Of all the adjuncts of study, none is so familiar, so available, and, on the whole, so helpful, as Conversation. The authors of Guides to Students, as Isaac Watts, give elaborate rules for carrying on conversation, a good many of them being more moral than intellectual; but an art of conversation would be very difficult to formulate; it would take quite as long an essay as I have devoted to study, and even then would not follow half of the windings of the subject. The only notice of it that my plan requires, is such as I have already bestowed upon Observation: namely, to point out the advantage of combining a certain amount of reading with, conversation; a thing that almost everybody does according to their opportunities. To rehearse what we have read to some willing and sympathizing listener, is the best way of impressing the memory and of clearing up difficulties to the understanding. It brings in the social stimulus, which ranks so high among human motives. It is a wholesome change of attitude; relieving the fatigue of book-study, while adding to its fruitfulness. Even beginners in study are mutually helpful, by exchanging the results of their several book acquirements; while it is possible to raise conversation to the rank of a high art, both for intellectual improvement and for mutual delectation. I cannot say that the ideal is often realized; since two or more must combine to conversation, and it is not often that the mutual action and re-action is perfectly adjusted for the highest effect.