For, first, the beginner is able to advance but slowly. For him the shortest steps are the safest steps. He must stop at each point as long as is necessary to make him apprehend distinctly each individual fact. To this he must give his whole thought. During the initial stage, the teacher’s art consists, therefore, preëminently in knowing how to resolve his subject into very small parts. In this way he will avoid taking sudden leaps without being aware that he is doing so. Secondly, association cannot be effected solely by a systematic mode of treatment, least of all at first. In the system each part has its own fixed place. At this place it is connected directly with the nearest other parts, but also separated from other more remote parts by a definite distance, and connected with these only by way of determinate intervening members, or links. Besides, the nature of this connection is not the same everywhere. Furthermore, a system is not to be learned merely. It is to be used, applied, and often needs to be supplemented by additions inserted in appropriate places. To be able to do this requires skill in diverting one’s thoughts from any given starting-point to every other point, forward, backward, sideways. Hence two things are requisite; preparation for the system, and application of the system. Preparation is involved in association; exercise in systematic thinking must follow. 69. During the first stage, when the clear apprehension of the individual object or fact is the main thing, the shortest and most familiar words and sentences are the most appropriate. The teacher will often find it advisable also to have some, if not all, of the pupils repeat them accurately after him. As is well known, even speaking in concert has been tried in many schools not entirely without success, and for young beginners this method may indeed at times answer very well. For association, the best mode of procedure is informal conversation, because it gives the pupil an opportunity to test and to change the accidental union of his thoughts, to multiply the links of connection, and to assimilate, after his own fashion, what he has learned. It enables him, besides, to do at least a part of all this in any way that happens to be the easiest and most convenient. He will thus escape the inflexibility of thought that results from a purely systematic learning. System, on the other hand, calls for a more connected discourse, and the period of presentation must be separated more sharply from the period of repetition. By exhibiting and emphasizing the leading principles, system impresses upon the minds of pupils the value of organized knowledge; through its greater completeness it enriches their store of information. But pupils are incapable of appreciating either advantage when the systematic presentation is introduced too early.