"'But where could _you_ hear it?' cried Miss Bates. 'Where could you possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I received Mrs. Cole's note--no, it cannot be more than five--or at least ten--for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out--I was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork--Jane was standing in the passage--were not you, Jane?--for my mother was so afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said I would go down and see, and Jane said: "Shall I go down instead? for I think you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen." "Oh, my dear," said I--well, and just then came the note.'" THE REMEDY.--The remedy for such wearisome and fruitless methods of association is, as a matter of theory, simple and easy. It is to emphasize, intensify, and dwell upon the _significant and essential_ in our thinking. The person who listens to a story, who studies a lesson, or who is a participant in any event must apply a _sense of value_, recognizing and fixing the important and relegating the trivial and unimportant to their proper level. Not to train one's self to think in this discriminating way is much like learning to play a piano by striking each key with equal force! 3. TRAINING IN ASSOCIATION Since association is at bottom nothing but habit at work in the mental processes, it follows that it, like other forms of habit, can be encouraged or suppressed by training. Certainly, no part of one's education is of greater importance than the character of his associations. For upon these will largely depend not alone the _content_ of his mental stream, the stuff of his thinking, but also its _organization_, or the use made of the thought material at hand. In fact, the whole science of education rests on the laws and principles involved in setting up right systems of associative connections in the individual. THE PLEASURE-PAIN MOTIVE IN ASSOCIATION.--A general law seems to obtain throughout the animal world that associative responses accompanied by pleasure tend to persist and grow stronger, while those accompanied by pain tend to weaken and fall away. The little child of two years may not understand the gravity of the offense in tearing the leaves out of books, but if its hands are sharply spatted whenever they tear a book, the association between the sight of books and tearing them will soon cease. In fact, all punishment should have for its object the use of pain in the breaking of associative bonds between certain situations and wrong responses to them.