1.--The Ratio of the Circumference of the circle to its diameter is expressed by the integer 3 and 708 decimals, of which I give only eight. Learning these nine figures is good practice in numeric thinking--3.14159265.
2.--The Yellowstone National Park contains 2,294,740 acres.
3.--The Monster Chartist Petition contained 3,317,702 names.
THE ANALYTIC SYNTHETIC METHOD APPLIED TO LONG SENTENCES.
How _unobservant_ and wholly _unreliant_ many pupils are may be seen from the fact that notwithstanding my elaborate handling of the processes of learning prose and poetry by heart, I often receive requests to send some indication of how I would learn a particular chapter or selection by heart! But a chapter consists of paragraphs and paragraphs of sentences. Learning the desired passages by heart is done by applying the methods here so profusely illustrated to the successive sentences of the chapter or selection, until practice and training in these methods will make their further application unnecessary.
In pursuance of my plan to keep the mind in an ASSIMILATING condition when trying to learn and to further aid in making the intellect stay and work with the senses, I proceed to furnish a Training Method for committing prose and poetry to memory.
_Endless repetition or repeating a sentence to be memorised over and over again_ is the usual process. After one perusal, however, the mind in such a case has sated its curiosity in regard to the meaning of the sentence and each subsequent repetition for the purpose of fixing it in the memory merely makes an impression upon the eye or ear or both, and the intellect, being unoccupied, naturally wanders away. Hence, learning by _rote_ promotes _mind-wandering_: for the Attention always wanders unless wooed to its work by all-engrossing interest in the subject which in case of a weak power of Attention is rarely sufficient, or by =the stimulating character of the process of acquirement= which is made use of. In the Method about to be given, the intellect is agreeably occupied, and thereby a Habit of Attention is promoted.
The justification for this Method is found in the Psychological maxim that the intellect can assimilate a simple idea more easily than a complex idea, and a few ideas at a time than many ideas.