Around these islands we begin
to collect the wreckage of the past and the accretions of later study
and experience. A thoughtful person naturally falls into the habit of
collecting ideas around a few centers, and of holding them in place by
links of association. In American history, for instance, it is
inevitable that our knowledge becomes congested in certain important
epochs, or around the character and life of a few typical persons. The
same seems to be true also of other studies, as geography and even
geometry. The failure to acquire proper _habits of thinking_ is also
exposed by the experience of practical life. In life we are compelled
to see and respect the causal relations between events. We must
calculate the influences of the stubborn forces and facts around us.
But in school we often have so many things to learn that we have no
time to think. At least half the meaning of things lies not in
themselves, but in their relations and effects. Therefore, to get
ideas without getting their significant relations, is to encumber the
mind with ill-digested material. A sensible man of the world has
little respect for this kind of learning.
One reason why knowledge is so poorly understood and remembered is
because its _real application_ to other branches of knowledge, whether
near or remote, is so little observed and fixed.
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