proper effect upon the memory; for, to remain fully among the
acquisitions of this latter faculty, it must be wrought into the whole
cycle of our operations. Its _motor consequences_ are what clinch it.
Some effect due to it in the way of an activity must return to the mind
in the form of the _sensation of having acted_, and connect itself with
the impression. The most durable impressions are those on account of
which we speak or act, or else are inwardly convulsed.

The older pedagogic method of learning things by rote, and reciting them
parrot-like in the schoolroom, rested on the truth that a thing merely
read or heard, and never verbally reproduced, contracts the weakest
possible adhesion in the mind. Verbal recitation or reproduction is thus
a highly important kind of reactive behavior on our impressions; and it
is to be feared that, in the reaction against the old parrot-recitations
as the beginning and end of instruction, the extreme value of verbal
recitation as an element of complete training may nowadays be too much
forgotten.

When we turn to modern pedagogics, we see how enormously the field of
reactive conduct has been extended by the introduction of all those
methods of concrete object teaching which are the glory of our
contemporary schools. Verbal reactions, useful as they are, are
insufficient. The pupil's words may be right, but the conceptions
corresponding to them are often direfully wrong. In a modern school,
therefore, they form only a small part of what the pupil is required to
do. He must keep notebooks, make drawings, plans, and maps, take
measurements, enter the laboratory and perform experiments, consult
authorities, and write essays. He must do in his fashion what is often
laughed at by outsiders when it appears in prospectuses under the title
of 'original work,' but what is really the only possible training for