(5) The series is completely worked out and nothing is left to chance or possible mistakes so liable to be committed by novices in dealing for the first time with a new process that has to be applied to many details.

(6) When the series is carefully studied and the relations painstakingly characterised, it is quickly learned and it is hard to forget.

(7) When the series is learned by this method and the relations are occasionally reviewed and identified, its recital both ways once or twice a day for a month helps to develop the Attention as well as the Assimilative powers.

(8) The exact name of each Sovereign is learned. The student relies on real relations and names, and not on unidentified jingles of threes and threes and twos and twos, like three Edwards and three Henrys and two Edwards and two Henrys, with the inevitable necessity of having afterwards to learn which Edward and which Henry was meant, &c. But summations can follow specifications.

(9) Pestalozzi [1745–1827] taught that we must proceed from the “known” to the “unknown;” but this principle mainly applies to learning the words of a foreign language. When we begin to learn such words they are wholly unknown to us. But in learning ordinary series of names or prose or poetry by heart, all the names and words used may be equally well known by us; but it is mainly the order in which these occur that we wish to memorise, and we begin at the beginning and proceed as we learn on from the Better Known or Best Known. In the list of American Presidents the series extends back to a little more than a century; but in the case of the English Sovereigns, when we begin with the Conqueror, the series extends back to 1066—upwards of 800 years—and, although in such a series the names of all the Sovereigns may be known, yet the latest is vastly better known to us than the earliest. In such a case it may be most useful to begin with the Best Known.

(10) Fortunately in this case the Best Known Sovereign is a pivot around which all the other Sovereigns are directly or indirectly related. How, we will proceed to show.‌ Something of the method will be intimated by the difference of type and spaces between the names:—

William I. William II. Henry I. Stephen. Henry II. Richard I. John. Henry III. Edward I. Edward II. Edward III. Richard II. Henry IV. Henry V. Henry VI. Edward IV. Edward V. Richard III. Henry VII. Henry VIII. Edward VI. Mary. Elizabeth. James I. Charles I. Council of State and Parliament. Oliver Cromwell. Richard Cromwell. Council of State and Parliament. Charles II. James II. William III. and Mary. Anne. Henry IV. George I. George II. George III. George IV. William IV. VICTORIA.

We begin with the Best Known, or Victoria, and we take note that she is an independent Queen, since she has never shared sovereignty with anyone; but Mary, of “William III. and Mary,” was not an independent Queen, because she did share the Sovereign Power with her husband. Hereafter, when I use the word Queen I mean an independent Queen, except when Mary, of “William III. and Mary,” is mentioned, and her name will be used only in Connection with William III. England has had only four independent Queens, namely, Mary [Tudor], Elizabeth, Anne, and Victoria.