The next day take up the same object, and after re-examining it, write down the details and you will find that you will have stored away a greater number of impressions regarding it, and, moreover, you will have discovered many new details during your second examination.  This exercise strengthens the memory as well as the Attention, for the two are closely connected, the memory depending largely upon the clearness and strength of the impressions received, while the impressions depend upon the amount of attention given to the thing observed.  Do not tire yourself with this exercise, for a tired Attention is a poor Attention.  Better try it by degrees, increasing the task a little each time you try it.  Make a game of it if you like, and you will find it quite interesting to notice the steady but gradual improvement.

It will be interesting to practice this in connection with some friend, varying the exercise by both examining the object, and writing down their impressions, separately, and then comparing results.  This adds interest to the task, and you will be surprised to see how rapidly both of you increase in your powers of observation, which powers, of course, result from Attention.

Exercise II. This exercise is but a variation of the first one.  It consists in entering a room, and taking a hasty glance around, and then walking out, and afterward writing down the number of things that you have observed, with a description of each.  You will be surprised to observe how many things you have missed at first sight, and how you will improve in observation by a little practice.  This exercise, also, may be improved by the assistance of a friend, as related in our last exercise.  It is astonishing how many details one may observe and remember, after a little practice.  It is related of Houdin, the French conjurer, that he improved and developed his faculty of Attention and Memory by playing this game with a young relative.  They would pass by a shop window, taking a hasty, attentive glance at its contents.  Then they would go around the corner and compare notes.  At first they could remember only a few prominent articles—­that is, their Attention could grasp only a few.  But as they developed by practice, they found that they could observe and remember a vast number of things and objects in the window.  And, at last, it is related that Houdin could pass rapidly before any large shop window, bestowing upon it but one hasty glance, and then tell the names of, and closely describe, nearly every object in plain sight in the window.  The feat was accomplished by the fact that the cultivated Attention enabled Houdin to fasten upon his mind a vivid mental image of the window and its contents, and then he was able to describe the articles one by one from the picture in his mind.