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suggests negative practice—the effort to forget. The reason for negative practice is the theory that effort is detrimental to achievement. So often we are not able to remember something no matter how hard we try, then when we stop trying we suddenly find ourselves remembering. So Dunlap turns it around and says to try to forget, and this effort will get in the way of forgetting. In the remembering of details, Dunlap says, the purposes behind the remembering must be considered. Is the subject memorizing in order to use the details thus acquired or for the sake of a stunt? Dunlap is weighing values as well as means in this discussion. He also mentions the importance of personal and social adjustment. The over-all theory behind Dunlap's discussion is that the way of learning lies in the formation of habits. Here we see a similarity to the conditioning theory. But in Dunlap's approach other factors are stressed as equally important. In order to break habits, for instance, it is necessary to understand the situation, to accept the proper ideals, to have a genuine desire to realize these ideals, and to persist in practice aimed at accomplishing the end in view. There are habits of thought and habits of emotional response. Learning ability, which he calls intelligence, varies, with home influence, social training, basic learning ability and incentive. Ian M. L. Hunter, in discussing memory, tells us it is easier to recognize than to recall. Among the considerations in determining how quickly we can memorize are meaningfulness, which helps, and the amount of material to be memorized, for as the material increases, the length |
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