1.  Of copying a book literally through, there is this to be said, that it engages the attention upon every word, until the act of writing serves to impress the memory.  But there are very important qualifications to be assigned in judging of the worth of the exercise.  Observe what is the main design of the copyist.  It is to produce a replica of an original upon paper.  He cannot do this without a certain amount of attention to the original; enough at least to enable him to put down the exact words in the copy; and, by such attention, he is so far impressed with the matter, that a certain portion may remain in the memory.  If, however, instead of the paper, he could write directly on the brain, he would be aiming straight at his object.  Now, experience shows that the making of a copy of any document is compatible with a very small amount of attention to the purport.  The extreme case is the copying clerk.  He can literally reproduce an original, with entire forgetfulness of what it is about.  If his eye takes a faithful note of the sequence of words, he may entirely neglect the meaning.  In point of fact, he constantly does so.  He remembers nobody’s secrets; and he cannot be counted on to check blunders that make nonsense of his text.  Probably no one could go on copying for eight hours a day unless the strain of attention to the originals were at a minimum.  I conceive, therefore, that copying habits arising from a certain amount of experience at the vocation, would be utterly fatal to the employment of the exercise as a means of study.  It may be valuable to such as have seldom used their pen except in original composition.  Very probably, in school lessons, to write an exercise two or three times may be a help to the usual routine of saying off the book.  I have heard experienced teachers testify to the good effects of the practice.  Yet very little would turn the attention the wrong way.  Even the requirement of neatness on the part of the master, or the pupil’s own liking for it, would abate the desired impression.  The multiplied copying set as punishment might stamp a thing on the memory through disgust; it might also engender the mechanical routine of the copyist.  In short, to sit down and copy a long work is about the last thing that I should dream of, as a means of study.  To copy Thucydides eight times, as the tradition respecting Demosthenes goes, would be about the same as copying Gibbon three times:  and who would undertake that?

[COMMITTING TO MEMORY WORD FOR WORD.]

2.  Committing to memory verbatim, or nearly so.  This too belongs to the same tradition regarding Demosthenes, and is probably as inaccurate as the other.  Certainly the eight copyings would not suffice for having the whole by heart.  Excepting a professional rhapsodist, or some one gifted with extraordinary powers of memory that would hardly be compatible with a great understanding, nobody would think of committing Thucydides to memory.  That