RECORDS OF MEETINGS 369 



and (2) "The Eelation of Length of Material to Time Taken for Learn- 

 ing." Concerning the first of these, it was shown that in estimating 

 economy, not only must we consider the time spent, but the degree of 

 retention as well. It was shown that individuals differ greatly, and that 

 where one could learn a set of ten stanzas in less time by the continuous 

 method (i. e., doing the work in "one sitting"), another individual 

 could lower his total time by dividing the time spent into several periods, 

 e. g., by spending 5 minutes per day. With but three exceptions re- 

 tentiveness was decidedly better by the divided-time-method. This was 

 notably the case with nonsense-syllables and poetry. The most general 

 statement that can be made, taking all materials and methods of presen- 

 tation into consideration, is that the most economical method is to dis- 

 tribute the readings over a rather lengthy period — the intervals between 

 the readings being in arithmetical proportion. For example, with one 

 individual in memorizing a poem of twenty stanzas the highest retentive- 

 ness was obtained by distributing the readings as follows : 2 hours, 8 

 hours, 1 day, 2 days, 8 days, 16 days, 32 days, etc. The practical bearing 

 of the results obtained on education in general was then considered. The 

 above individual found that the most economical method for keeping 

 material once memorized from disappearing was to review the material 

 whenever it started to "fade." Here also the intervals were found to be, 

 roughly speaking in arithmetical proportion. For similar reasons the 

 student is advised to review his "lecture-notes" shortly after taking, 

 them, and if possible, to review them again the evening of the same 

 day. Then the lapse of a week or two does not make nearly so much 

 difference. When once he has forgotten so much that the various asso- 

 ciations originally made have vanished, a considerable portion of the 

 material is irretrievably lost. 



2. The Relation of the Length of Material to Time Taken for 

 Learning. — Tables were presented to show that the relation depended 

 almost wholly upon the division of the time spent in learning, i. e., the 

 distribution of the time intervals. In other words, the relation, or ratio, 

 depends upon the method used in memorizing. Only three methods 

 were considered: The "continuous" or "mass" method; the once-per-day 

 method; and the once-per-week method. Up to a certain point, with 

 some individuals, when digits were used as material, the time varied 

 directly as the square of the number of digits, when the continuous 

 method was used. By the once-per-day method, however, the time varied, 

 roughly speaking, directly as the length of the material. It was shown 

 that in order to get the best results the same subject should take all 

 the various lengths of material used, and that it would be unfair to dis- 



