ss valuable than image memory. It is
necessary to distinguish carefully between the images that a writer
presents and the words that he uses. If a botany lesson should consist of
a description of fifteen different leaves, a pupil deficient in image
memory will attempt to memorize the language of the book. A better-trained
pupil, on meeting such a term as _serrated_, will ask himself: "Have I
ever seen such a leaf? Can I form an image of it?" If so, his only task
will be to give the new name, _serrated_, to the idea that he already has.
In a similar way he will form images for each of the fifteen leaves
described in the lesson. The language of the book may help him form these
images, but he will make no attempt to commit the language to memory. With
him, "getting the lesson" means forming images and naming them, and
reciting the lesson will be but talking about an image that he has clearly
in mind. Try this in your own lessons.

If we are called upon to reproduce the incidents and scenes of some story
that has been read to us, our success will depend upon the clearness of
the images that we have formed. Our efforts should be directed to making
the images as definite and vivid as possible, and our memory will be
concerned with the recalling of these images in their proper order, and
not with the language that first caused them to appear.

EXERCISES

1. Report orally some interesting incident taken from a book which you
have recently read. Do not reread the story. Use such language as will
cause the class to form clear mental images.

2. Report orally upon some chapter selected from Cooper's _Last of the
Mohicans_ or Scott's _Ivanhoe_.

3. Read a portion of Scott's _Lady of the Lake_, and report orally what
happened.

4. Report orally some incident that you have read about in a magazine.
Select one that caused you to form images, and tell it so that the hearers
will form like images.

+Theme XIII.+--_Reproduce a story read to you by the teacher._

(Before writing, picture to yourself the scenes and recall the order of
their occurrence. If it is necessary to condense, omit events of the least
importance.)

+29. Comparison.+--Writing which contains unfamiliar words fails to call
up complete and definite images. It is often difficult to form the correct
mental picture, even though the words in themselves are familiar.
Definitions, explanations, and descriptions may cause us to understand
correctly, but our un