Master The Art Of Reading With Lewis Carroll’s Four Rules Of Learning

Everyone knows Lewis Carroll as the author of Alice In Wonderland, but he was also a mathematician and logician interested in the ways people learn. Weblog Brain Pickings took a look at four rules developed by Carroll that you can use for better reading.

Photo by Karen

Carroll wrote an essay titled “How to Learn” that was included in a book called A Random Walk in Science. In the essay, Carroll describes a way for you to cultivate critical thinking while doing any kind of reading:

1. Begin at the beginning, and do not allow yourself to gratify a mere idle curiosity by dipping into the book, here and there. This would very likely lead to your throwing it aside, with the remark “This is much too hard for me!, and thus losing the chance of adding a very large item to your stock of mental delights. This Rule (of not dipping) is very desirable with other kinds of books — -such as novels, for instance, where you may easily spoil much of the enjoyment you would otherwise get from the story, by dipping into it further on, so that what the author meant to be a pleasant surprise comes to you as a matter of course…
2. Don’t begin any fresh Chapter, or Section, until you are certain that you thoroughly understand the whole book up to that point, and that you have worked, correctly, most if not all of the examples which have been set. So long as you are conscious that all the land you have passed through is absolutely conquered, and that you are leaving no unsolved difficulties behind you, which will be sure to turn up again later on, your triumphal progress will be easy and delightful. Otherwise, you will find your state of puzzlement get worse and worse as you proceed, till you give up the whole thing in utter disgust.
3. When you come to any passage you don’t understand, read it again: if you still don’t understand it, read it again: if you fail, even after three readings, very likely your brain is getting a little tired. In that case, put the book away, and take to other occupations, and next day, when you come to it fresh, you will very likely find that it is quite easy.
4. If possible, find some genial friend, who will read the book along with you, and will talk over the difficulties with you. Talking is a wonderful smoother-over of difficulties. When I come upon anything — in Logic or in any other hard subject — that entirely puzzles me, I find it a capital plan to talk it over, aloud, even when I am all alone. One can explain things so clearly to one’s self! And then, you know, one is so patient with one’s self: one never gets irritated at one’s own stupidity!

The rules may come across as simple, but they cover the important basics which we often ignore. Reading doesn’t do anything for you if you don’t actually grasp what you’ve read.

How to Learn: Lewis Carroll’s Four Rules for Digesting Information and Mastering the Art of Reading [Brain Pickings]