patches,--episodes, as it were, in the
narrative,--without being able very clearly to perceive its general
design. This class, upon whom the principle of association chiefly has
been at work, we leave out, and confine ourselves to the state of
knowledge possessed by those who are in a greater or less degree capable
of classification, and of taking some cognisance of the narrative as a
connected whole.

Among this latter class, some will have retained no more than the bare
outline of the history, interspersed with groupings, as in the younger
children. They will remember little more than that Joseph was at first a
boy in his father's house;--that he was afterwards a slave, and in
prison;--and at last, a great man and a governor. Here the _whole
history_ is divided into three distinct heads, or eras,--the first
branch of an analytical table of the whole story, from one or other of
which all the other particulars, of whatever kind, must of necessity
take their rise, and branch off in their natural order. An advanced
class of the auditors will have retained some of the more obvious
circumstances connected with _each of these three great divisions_, as
well as the divisions themselves. They will not only remember that
Joseph was a boy in his father's house, but they will also be able to
remember the more prominent subdivisions of the narrative regarding him
while there; such as his father's partiality, his dreams, and his
brothers' hatred. The second great division will be recollected as
including the particulars of his being sold, his serving in Potiphar's
house, and his conduct in prison; and the third division will be
remembered as containing his appearance before Pharoah, his laying up
corn, his conduct to his brothers, and his reception of his father and
family. These subdivisions, it will at once be perceived, form the
_second branch_ of a regular analytical table, each of which has sprung
from, and is intimately connected with, some one or other of the three
great divisions forming the first branch, of which the "History of
Joseph" is the comprehensive root.

In like manner, a third class of the pupils, whose minds have been
better cultivated, and whose memories are more retentive, will not only
remember all this, but they will also remember, in connection with each
of these subdivisions, many of the more specific events included in, or
springing from them, and which carry forward this regular analytical
table one