School, and the work of Prof. R. B. Blakeney published by the Commercial Press help the student by analysis of characters to establish associations which make the characters easier to remember. The important thing in learning is that some kind of association is made, and no matter how ridiculous it may be, if it assists in connecting the sound, the meaning, and the visual image of the character, it is not to be despised. A comparative study of characters in the back of the dictionary and a comparative study of characters of like sound based on the main body of the dictionary is of real assistance to the student in making these associations.
The chief use of the Index of Characters is to enable the user of the dictionary to find the desired character from the radical in case the pronunciation is unknown. “Many of the most common characters are the most difficult to find in this Index; they are generally placed under the simple radicals, where they should be looked for first. For instance 以, 仝, 令, 仄, are all under 人; 井, 亞 are under 二; 兒, 先 are under 儿; all of which are referred to these radicals chiefly because they are prominent parts of the characters, and likely to catch the eye. Such anomalous instances amount to about two hundred, all of them primitives or “phonetics,” while the remainder will give less trouble in ascertaining the proper radical. About one half (108) of the radicals are places on the right or left of the primitive – constituting one half of the character and easily recognized. Others like 二, 勹, 匚, 匸, 囗, 行, 門 and 鬥 embrace the primitive and give no trouble. About forty of them are places on the top of the primitive, a few of which enter into combination with it, as in 奉, 夷, 彜 in such manner as to give some hesitation as to the radical; while others as 宀, 广, 疒, 爪, 穴, 竹, 囬, 艹, 虍 and 雨 are more apparent. For many of the remainder, where the radical is either in combination, or the character is formed of two or three radicals as 相, 聾 or 現 practice will soon give the necessary facility in finding. In counting the number of strokes in a character, the radical is not counted. After becoming familiar with the radicals themselves, and having a general acquaintance with the primitives, the number of strokes can be quickly ascertained by inspection. For instance the character 鬻 found under the radical 鬲 is made up of 弓, 米 and 弓, which severally number 3, 6, and 3 strokes, or 12 in all; the character 灔 placed under the radical 水 is composed of Ⅹ, 豆, 刀 and 巴 numbering 11, 7, 2, and 4 strokes or 24 in all. The number of characters formed of so many strokes as these is very few. In most case a glance at the word is sufficient to see how many make it.”
