It is true that this passage refers to the understanding (before the intellectual comprehension) as exercised in another sphere than that of which we are now speaking, but for this also, the words of Jean Paul have an important meaning. Just as the child receives into his soul’s organism the construction of speech, without making use of the laws of grammatical structure with intellectual comprehension, so too, for the cultivation of his memory, the youth ought to learn things of which he will not until later acquire an actual understanding. That which has been acquired in this period of life, at first in a purely mechanical way, is best put into ideas, afterwards, just as one learns more easily the rules of a language when one can already speak it. All the talk of work learned by rote and not understood is nothing more than a materialistic prejudice. For instance, the youth needs only to acquire by a few examples the most necessary rules of multiplication, for which the fingers are far better suited than an abacus, and then to learn fully, by rote, the multiplication table. If one so proceeds, one takes into account the nature of the growing child. But a mistake may be made with regard to this, if, during the time that the memory is forming itself, too much is demanded of the intellect. The intellect being a power of the soul, and only born at the time of puberty, ought not to receive an outward influence before this period. Until the time of puberty, the youth should assimilate into the memory treasures over which mankind has meditated; later on it is time to permeate with ideas that which has been impressed upon his memory. A man ought therefore not to retain merely what he has understood, but he ought now to understand the things that he knows; that is to say, the things of which he has already taken possession by means of the memory, just as the child does, when learning to speak. This applies to a wider sphere. At first, assimilation of historical events by mere rote, then comprehension of the same by means of ideas. At first, a good impression upon the memory of geographical data, then an understanding of the relationship of each thing with the rest, etc. In certain respects all comprehension through ideas should be done by means of the stored treasures of the memory. The more the youth already knows through the memory before he comes to comprehension, the better it is. It is hardly necessary to explain that all this applies only to the period, of which we are speaking, and not to any later period. If one learns a subject in later life, either by going over it again, or in any other way, the opposite process to that here described might be correct and desirable, although even then a great deal depends upon the particular spiritual nature of the student. But at the time of life of which we have already spoken the spirit must not be parched by being overcrowded with intellectual ideas.