As I have already stated, there are two methods, and only two, by means of which we can retain images, facts or ideas. One of these is that which in many varied forms, which are all the same in fact, is described in the old _Artes Memorandi_, or Arts of Memory. There are several hundreds of these, and to the present day there are professors who give instructions according to systems of the same kind. These are all extremely plausible, being based on Association of ideas, and in most cases the pupil makes great progress for a short time. Thus, we can remember the French for bread, _pain_, Italian _Pane_, by thinking of the pan in which bread is baked, or the difficult name of the inventor, SSCZEPANIK (pronounced nearly _she-panic_) by thinking of a crowd of frightened women, and which I remembered by the fact that _pane_ is the Slavonian for Mr. or Sir. For there is such a tendency of ideas to agglutinate, and so become more prominent, as we can see two bubbles together in a pool more readily than one that we can very soon learn to recall many images in this way. But after a time a certain limit is reached which most minds cannot transgress. VOLAPUK was easy so long as, like Pidgin-English, it contained only a few hundred words and no grammar. But now that it has a dictionary of 4,000 terms and a complete grammar it is as hard to learn as Spanish. It invariably comes to pass in learning to remember by the Associative method that after a time images are referred to images, and these to others again, so that they form entire categories in which the most vigorous mind gets lost. The other method is that of _direct_ Memory guided by Will, in which no regard is paid to Association, especially in the beginning. Thus to remember anything, or rather to learn _how_ to do so, we take something which is very easy to retain--the easier the better--be it a jingling nursery rhyme, a proverb, or a text. Let this be learned to perfection, backwards and forwards, or by permutation of words, and repeated the next day. Note that the repetition or _reviewing_ is of more importance than aught else. On the second day add another proverb or verse to the preceding, and so on, day by day, always reviewing and never learning another syllable until you are sure that you perfectly or most familiarly retain all which you have _memorized_. The result will be, if you persevere, that before long you will begin to find it easier to remember anything. This is markedly the case as regards the practice of reviewing, which is invariably hard at first, but which becomes ere long habitual and then easy. I cannot impress it too vividly on the mind of the reader, that he cannot make his exercises too easy. If he finds that ten lines a day are too much, let him reduce them to five, or two, or one, or even a single word, but learn that, and persevere. When the memory begins to improve under this process, the tasks may, of course, be gradually increased.