There's something about human nature that forces us to think compartmentally. We have to arrange and classify everything from taxonomy on down to our dresser drawers. One need only look to the popularity of The Container Store to see how deep our classification neurosis goes. Of course classification helps us to clarify our thinking at times, but I think it also obscures the truth in a lot of cases, as well. There are so many deep connections in life and in science that elude us, because we are so used to thinking in terms of X is X, and Y is Y.
I feel that many people that originally become interested in the maths and sciences enjoy it simply because it makes sense to them. They are able to 'compartmentalize' the information they know and use it to add on to learn more. The fact that X is X and Y is Y helps them gain insight from this information. Compartmentalizing helps us to group together information we don't know very well, organize it better to help us learn about it and then compare it with something we do know. Otherwise known as learning through analogy. I think this has a lot to do with different learning types, possibly. Left brain and right brain learning. Comparing more compartmentalized and rigid structures of math and sciences with the more flowing artistic structures of language and history. If we could connect these two learning types in the future perhaps we could begin to think continuously. In a rigid but creative structure.