Even when no connection can be established, the division into parts is a most important preparation for a memory-lesson. How hopelessly the child looks up at the stars, thinking that no one can ever master their relative positions! Yet let the child begin with Charles's Wain, and then draw lines from this to the Pole Star and to others, and he will find that, by dividing the stars into "constellations," he speedily acquires a knowledge which he would have thought impossible. The same rule holds for the memory of other things (§ 6). As the teacher's motto is "Divide and teach," so should the pupil's be, "Divide and remember."

(4) Let there be sometimes an interval of a night between the teacher's explanation and the pupil's learning, so that there may be time for "unconscious cerebration, "- -a power which all teachers must recognize.

(5) In some children, what may be called the sound-memory is most powerful, in others, the sight-memory. It is well to utilize both. To be compelled to learn a memory lesson in a schoolroom where silence is enjoined is a severe restriction for children in whom the soundmemory is strong.

6. In learning rules for which it is difficult or impossible to give children intelligible reasons, there seems no reason why recourse should not be allowed to artificial associations, such as rhyming verses. For lists of exceptional genders, such a help appears quite justifiable. The rational faculty, having no province here, cannot be supposed to have its sovereignty weakened by the appeal to mere memory.

7. But in learning dates it is probably best to trust mainly to the reason. The verses or other means sometimes adopted for impressing dates on the memory have these disadvantages: 1st, that they are generally either long or else arbitrary; 2d, that they take up so much attention as to indispose the boy for appealing to his Reason.

Again, the artificial system is not progressive. For if a boy relies on Memoria Technica, he requires separate artificial helps for every date in the history of every nation; but if he learns by heart a few important dates, and gradually clusters round these, as centers, a knowledge of groups of less important incidents, he will gradually form a kind of star-map of chronology, which will be of some value to him as a mental training, besides the utility of the information. Should the Memoria Technica unfortunately vanish from the brain, every vestige of information vanishes with it; but, even though he may forget the precise date, the boy who has appealed to his reason may remember that Mohammed, for example, began to gain followers at the commencement of the seventh century, that the Saracens invaded Spain early in the eighth century, and that Charlemagne, who drove back the tide of invasion successfully, was crowned emperor at the beginning of the ninth century.

But the use of Reason ought not to prevent the careful learning by heart of some of the more important dates, and these ought to be

repeated over and over again till they are indelibly impressed on the memory.

8. In answer, therefore, to the question, What should be learned by heart? the answer will be: Learn (a) things that cannot be recalled by the reason, e.g., lists of genders, tables of weights and measures; (b) things that need to be recalled more quickly than the reason will recall them; (e) things that could not readily be recalled in so exact or so fit a shape by the reason as by the memory, e.g. Euclid's Axioms, the verses of poets, etc.1

In other matters, the appeal should be made not to the Memory, but to the Reason; and the pupil should be encouraged to answer questions on History, Algebra, Geometry, Arithmetic, not in the words of the book, but so far as he can with accuracy and fitness-in his own words.

9. A memory-lesson, if learned at all, should be thoroughly learned. After two or three lessons, the whole should be revised; and constant revision should be practiced till the pupil is quite familiar with it.

10. In order that a child may remember, he should have intervals for reflection. The brain is bewildered and wearied if it is hustled from one subject to other subjects for many hours together, all novel, and all requiring sustained attention. Play gives rest from work, but not time for reflection. For this reason, in day-schools, a daily walk to and from school is of great value for the strengthening of the memory.

51. REPETITION OF POETRY.

The repetition of poetry is important because, besides strengthening the memory, it enriches the vocabulary, enlarges the imagination, and improves the sense of rhythm.

1. Choice of passages.-In selecting a passage to be learned, the teacher must remember that it is not the language of poetry, but the thought, that for the most part creates difficulties for children. We must not fancy that long words in poetry repel boys that can read fluently. Poetry, by its very nature, is averse to lengthy, technical, and abstract terms, such as create difficulties in prose. But the subjectmatter of poetry is very often altogether above the heads of children, though expressed in the simplest language. The In Memoriam is written mainly in monosyllables; yet there is in it little which a child could thoroughly understand; and for a young boy, ignorant of the meaning of the "loss of friends," and wholly unable (so Nature has decreed it) to realize the meaning of death, it is impossible really to understand (and not desirable that he should be forced to appear to understand) even the following simple stanza:

"This truth came borne with bier and pall,

I felt it when I sorrowed most,

"Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all."

1 See Fitch's Lectures on Teaching, p. 135.

But give a boy a piece of description, narrative, or stirring incident, and you will find that long words will create little difficulty. Such passages may be found in the well-known Original Poems, The Ancient Mariner, Howitt's Birds and Flowers, Macauley's Lays, and Scott's Poems; but a careful selection might also extract some passages, intelligible even for the very young, from Milton's description of the Creation, Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar (and perhaps the Coriolanus), the story of Orlando rescuing Oliver in As You Like It, some of the Choruses in Henry the Fifth, and the description of the hunting of the hare (Poor Wat) in the Venus and Adonis, to which might be added the larger part of Milton's Allegro and Penseroso. I lay the more stress on Shakespeare and Milton because early familiarity with them, next to the Bible, has more power than the study of any other author to develop a sense of rhythm.

2. Preparation.-Having selected your passage, you must then read it to the pupil in such a way as to interest him. Explain difficulties, ask and answer questions; and (if there is leisure for it) draw out from the pupil, by a series of questions, a narrative containing the substance of the passage to be repeated.

