1. Furnish yourselves with a rich variety of ideas. -Teach your self to weigh and judge things, discern things into an order, better arrange your ideas and thoughts, obtain a rich store of thoughts and arguments for all occasions.
2. Use the most proper methods to retain that treasure of ideas which you have acquired.
-Recollect every day things you have seen, or heard, or read which may have made any addition to your understanding.
-Talk over these things, this will make a fresh impression on your memory.
There is a vast difference between reading and understanding. Write down your thoughts. Put them in order, and decide what you think.
"Alas! how many hours, and days, and months, have I lost in pursuing some parts of learning, and in reading some authors, which have turned to no other account but to inform me that they were not worthy of my labor and pursuit! Happy the man who has a wise tutor to conduct him through all the sciences in the first years of his study, and who has a prudent friend always at hand to point out to him, from experience, how much of every science is worthy his pursuit; and happy the student that is so wise as to follow such advice!"
(Isaac Watts' General Directions)
1 comment:
I've never heard of Isaac Watts. This is a good list!
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