gh it.
This backbone is jointed together so beautifully, too, that you can
bend your back about and stoop over, and carry heavy weights on your
back, and yet the bony tube still protects the cord inside. Solomon
calls this the "silver cord," because it is so white and shiny that it
looks like silver. You see, our bodies are full of beautiful as well
as wonderful things.

Probably sometime when your teacher has asked you to recite a poem you
have all learned, someone in the class has answered, "I don't remember
it," or has stood up and recited the first few lines and then stopped,
and thought, and finally had to say, "I can't go on."

Now what is the matter with this boy, or girl? He looks bright enough,
and you will probably remember that he was in the class when you
learned the poem. "Oh," you say, "the poem didn't stay in his head."
No, it didn't "stick" in his memory; but why didn't it?

Some of the messages that the Five Senses carry to the brain are
answered at once, as when we move away from danger, or reach out our
hands and help ourselves to butter, or take off a shoe to shake out a
pebble. But there are other messages that do not call for an immediate
reply, and are just stored away for future use in the big "central
office" of our Body Telephone, in what we call our _memory_. And
later, when the proper message is sent in by our eyes or ears, or
other sense organs, which reminds us of this message which they sent
before, perhaps several weeks, months, or even years ago, it wakes up
the old message stored away in the memory, and we say we "remember"
what happened to us, or what we learned at that time.

So, when your teacher asks you to recite a certain poem, and your ears
hear the title or the first line, you recall the rest of the verses
and the lesson about it. How many things does the word "Christmas"
wake up out of your memory? or the sight of soldiers marching? or the
first taste of strawberries in May?

You think about a great many things that you never _do_. Really you
are thinking almost all the time you are awake. And besides the
messages that "Central" just stores away for future use, there are a
great many messages being carried back and forth along the "telephone
system" all the time, that you don't keep track of at all--the
messages that keep the stomach and the heart and the lungs and
everything in your body working together properly.

How are we to take care of the telephone lines and "Cen