* * * * *

One more point, and I shall have said as much to you as seems necessary
about the process of association.

You just saw how a single exciting word may call up its own associates
prepotently, and deflect our whole train of thinking from the previous
track. The fact is that every portion of the field _tends_ to call up
its own associates; but, if these associates be severally different,
there is rivalry, and as soon as one or a few begin to be effective the
others seem to get siphoned out, as it were, and left behind. Seldom,
however, as in our example, does the process seem to turn round a single
item in the mental field, or even round the entire field that is
immediately in the act of passing. It is a matter of _constellation_,
into which portions of fields that are already past especially seem to
enter and have their say. Thus, to go back to 'Locksley Hall,' each word
as I recite it in its due order is suggested not solely by the previous
word now expiring on my lips, but it is rather the effect of all the
previous words, taken together, of the verse. "Ages," for example, calls
up "in the foremost files of time," when preceded by "I, the heir of all
the"--; but, when preceded by "for I doubt not through the,"--it calls
up "one increasing purpose runs." Similarly, if I write on the
blackboard the letters A B C D E F,... they probably suggest to you G H
I.... But, if I write A B A D D E F, if they suggest anything, they
suggest as their complement E C T or E F I C I E N C Y. The result
depending on the total constellation, even though most of the single
items be the same.

My practical reason for mentioning this law is this, that it follows
from it that, in working associations into your pupils' minds, you must
not rely on single cues, but multiply the cues as much as possible.
Couple the desired reaction with numerous constellations of
antecedents,--don't always ask the question, for example, in the same
way; don't use the same kind of data in numerical problems; vary your
illustrations, etc., as much as you can. When we come to the subject of
memory, we shall learn still more about this.

So much, then, for the general subject of association. In leaving it for
other topics (in which, however, we shall abundantly find it involved
again), I cannot too strongly urge you to acquire a habit of thinking of
your pupils in associative terms. All governors of mankind, from doctors
an