Stone.
Cygnet. Cider. Coal. Mason.
Net. Apple. Mine. Maize.
Ensnare. Orchard. Shaft. Fodder.
Capture. Charred. Arrow. Cattle.
Cap. Burned. Quiver. Catalogue.
Gun. Stove. Indian. Log.
Hunter. Fire. Black-Hawk. Saw-mill.

I occasionally find that a bright, highly-gifted person makes a poor
learner of my system, because he acts on hasty inferences of his own
instead of attending to my long-tried and never-failing methods. To
illustrate: Instead of _analysing the above series in pairs_, and
_discovering_ and _noting_ the _relation_ between each pair as I
require, _he reads over the entire series_. His previous study of the
Memory Laws has, however, so impressed his mind with their influence
that he is able to retain this series after only two or three perusals.
Or, instead of reading over the entire series, he may even _slowly read
the series in pairs, but without analysis, without trying to ascertain
and realise the exact relation between the words_. This is the method of
Vacuity or Dawdling formerly mentioned. But his study of the three Laws
in learning the Building Series has so sharpened and quickened his
appreciation of In., Ex., and Con., that he _learned the one hundred
words in this wrong_ way _very readily_.

_But why should he not follow my directions?_ Why not pursue my plan and
thereby acquire the _full power_ of my system instead of the small
portion of that power gained by disregarding my direction? On the other
hand, pupils of only average natural ability are very apt to follow my
directions to the letter and thereby acquire an amount of Memory
Improvement which the above gifted, but non-complying pupil, seems
unable to understand.

If a person is afflicted with a _very_ bad memory in any or all
respects, and particularly if this memory weakness is traceable to
_mind-wandering_, or if it co-exist with the latter infirmity, such a
person may find it best to make a series of from _one hundred to five
hundred words_ on the model of the foregoing series, and learn the same
and _recite it daily both ways_ for a month or more in addition to the
prescribed exercises, and if any trace of mind-wandering remain after
that, let him make and memorise another series of the same extent