ssociative method that after a time images are referred to
images, and these to others again, so that they form entire categories
in which the most vigorous mind gets lost.

The other method is that of _direct_ Memory guided by Will, in which
no regard is paid to Association, especially in the beginning. Thus to
remember anything, or rather to learn _how_ to do so, we take
something which is very easy to retain--the easier the better--be it a
jingling nursery rhyme, a proverb, or a text. Let this be learned to
perfection, backwards and forwards, or by permutation of words, and
repeated the next day. Note that the repetition or _reviewing_ is of
more importance than aught else.

On the second day add another proverb or verse to the preceding, and
so on, day by day, always reviewing and never learning another
syllable until you are sure that you perfectly or most familiarly
retain all which you have _memorized_. The result will be, if you
persevere, that before long you will begin to find it easier to
remember anything. This is markedly the case as regards the practice
of reviewing, which is invariably hard at first, but which becomes ere
long habitual and then easy.

I cannot impress it too vividly on the mind of the reader, that he
cannot make his exercises too easy. If he finds that ten lines a day
are too much, let him reduce them to five, or two, or one, or even a
single word, but learn that, and persevere. When the memory begins to
improve under this process, the tasks may, of course, be gradually
increased.

An uncle of the present Khedive of Egypt told me that when he was
learning English, he at first committed to memory fifty words a day,
but soon felt himself compelled to very much reduce the number in
order to permanently remember what he acquired. One should never
overdrive a willing horse.

Where there is a teacher with youthful pupils, he can greatly aid the
process of mere memorizing, by explaining the text, putting questions
as to its meaning, or otherwise awaking an interest in it. After a
time the pupils may proceed to _verbal memorizing_, which consists of
having the text simply read or repeated to them. In this way, after a
year or eighteen months of practice, most people can actually remember
a sermon or lecture, word for word.

This was the process which was discovered, I may say simultaneously,
by DAVID KAY and myself, as our books upon it appeared at almost the
same time. But since then I h