As an aid to contemporary research, this paper examines historical ideas about young children's use of strategies for memorization and the transfer of such strategies to different contexts. Discussion focuses on (1) current approaches to inducing transfer of strategies; (2) Thorndike and Woodworth's concept of identical elements; (3) Gestalt psychology and transfer by insight; (4) a comparison of Gestaltists' and Thorndike's positions on teaching the concept of area; (5) contributions of Thorndike and the Gestaltists to present transfer research; and (6) past insights and future directions. Inspection of the controversy between connectivists and Gestaltists suggests that their differences have been overemphasized, and that similarities between the two positions can inform the present view of the developmental transfer literature. Moreover, the differences in the two approaches suggest different, but complementary, ways of instructing children to transfer problem-solving techniques to new contexts. (RH)