id of. The rational art of
memory is that used in natural science. We remember anatomy and botany
because, although the facts they teach are infinitely numerous, they are
arranged according to the constructive order of nature. Unless there
were a clear relation between the anatomy of one animal and that of
others, the memory would refuse to burden itself with the details of
their structure. So in the study of languages we learn several languages
by perceiving their true structural relations, and remembering these.
Association of this kind, and the maintenance of order in the mind, are
the only arts of memory compatible with the right government of the
intellect. Incongruous, and even superficial associations ought to be
systematically discouraged, and we ought to value the negative or
rejecting power of the memory. The finest intellects are as remarkable
for the ease with which they resist and throw off what does not concern
them as for the permanence with which their own truths engrave
themselves. They are like clear glass, which fluoric acid etches
indelibly, but which comes out of vitriol intact.

LETTER XI.

TO A MASTER OF ARTS WHO SAID THAT A CERTAIN DISTINGUISHED PAINTER WAS
HALF-EDUCATED.

Conventional idea about the completeness of education--The estimate of
a schoolmaster--No one can be fully educated--Even Leonardo da Vinci
fell short of the complete expression of his faculties--The word
"education" used in two different senses--The acquisition of
knowledge--Who are the learned?--Quotation from Sydney Smith--What a
"half-educated" painter had learned--What faculties he had developed.

An intelligent lady was lamenting to me the other day that when she
heard anything she did not quite agree with, it only set her thinking,
and did not suggest any immediate reply. "Three hours afterwards," she
added, "I arrive at the answer which ought to have been given, but then
it is exactly three hours too late."

Being afflicted with precisely the same pitiable infirmity, I said
nothing in reply to a statement you made yesterday evening at dinner,
but it occupied me in the hansom as it rolled between the monotonous
lines of houses, and followed me even into my bed-room. I should like to
answer it this morning, as one answers a letter.

You said that our friend the painter was "half-educated." This made me
try to understand what it is to be three-quarters educated, and
seven-eighths educated, and finally