47 3 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



authors, because, for the most part, these extracts contain not a phrase 

 or au idea that would aid in conversation. In this work, the atten- 

 tion is directed exclusively to words, and the memory is aided by 

 their juxtaposition. By means of repetition they are revived in the 

 mind in their order of succession, each word suggesting that which 

 follows. The more we repeat the lesson in order to retain it, the more 

 easy and rapid the recitation, the more the text escapes analysis and 

 the will. Excellent as the exercise may be in pronunciation and ora- 

 tory, it is inefficacious as a means of learning to speak. To learn a 

 model by heart, no more teaches to speak, than tracing a drawino-- 

 model teaches to draw. 



The monotonous repetition of a text is a mental operation diamet- 

 rically opposite to that employed in the expression of thought. To 

 speak is an act of judgment, to recite is an act of memory : the first 

 is spontaneous, the second mechanical ; by this we associate words with 

 ideas, by that we associate words with each other ; in the one we are 

 masters of an ever-changing phraseology, in the other we are the 

 slaves of an invariable text. In speaking, the mind is exclusively occu- 

 pied with ideas ; words present themselves as consequences. In re- 

 citing, on the contrary, it is words that absorb the attention, ideas 

 following in their suite, and sometimes even are not present to the 

 mind; children often fail to understand what they know by heart. 

 Montaigne said, with reason, " To know by heart is not to know." 



As to dialogues or exercises in conversation, whatever the number 

 of them with which the student has charged his memory, he can say 

 nothing beyond some trivialities which it has pleased the compiler to 

 group together. His individuality disappears, and he is only the ser- 

 vile echo of phrases that have been imposed upon him. It is manifest 

 that the art of speaking, of managing a language at will for all the 

 needs of conversation, consists less in remembering a great number 

 of ready-made phrases, than in the power of constructing at will, and 

 instautly, those that meet the necessities of the moment. It will be 

 more profitable, then, to follow the process of Nature, which consists 

 in constructing phrases for one's self, on a given model, by analogy. 



The time given to learning dialogues profits little ; for, most com- 

 monly, they are forgotten long before there is occasion to use them. 

 Phrases learned by heart are rapidly forgotten. Not only are these 

 lessons worthless, but they require painful labor and considerable 

 time ; they are, for young people, an incessant cause of disgust and 

 punishments, which can only inspire aversion for the study. They do 

 not even serve usefully to cultivate the memory ; for the power to 

 retain these words in a given order is of no use except to actors in 

 learning their parts. 



We cannot by special processes obtain the general improvement 

 of a faculty. The power or aptitude of a faculty never transcends 

 the limits assigned to it by the special exercise to which we submit it. 



