POINT IV. Make your first impression strong and firm enough to serve as a basis for subsequent ones.

Get into the habit of fixing a clear, strong impression of a thing to be considered, from the first. Otherwise you are trying to build up a large structure upon a poor foundation. Each time you revive an impression you deepen it, but if you have only a dim impression to begin with, the deepened impressions will not include details omitted in the first one. It is like taking a good sharp negative of a picture that you intend to enlarge afterward. The details lacking in the small picture will not appear in the enlargement; but those that do appear in the small one, will be enlarged with the picture.

POINT V. Revive your impressions frequently and thus deepen them.

You will know more of a picture by seeing it a few minutes every day for a week, than you would by spending several hours before it at one time. So it is with the memory. By recalling an impression a number of times, you fix it indelibly in your mind in such a way that it may be readily found when needed. Such impressions are like favorite tools which you need every little while— they are not apt to be mislaid as are those which are but seldom used. Use your imagination in "going over" a thing that you wish to remember. If you are studying a thing, you will find that this "going over" in your imagination will help you materially in disclosing the things that you have not remembered about it. By thus recognizing your weak points of memory, you may be able to pick up the missing details when you study the object itself the next time.

POINT VI. Use your memory and place confidence in it.

One of the important things in the cultivation of the memory is the actual use of it. Begin to trust it a little, and then more, and then still more, and it will rise to the occasion. The man who has to tie a string around his finger in order to remember certain things, soon begins to cease to use his memory, and in the end forgets to remember the string, or what it is for. There are many details, of course, with which it is folly to charge the memory, but one should never allow his memory to fall into disuse. If you are in an occupation in which the work is done by mechanical helps, then you should exercise the memory by learning verses, or other things, in order to keep it in active practice. Do not allow your memory to atrophy.