The table of contents is never so valuable as the index.  This always comes at the end of the book.  If the work is in more than one volume the index comes at the end of the last volume.  What did you learn of the topic gestures in this book from your reference to the table of contents?  Now look at the index.  What does the index do for a topic?  If a topic is treated in various parts of a long work the volumes are indicated by Roman numerals, the pages by ordinary numerals.

Interpret this entry taken from the index of A History of the United States by H.W.  Elson.

Slavery, introduced into Virginia, i, 93; in South Carolina, 122; in Georgia, 133; in New England, 276; in the South, 276; during colonial period, iii, 69, 70; in Missouri, 72; attacked by the Abolitionists, 142-6; excluded from California, 184; character of, in the South, 208 seq.; population, iv, 82; abolished in District of Columbia, in new territories, 208; abolished by Thirteenth Amendment, 320, 321.

Retaining Knowledge.  The only valid test of the reader’s real equipment is what he retains and can use.  How much of what you read do you remember?  The answer depends upon education, training in this particular exercise, and lapse of time.  What method of remembering do you find most effective in your own case?  To answer this you should give some attention to your own mind.  What kind of mind have you?  Do you retain most accurately what you see?  Can you reproduce either exactly or in correct substance what you read to yourself without any supporting aids to stimulate your memory?  If you have this kind of mind develop it along that line.  Do not weaken its power by letting it lean on any supports at all.  If you find you can do without them, do not get into the habit of taking notes.  If you can remember to do everything you should do during a trip downtown don’t make a list of the items before you go.  If you can retain from a single reading the material you are gathering, don’t make notes.  Impress things upon your memory faculty.  Develop that ability in yourself.

Have you a different kind of mind, the kind which remember best what it tells, what it explains, what it does?  Do you fix things in your brain by performing them?  Does information become rooted in your memory because you have imparted it to others?  If so you should secure the material you gather from your reading by adapting some method related to the foregoing.  You may talk it over with some one else, you may tell it aloud to yourself, you may imagine you are before an audience and practise impressing them with what you want to retain.  Any device which successfully fixes knowledge in your memory is legitimate.  You should know enough about your own mental processes to find for yourself the best and quickest way.  It is often said of teachers that they do not actually feel that they know a subject until they have tried to teach it to others.