BOOKS LEARNED IN ONE READING. For the past ten years I have printed in my large prospectus a general view of my meaning. I will reproduce most of those views here, premising that I have never suggested that books are to be _learned by heart_, but only the _important_, _useful_ portions of them--such as are new to the reader and which he may desire to retain. I do not mean such books as Bradshaw's Guide, the London Post-Office Directory, or any other mere collection of names, addresses, statistics, &c., which one may have occasion to _consult_, but which it would be the mere bravado of Memory to learn by heart--though even this is possible enough to the master of my System. What is one's object in reading a book? Simply to retain the IDEAS in it that are NEW and USEFUL to him, as well as the NEW USES that are therein set forth of _old_ and _familiar_ ideas. If the reader is already partly acquainted with a book, there will be fewer new ideas in it than in one with which he is unacquainted. Now, what do I mean by Learning either of these books in one reading? I mean exactly what I say. All that you desire to remember shall be retained--all the leading or subordinate ideas, propositions, illustrations, facts, &c., &c. There are only two ways of learning a book in this thorough manner: (1) _The first_ is the traditional method of learning by _rote_ or endless repetition. A celebrated Coach in Anatomy says that no one can learn Anatomy until he has learned and _forgotten_ it from three to seven times! In learning any book in this way, each sentence would be repeated over and over again, and then reviewed and _re_learnt and forgotten and learned again! And then at last the Pupil if he possesses a first-rate _cramming_ memory might answer questions on it. In learning a book by _rote_, the number of times that each sentence and section is repeated, if actually written out and printed, would doubtless cover 5,000 to 50,000 or more pages!--and even then the Pupil passes his examination, if he really does "pass," partly by luck and partly by merit; all his life he is constantly referring to it, and repeating it, and studying it, over and over again--showing really that he possesses little more than a Reference Memory in regard to it! But let us be candid and confess the truth; tens of thousands every year and during successive years try the various professions--law, medicine, divinity, or sciences, history, &c., &c., and utterly fail to "pass," even respectably, because they lack the extraordinary sensuous MEMORY necessary to acquire knowledge by _rote_. It is only the exceptionally powerful natural memories that win at exacting examinations by _rote_--even then their learning is soon forgotten, unless it is _perpetually renewed_.