Many of the mistakes of poor spellers are merely _lapses_. These are errors committed by children who “know better,” who can correct the mistake spontaneously as soon as attention is called to it. There are wide individual differences in the liability to lapse. It is difficult to see what remedial measures may be taken to improve those whose disability is due largely to lapsing, since lapses are not only involuntary, but for the most part unconscious; there is no awareness of them until one perceives them anew. Examples of lapsing may be seen in “Complicated _musich which_ he heard played,” and “It _mak make_ an impression,” for “It may make an impression.” One might suggest that children who show this tendency in marked degree should be trained to lay aside for a few minutes all written communications; then to take up their work and look anew at each word, in order to correct all lapses. It is not known experimentally how long an interval must elapse in order that writing may “get cold,” so that lapses may be detected by the author of them. A few minutes will probably suffice. _Transfer of habits previously acquired_ is occasionally the cause of misspelling. Children who have learned to read and spell a phonetic language, like German, or a language that proceeds from right to left in spelling, are prone to difficulty with English spelling. The possible existence of such an influence is to be determined by taking the school history. Sometimes it happens that the errors of the child are of one particular kind. Such _idiosyncrasies_ may be exemplified by the case of a child who had a strong tendency to add final “e” to all words; and by the case of another, who was addicted to intrusive consonants, especially “m” and “n.” These idiosyncrasies may doubtless be traced to their source in every case by a patient analysis of the child’s mental contents. The child who added final “e” may, for instance, have been told by a careless teacher “Don’t leave off your ‘e’s’.” The cause of error will be different in every case. It is impossible to generalize about idiosyncrasies. After all of the foregoing factors have been considered, there still remains the possibility that the failure to learn is due wholly or partially to _temperamental traits_—instability, indifference, lack of incentive, distaste for intellectual drudgery. English spelling calls largely for rote learning. It can be acquired only by the formation of thousands of specific bonds, arbitrarily prescribed. Its pursuit is almost inevitably tedious. Thus many children will be temperamentally ill adapted to become good spellers. Failure in spelling, in an intelligent child, may thus result from various kinds of interference with prescribed habit formation. It is apparent that the psychological examination of a poor speller is neither a brief nor a simple task.