most famous of these, once enjoyed a tremendous vogue. People willingly paid fifty dollars for its set of lessons, which now, though published in book form at the modest price of one dollar, are utterly neglected. These memory devices usually depend upon some framework, which is mechanically but thoroughly drilled into the mind. Then the fact to be remembered is associated through some fanciful connection with the framework, which connection is supposed to recall it. The Operation of a Typical Memory System The figure alphabet, as an example, will indicate how such a scheme operates. Each digit is represented by one or more letters, as: "To briefly show its use," explains Mr. Pick as quoted by Professor James, "suppose it is desired to fix 1,142 feet in a second as the velocity of sound; t, t, r, n, are the letters and order required. Fill up with vowels forming a phrase, like 'tight run' and connect it by some such flight of the imagination as, that if a man tried to keep up with the velocity of sound, he would have a tight run. When you recall this a few days later great care must be taken not to get confused with the velocity of light, nor to think he had a hard run which would be 3,000 feet too fast." The reader may object to this, saying that he could much more easily learn the number 1,142 outright. But the advocate comes right back at him. "This plan will develop your memory. What would you not give to recall"-and he names a list of things dear to our ambitions. Many business men yield to the argument, and go naively about their lessons. Curious Attempts to Strengthen the Memory The purchasing agent cons the dictionary, believing that when he has doubled the number of new words he can learn in thirty minutes, his ability to remember price quotations will be increased. The accountant in his attempt to recall tables of figures practices on odd combinations of the alphabet, rxy, rtz, cycyz. Who does not, in fact every day, catch himself pigeonholing some useless scrap of information—just to strengthen his memory? Thurlow Weed's Method A classic example of such practice is the experience of Thurlow Weed, the famous journalist and politician of reconstruction days. Before we inquire whether or not he was right, let us see what he did. His account of it reads thus: "I could remember nothing. Dates, names, appointments, faces-everything escaped me. I said to my wife, 'Catherine, I shall never make a successful politician, for I cannot remember, and that is a prime necessity of politicians.' My wife told me I must train my memory. So when I came home that night, I sat down alone and spent fifteen minutes trying silently to recall with accuracy the principal events of the day. I could remember but little at first; now I remember that I could not then recall what I had for breakfast. After a few days' practice I found I could recall more. Events came back to me more minutely, more accurately, and more vividly than at first. After a fortnight or so of this Catherine said, 'Why don't you relate to me the events of the day, instead of recalling them to yourself? It would be interesting, and my interest in it would be a stimulus to you.' Having great respect for my wife's opinion, I began a habit of oral confession, as it were, which was continued for almost fifty years. Every night, the last thing before retiring, I told her everything I could remember that had happened to me or about me during the day. I generally recalled the dishes I had had for breakfast, dinner, and tea; the people I had seen and what they had said; the editorials I had written for my paper, giving her a brief abstract of them. I mentioned all the letters I had sent and received, and the very language used, as nearly as possible; when I A Wasteful Method This experience of Mr. Weed's suggests one or two queries. In the first place, was this tenacious memory which Mr. Weed developed due to an improvement in his native capacity to remember, or to his paying more careful attention to things during the day, knowing that he was to be held responsible for them that evening? William James says the latter explanation is true, that Mr. Weed's physiological retentiveness was in no way changed by his mental exercise. In the second place, was there not an enormous amount of waste effort involved? Think of the time needed, every evening, for such exhaustive resurrection of the day's experiences! Not every man, besides, can count upon a "Mrs. Weed" with complaisancy, sympathy, and time to bear her part in the process. As a rule, we should avoid the waste involved in methods such as Mr. Weed employed and seek the quickest and easiest ways for making the memory serviceable. Since the man who remembers is the man who knows how, it is the problem of finding the best method of knowing how that presents itself here for analysis and solution. An idea, reaching the brain through the organs of sight, hearing, taste, etc., makes an impression. It then comes into contact with ideas already present, but after a period of association with them, it loses its character of a newcomer and becomes pigeonholed in the mental equipment. It should remain, how ever, responsive to recall, and be able to gain recognition when it answers the summons The process of remembering thus consists of four steps impression, association, recall, and recognition-which will be discussed in turn. RULES OF IMPRESSION 1. Become Thoroughly Interested The school boy who, parrot-like, repeats his tables while thinking of that swimming hole under the old elm, cannot somehow make those tables stick. He has been cheated of results by mental laziness, the same enemy which years later still pursues him as a business man. Superficiality, dilettantism, and lack of interest, are bogs in which forgetfulness has rank growth. Attention and interest are the handmaidens of memory. In the front rank of men with a genius for acquiring information stood Roosevelt. He had an infinite passion for facts, an insatiable thirst for information; he laid violent hands on details, and he promptly pumped a visitor dry. The readiness of his memory, in turn, was something to wonder at; whether it concerned his rough-riders, or a patrolman appointed during police commissioner days, or some strange bird from the upper Amazon, his mind had it ever ready at hand. But consider the man-his energy, his enthusiasm, his dynamic interest in things! The man who remembers well is alert, interested, mentally alive. The first rule of impression, accordingly, deals with just this thing; do you have the aim, the live purpose, the incentive which prepares the mind as a seed bed for impressions? 2. Be a Specialist, Ignorant of Many Things The world is so broad, its demands so numerous, that the man interested in everything spreads himself out too thin. He lacks effectiveness, and in pronounced cases becomes merely a distracted incompetent. General interest must be sharpened down to specific in terest. What shall these specific interests be? One's vocational choice largely determines this. It is presumed he has decided upon some phase of merchandising, banking, manufacturing, or any other of his thousand possibilities, as a particular career, and he now tests out every claimant for attention by the standard of his major purpose. Does it bear a vital connection to this purpose? If not, it is excluded, even though whole segments of his possible sphere are shorn away. 3. Concentrate Upon the Essentials of Your Specialty Even within his specialty, one does not memorize everything. Part of the information he needs is in book form, part is filed away in his cabinet, while part is jotted down on his tickler. The mind is then free for high grade work, because the burden of detail has been turned over to mechanical aids. Keep the big things in mind-the little things on paper. This requires that ideas be ranked according to their importance; that thinking be organized; in other words, that, with his main purpose as a guide, one shall determine what is significant and what is trivial. "The only a priori advice,” says James, "that can be given to a man embarking on life with a certain purpose, is the somewhat barren counsel: 'Be sure that in the circumstances that meet you, you attend to the right ones for your purpose.' To pick out the right ones is the measure of the man. The genius is simply he to whom, when he opens his eyes upon the world, the 'right' characters. are the prominent ones. The fool is he who, with the same purpose as the genius, infallibly gets his attention tangled amid the accidents." |