iduation, was enabled to overcome a great part
of the drudgery of learning to read, by exactly eight hours' teaching.
This boy, who at the preliminary meeting on Wednesday, knew only "the
round o," read correctly in the Court-House on the following Monday, a
section of the New Testament, to the Rev. Dr Duncan, minister of
Ruthwell, before the Sheriff, clergymen, teachers, and a large assembly
of the inhabitants of Dumfries. To ascertain that he had in that time
really _learned to read_, and that he did not repeat the words of the
section by rote, he was made to read before the audience, in a chapter
of the Old Testament, and then from a newspaper, the same words that he
had read in his lesson. This he did readily, and without a mistake.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] For some practical information and directions connected with the
subjects in this chapter, see Note M.

[15] Note N.

[16] Note H.

CHAP. V.

_On the Means by which Nature may be imitated in Applying the Principle
of Grouping, or Association._

The principle of Grouping, or Association, as employed by Nature in her
educational process, is obviously intended to enable the pupil easily to
receive knowledge, and to assist the memory in retaining and keeping it
ever after at the command of the will. It is employed to unite many
objects or truths into one aggregate mass, which is received as
one,--having the component parts so linked, or associated together, that
when any one part is afterwards brought before the mind, it has the
power of immediately conjuring up, and holding in review, all the
others. For example, when a child enters a room in which its parents and
relations are severally employed, the whole scene is at a single glance
comprehended and understood, and will afterwards be distinctly
remembered in all its parts. The elements of the scene are no doubt all
familiar, but the particular grouping of these elements are _entirely
new_, and form an addition to his knowledge, as we formerly explained,
as substantial, and as distinct, as the grouping of any other kind of
objects or circumstances could possibly do. Here then is a certain
amount of knowledge acquired by the child, which could be recorded in
writing, or which might be communicated by words; but which, by the
operation of this principle of grouping, has been acquired with greater
ease, and in much less time, than he could either have read it, or
described it. It has been done in this instan