How to Study and Teaching How to Study

“Never give more time to reading a book than to reflecting upon its contents.””

— Frank M. McMurry

“Many parents as well as teachers refuse to place this responsibility upon children for fear of the mistakes that they will make. On account of this fear they make it as nearly as possible unnecessary for children to judge freely, by giving them arbitrary rules to follow, or by directing them exactly what they shall do each moment. This cultivates poor judgment by depriving children of the very practice that will make their judgments reliable; it prevents the school requirements from corresponding to those in life outside.””

— Frank M. McMurry

“Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.””

— Frank M. McMurry

“Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life.””

— Frank M. McMurry

“Living, in the case of animals, thus means getting on, and any ability, whether physical or intellectual, is of importance to the extent that it makes such getting on successful.””

— Frank M. McMurry

“Every person is bound to make many mistakes; but he will make far fewer when his ability to judge has been properly trained.””

— Frank M. McMurry

“There is one right thing for the student to do, that is, to develop the habit of weighing worths, of sensing the relative values of the facts that he meets.””

— Frank M. McMurry

“The student, likewise, should not be merely a collector of knowledge. The object of study is not merely insight. As Frederick Harrison has said, "Man's business here is to know for the sake of living, not to live for the sake of knowing." "Religion that does not express itself in conduct socially useful is not true religion"; and, we may add, education that does not do the same is not true education.””

— Frank M. McMurry

“The importance of being rich in unsolved problems is not likely to be overestimated. Most well-informed adults who have little "push" are not lazy by nature; they have merely failed to fall in love with worthy aims. That is often partly because education has been allowed to mean to them little more than the collecting of facts. If it had included the collection of interesting and valuable purposes as well, their devotion to proper aims in life might have grown as have their facts; then their energy might have kept pace with their knowledge.””

— Frank M. McMurry