PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 77 



dition of rhythm, accent, and rhyme with sense, 

 complete the association which accounts for the 

 greater ease most people experience in committing 

 verse to memory rather than prose. 



The most marked lapse of memory occurs im- 

 mediately after the impression has first been made. 

 Associations ten minutes old are less perfect than 

 those tested at once after learning, while the differ- 

 ences between ten minutes and twenty-four hours 

 are not so marked. Mere perseveration is especially 

 prone to lapse with time, much more so than the 

 complicated associations involved in rational learning 

 when the meaning of a lesson is fully grasped. 



It is by association that much of our pnysical 

 and mental power is built up. An infant has no 

 power of co-ordinating the movements of its limbs, 

 and only gradually does the habit of associating ap- 

 propriate movements result in ability to walk and 

 speak. Increase, with practice, of skill in handi- 

 crafts, is another illustration of the same effect. 



Part of education consists in the formation of 

 associations. From the simple effort of memory 

 involved in the association of five times seven with 

 thirty-five, to the facility of a more advanced mathe- 

 matician in the solution of differential equations by 

 the power of association, we save ourselves the 

 mental labour of working out problems each time 

 afresh from first principles. 



The whole of that part of military training known 



