She hesitates and stammers, miscalls the cases, and then corrects herself, and, if she gets through at last, she considers herself as having recited well, and very many teachers would consider it well too.

If she hesitates a little longer than usual in trying to summon to her recollection a particular word, she says, perhaps, "Don't tell me," and if she happens at last to guess right, she takes her book with a countenance beaming with satisfaction.
"Suppose you had the care of an infant school," might the instructor say to such a scholar, "and were endeavoring to teach a little child to count, and she should recite her lesson to you in this way, 'One, two, four--no, three--one, two, three----stop, don't tell me--five--no, four--four--five--------I shall think in a minute--six--is that right?
five, six,' &c.

Should you call that reciting well ?" Nothing is more common than for pupils to say, when they fail of reciting their lesson, that they could say it at their seats, but that they can not now say it before the class.

When such a thing is said for the first time it should not be severely reproved, because nine children in ten honestly think that if the lesson were learned so that it could be recited any where, their duty is discharged.

But it should be kindly, though distinctly explained to them, that in the business of life they must have their knowledge so much at command that they can use it at all times and in all circumstances, or it will do them little good.
One of the most common cases of difficulty in pursuing mathematical studies, or studies of any kind where the succeeding lessons depend upon those which precede, is the fact that the pupil, though he may understand what precedes, is not _familiar_ with it.