, so that it shall become
really ours, there should be the glow of mental heat at the time of our
acquiring such knowledge. Ideas that come into the mind when we are in
an apathetic state, make no permanent lodgment. Hence the importance of
exciting a lively interest in that which is the subject of study. If the
teacher has failed to excite this interest, and finds in his class no
animation, no sympathy, no eagerness of attention, he may be sure that
he is not accomplishing much. The child must, if possible, acquire a
fondness for that which is to be remembered. Love, in fact, is the
parent of memory.

VIII.

KNOWLEDGE BEFORE MEMORY.

I have had frequent occasion to urge upon teachers the importance of
cultivating the memory of their pupils. The old-fashioned plan of
requiring the young to commit to memory precious truths, in those very
words in which wise and far-thinking men have handed them down to us,
has too much gone out of use. I have felt called upon, therefore, from
time to time, to recall to the minds of teachers the unspeakable
importance of early exercising the memory of children, and of storing
their memories with wise sayings and rules. I would not take back
anything I have said on this subject, but rather repeat and reiterate
it. At the same time, I am aware that there is an extreme in this
direction, and I therefore put in a word of caution.

The danger to which I refer is that of requiring children to commit mere
words, to which they attach no meaning, or without their having any real
knowledge of the things expressed by the words. Of course there is much
in the formulas and rules of science that the immature minds of children
cannot entirely comprehend, and I am far from saying that a child should
commit nothing except what it can comprehend. But whatever in a rule or
a doctrine they can understand, should be diligently explained to them,
and the ingenuity of teachers should be exercised in awakening the minds
of their scholars to the apprehension of real knowledge as a preliminary
to the act of committing it to memory.

An example or two will illustrate my meaning. Children at school are
required to commit to memory the tables of weights and measures. The
exercise is one of acknowledged and indispensable importance. But it is
possible for a child to repeat one of these tables with entire glibness
and accuracy, pretty much as he would whistle Yankee Doodle, without any
apprehension of the