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496 A few suggestions may be added about the manner of learning by heart. Passages from good authors are to be known word for word. The same will ordinarily apply to the rules of grammar; the precepts of rhetoric and of poetry may either be gotten in the same way, or the sense simply may be exacted. The matter which is to be committed to memory should be understood. It will be most useful to instruct the pupils how to memorize. They should not try to learn the lesson as one whole, but rather they should memorize one or two lines at a time, a sentence, or a clause; then the second sentence or line of poetry. After two are well known they should be repeated together. Then a third sentence is learned and again united with those learned previously. The principle of the old Romans: Divide et impera, will here be applied. These suggestions may appear minute, and it may be objected that each individual has a way of his own which is just right for him. However, a little questioning of pupils will show that their method of memorizing is very frequently erroneous, and that instruction on such matters will be far from amiss. One great mistake of students is to try to learn by heart when their minds are bothered and distracted. Memory work is best done when body and mind are quiet; impressions then made are deeper and will last. This is the fundamental secret of the various much vaunted systems of memory which have been paraded about in different times. Concentrate the mind, is their motto, and then you will memorize with ease and tenaciously. Very few people, boys or not, have the self-control to concentrate their minds when they are disturbed. This is one of the reasons why it is