STUDIES FOR STUDENTS. 
THE METHOD OF MULTIPLE WORKING 
FY PORHIESES? 
THERE are two fundamental modes of study. The one is an 
attempt to follow by close imitation the processes of previous 
thinkers and to acquire the results of their investigations by 
memorizing. It is study of a merely secondary, imitative, or 
acquisitive nature. In the other mode the effort is to think 
independently, or at least individually. It is primary or crea- 
tive study. The endeavor is to discover new truth or to make a 
new combination of truth or at least to develop by one’s own 
effort an individualized assemblage of truth. The endeavor is 
to think for one’s self, whether the thinking lies wholly in the 
fields of previous thought or not. It is not necessary to this 
mode of study that the subject-matter should be new. Old 
material may be reworked. But it is essential that the process 
of thought and its results be individual and independent, not the 
mere following of previous lines of thought ending in predeter- 
mined results. The demonstration of a problem in Euclid pre- 
cisely as laid down is an illustration of the former; the demon- 
stration of the same proposition by a method of one’s own or in 
a manner distinctively individual is an illustration of the latter, 
both lying entirely within the realm of the known and old. 
Creative study however finds its largest application in those 
subjects in which, while much is known, more remains to be 
learned. The geological field is preéminently full of such sub- 
1A paper on this subject was read before the Society of Western Naturalists in 
1892, and was published in a scientific periodical. Inquiries for the article have recently 
been such as to lead to the belief that a revision and republication are desirable. The 
article has been freely altered and abbreviated so as to limit it to aspects related to 
geological study. 
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