In doing this, be careful to dwell on the "joints" or transitions of the narrative, always connecting each new part with the part before, so that the whole chain may be in the pupil's mind in such a way that each link may suggest the next. Never let the child try to keep in his mind three links together. Two at a time are enough.

By voice, action, and suggestion, try to call up before the child pictures corresponding to the language.

3. The First Repetition Lesson.-It is very important that a child should be taught at the very beginning to assume, as a matter of course, that he can repeat poetry; and consequently the teacher must spare no pains to make the first lesson a success. The effects of failure here are so disastrous that it seems worth while to set down in full the somewhat quaint and lengthy description given by Preceptor of a First Repetition Lesson.

"I assume," he says, "that the child may have picked up a few nursery rhymes, but that he has not yet learned a continuous passage: and we are now to begin. I select a piece of Jane Taylor's, called 'The Pond,' describing how a disobedient chicken, attempting to swim in spite of her mother's commands, was drowned. After reading it over, I reject the second and third stanzas for the present, because the author speaks in her own person, and breaks the simple course of events; I also reject the last, because it contains no incident, and a moral expressed in language somewhat too elderly for my young pupil of five or six.

"Having mastered the first stanza so that I am quite sure I can repeat it myself, I turn the conversation, one morning at breakfast, on ponds;

and putting my saucer before the child, I say, 'I remember a pretty tale about a pond; it begins like this:

"There was a round pond, and a pretty pond too,'

Here I draw my finger once or twice round the saucer:

"About it white daisies and violets grew,'

Here I call up the salt-cellar to represent the daisies,' and anything else to represent the 'violets':

“And dark weeping-willows, that stoop to the ground, Dipped in their long branches, and shaded it round.' Here I slope two spoons or forks over the saucer, and bend them over to represent the 'willows.'

"If the child is sufficiently interested, I repeat this pantomine; and there, for that day, the matter ends. Next day the same is repeated, and either then or afterwards, when I feel sure the child has grasped the lines, I say, 'Now, you do it,' and I put the 'pond,' the 'violets,' and the 'willow,' i.e., the saucer, salt-cellar, and spoons, ready for him to manipulate.

"If this stanza is correctly repeated (as it was by my youngster) the battle is won. What follows is an easy task. After the lines have been several times repeated, and are quite mastered, I let drop the remark that the story goes on to describe how a disobedient chicken came to this pond and watched the ducklings swimming in it:

"How the Chicken comes and watches the Ducklings swimming in the Pond.
"One day a young chicken, that lived thereabout,

Stood watching to see the ducks pop in and out,
Now splashing above, and now diving below,

She thought of all things she should like to do so.'

The first two stanzas must now be several times repeated, together with their titles. First, let us have 'The Pond,' now, 'How the chicken comes and watches the ducklings swim in the Pond.' We can then introduce a third title, thus: After the chicken watches the ducklings, the story tells us how the chicken determined to try to swim'; and the second and third stanzas must be repeated together, the third being as follows:

"How the Chicken determined to swim.

"So the poor silly chick was determined to try;

She thought 'twas as easy to swim as to fly;

Though her mother had told her she must not go near,

She foolishly thought there was nothing to fear.'

We continue, 'After the chicken had determined to disobey her mother,' the story goes on to tell:

"What the Chicken said in excuse for her disobedience.

"My feet, wings, and feathers, for aught I can see,
As good as the ducks' are for swimming," said she;
"Though my beak is pointed, and their beaks are round,

Is that any reason that I shall be drowned? "'

A revision may now be desirable, and when the above four stanzas

have been revised, we shall omit the next stanza, which prolongs the chicken's excuse, and continue, After the chicken had excused herself,' the story goes on to tell:

"How the ignorant creature flew into the water.

"So in this poor ignorant animal flew,

But soon found her mother's cautions were true;

She splashed and she dashed, and she turned herself round,

And heartily wished herself safe on the ground.'

The last stanza is introduced by saying that 'After the chicken had flown into the pond,' the story tells us:

"How she was drowned.

"But now 'twas too late to begin to repent;

The harder she struggled the deeper she went;
And when every effort she vainly had tried,
She slowly sank down to the bottom and died.'

We shall now revise the last three stanzas, the Excuse, the Leap into the Pond, and the Drowning. Finally, we shall practice the child in repeating a rapid summary of the whole poem, viz., the Pond, Watching the Ducklings, the Determination, the Excuse, the Leap, the Drowning."

Much of this detail will seem to many grotesque or superfluous; but we have given it in full, partly because we understand that it contains the record of a lesson which has actually proved successful, partly because many parents or tutors may be desirous of trying this same exercise themselves as a first lesson in continuous repetition, and partly because Preceptor's experience is certainly based on, and clearly exemplifies, two important principles of memory: first, division; second, what may be called the linking system. First, the poem was divided by the teacher into sections; secondly, each section was linked with the one following it.

The professional teachers of systems of Memoria Technica are well acquainted with the "link-system"; and a string of nearly a hundred names (but carefully selected by the Professor with a view to the natural association between each pair) can sometimes be repeated by boys who, after once hearing it, observe the precept never to think of more than two at a time." But the applicability of this system to verse-repetition is not so clearly recognized, and requires to be enforced.

For young children we need poems, or (better) songs, of a livelier kind than the Pond, but rather longer, and perhaps with a little more purpose, than the ordinary nursery rhymes. The songs of Froebel are too German for our children, both in the thoughts and in the allusions; but they are on the right lines, and it is to be regretted that we have at present nothing that can quite fill their place. Such poems should be accompanied by action, and if sung and acted by a large number of children together, they ought to be most usefully stimulative for dull children in whom the power of Association is naturally weak.