses, and the 

 inefficient distribution of the times of repetitions. 



Of course, these conclusions must be applied practi- 

 cally with reasonable respect for the peculiarities of 

 individual cases. Some persons find the task of facing 

 the whole of a long poem at once so discouraging that 

 the whole method ceases for them to be effective. 

 This discouragement, however, should disappear if we 

 can convince them that this is really the easiest way 

 of learning it ; and against this possibihty of dis- 

 couragement must be weighed the fact that this 

 method is certainly less tedious than the alternative 

 of repeating over and over again small sections of the 

 poem. In addition, it would clearly be unwise to use 

 the whole method in its simple form if the material 

 we were trying to learn were of very unequal difficulty 

 in its different parts, for the easier parts would receive 

 an unnecessary number of repetitions. In this case, 

 a modification of the whole method mav be devised 



