This peculiarity of memory led Professor James to suggest, paradoxically, that we learn to skate in summer and to swim in winter.  And, indeed, one usually finds, in beginning the skating season, that after the initial stiffness of muscles wears off, one glides along with surprising agility.  You see then that if you plan things rightly, Nature will do much of your learning for you.  It might be suggested that perhaps things impressed just before going to sleep have a better chance to “set” than things impressed at other times for the reason that sleep is the time when the reparative processes of the body are most active.

Since the brain pattern requires time to “set,” it is important that after the first impression you refrain from introducing anything immediately into the mind that might disturb it.  After you have impressed the poem you are memorizing, do not immediately follow it by another poem.  Let the brain rest for three or four minutes until after the first impressions have had a chance to “set.”

Now that we have regarded this “unconscious memorizing” from the neurological standpoint, let us consider it from the psychological standpoint.  How are the ideas being modified during the intervals between impressions?  Modern psychology has discovered that much memorizing goes on without our knowing it, paradoxical as that may seem.  The processes may be described in terms of the doctrine of association, which is that whenever two things have once been associated together in the mind, there is a tendency thereafter “if the first of them recurs, for the other to come with it.”  After the poem of our illustration has once been repeated, there is a tendency for events in everyday experience that are like it to associate themselves with it.  For example, in the course of a day or week many things might arise and recall to you the line, “Life is real, life is earnest”, and it would become, by that fact, more firmly fixed in the mind.  This valuable semi-conscious recall requires that you must make the first impression as early as possible before the time for ultimate recall.  This persistence of ideas in the mind means “that the process of learning does not cease with the actual work of learning, but that, if not disturbed, this process runs on of itself for a time, and adds a little to the result of our labors.  It also means that, if it is to our advantage to stand in readiness with some word or thought, we shall be able to do so, if only this word or thought recur to us but once, some time before the critical moment.  So we remember to keep a promise to pay a call, to make a remark at the proper time, even though we turn our mind to other work or talk for some hours between.  We can do this because, if not vigorously prevented, ideas and words keep on reappearing in the mind.”  You may utilize this principle in theme-writing to good advantage.  As soon as the instructor announces the subject for a theme, begin to think about it.  Gather together all