Examples for Practice.

  1. A bachelor is a wild goose that tame geese envy.
  2. Law is a trap baited with promise of benefit or revenge.
  3. Conversation is the idle man’s business and the business man’s recreation.
  4. Attention is adjusting the observer to the object in order to seize it in its unity and diversity.
  5. Assimilative Memory is the Habit of so receiving and absorbing impressions and ideas that they or their representatives shall be ready for revival or recall whenever wanted.

INTERROGATIVE ANALYSIS USED FOR SHORT SENTENCES.

Interrogative Analysis or intellectual Inquisition is another and most effective mode of inciting the intellect to pass from a passive into an active assimilating condition when trying to learn by heart as well as to help create the habit of the intellect staying with the senses. The process consists of two parts: (1) To not only ask a question on every important word in the sentence to be memorised, but, (2) to repeat the entire sentence in reply to each question, while specially emphasising that word of the sentence which constitutes the answer to the question. Take the passage from Byron:—

“Man!
Thou pendulum ’twixt a smile and tear.”

1. Who is a pendulum ’twixt a smile and tear? “Man! thou pendulum ’twixt a smile and tear.” 2. What function does man perform ’twixt a smile and tear? “Man! thou‌ pendulum ’twixt a smile and tear.” 3. ’Twixt a tear and what else is man said to be a pendulum? “Man! thou pendulum ’twixt a smile and tear.” 4. ’Twixt a smile and what else is man said to be a pendulum? “Man! thou pendulum ’twixt a smile and tear.” 5. By what word is the relation between “pendulum” and “a smile and tear” described? “Man! thou pendulum ’twixt a smile and tear.” 6. Is the pendulum which man is said to be ’twixt a smile and tear addressed in the first, second, or third person? “Man! thou pendulum ’twixt a smile and tear.”

The pupils will see that the above method is fundamentally unlike the ordinary question and answer method. In the latter procedure, a question is asked and the answer is given by “yes” or “no,” or by the use of one or more words of the sentence. To illustrate: What is “man” called in this passage? Ans. A pendulum. What swings betwixt a smile and tear? Ans. A pendulum, &c., &c.

  1. Define Interrogative Analysis.
  2. What does it incite the intellect to do?
  3. What does the process consist of? What are they?

But in my Method the aim is to repeat as much of the sentence as is possible informing the question and the whole of it in each reply; and in question and reply the word that constitutes the point of both is to be especially emphasized, and in this way the mind is exercised on each word of the sentence twice (once in question and once in answer), and each word of the sentence is emphasized in reference to the whole of the sentence. And in all these separate steps it is impossible for the mind to remain in a passive state, but must be active and absorbing throughout, and thereby a most vivid first impression is secured, and the remembrance of it assured.

Besides the habit of exhaustively considering and weighing a sentence which is created by this method, it not only secures the faithful recollection of the passages to which it is applied, but it gives another great advantage. What usually makes a person dull in conversation? Setting aside timidity, we find that well-informed persons are sometimes‌ good listeners, but no talkers. Why is this? In conversation their minds are apt to remain in a recipient passive state. Hence no trains of thought arise in their own minds. And having nothing in their minds which seeks utterance, they remain quiet. Now the practice of Interrogative Analysis compels such persons to interrogate—to propose questions—to think. And when such mental activity becomes strong, it will break out in conversations by interrogatories and critical and often original interesting remarks.