depends on
what connections this idea has had in our minds in the past. It depends
on the associations that it has, and associations depend on our thinking
the ideas over together.

Teachers and parents should help children to think over their
experiences in helpful, practical relations. Then in the future, when an
idea comes to mind, it brings along with it other ideas that have these
helpful, practical relations. We must not, then, merely repeat our
experiences, but must repeat them in helpful connections or
associations. In organizing our experience, we must systematize and
classify our knowledge.

One of the chief differences in men is in the way they organize their
knowledge. Most of us have experiences abundant enough, but we differ in
the way we work over and organize these experiences. Organization not
only enables us to remember our experience, but brings our experience
back in the right connections.

The advice that should be given to a student is the following: Make sure
that you understand. If the matter is a lesson in a book, go through it
trying to get the main facts; then go through it again, trying to see
the relation of all the facts. Then try to see the facts in relation to
your wider experience. If it is a history lesson, think of the facts of
the lesson in their relation to previous chapters. Think of the details
in their bearing on wider and larger movements.

A teacher should always hold in mind the facts in regard to memory, and
should make her teaching conform to them. She should carefully plan the
presentation of a new topic so as to insure a clear initial impression.
A new topic should be presented orally by the teacher, with abundant
illustration and explanation. It cannot be made too concrete, it cannot
be made too plain and simple.

Then after the teacher has introduced and made plain the new topic, the
pupil reads and studies further. At the next recitation of the class,
the first thing in order should be a discussion, on the part of the
pupils. This will help the pupils to get the facts cleared up and will
help the teacher to find out whether the pupils have the facts right.

The first part of the recitation should also be a time for questions.
Everything should now be made clear, if there are any errors or
misunderstandings on the pupil's part. Of course any procedure in a
recitation should depend upon the nature of the material and to some
extent on the stage of advancement of th