74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tauglit, of projecting a mental picture upon a piece of paper, and of 

 holding it fast there, so that it can be outlined with a pencil. The 

 Bush-boy of whom I spoke must have had something of this faculty. 



We may now foresee that education is likely to accomplish much, 

 for most of the more important peculiarities of which I have sjioken 

 are naturally present in a high degree in at least one person out of six- 

 teen. It can hardly be doubted that any of these might be developed 

 by education to a useful amount in, say, twelve out of the remaining 

 fifteen (thus raising all who ranked above the lowest quartile to at least 

 the level of the highest sub-octile). 



The forms of the visualizing faculty which we ought to aim at pro- 

 ducing appear to me to be as follows : 



The capacity of calling up at will a clear, steady, and complete 

 mental image of any object that we have recently examined and studied. 

 We should be able to visualize that object freely from any aspect ; we 

 should be able to project any of its images on paper and draw its out- 

 line there ; we should further be able to embrace all sides of the object 

 simultaneously in a single percej^tion, or at least to sweep all sides of it 

 successively with so rapid a mental glance as to arrive at practically 

 the same result. We ought to be able to construct images from de- 

 scription or otherwise, and to alter them in whatever way we please. 

 We ought to acquire the power of combining separate, but more or 

 less similar, images into a single generic one. Lastly, M^e should learn 

 to carry away pictures at a glance of a more comj)licated scene than 

 we can succeed at the moment in analyzing. 



There is abundant evidence that the visualizing faculty admits of 

 being largely developed by education. The testimony on which I 

 would lay especial stress is derived from the published experiences of 

 M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran, late Director of the Ecole Nationale de 

 Dessin, in Paris, which are related in his "Education de la Memoii'e 

 Pittoresque." * He trained his pupils with extraordinary success, begin- 

 ning with the simplest figures. They were made to study the models 

 thoroughly before they tried to draw them from memory. One favor- 

 ite expedient was to associate the sight-memory with the muscular 

 memory, by making his pupils follow at a distance the outlines of the 

 figures with a pencil held in their hands. After three or four months' 

 practice, their visual memory became greatly strengthened. They had 

 no difficulty in summoning images at will, in holding them steady, and 

 in drawing them. Their copies were executed with marvelous fidelity, 

 as attested by a commission of the Institut, appointed in 1852 to in- 

 quire into the matter, of which the eminent painter, Horace Vernet, 

 was a member. The present Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Uni- 

 versity College, M. Legros, was a pupil of M. de Boisbaudran. He 

 has expressed to me his indebtedness to the system, and he has assured 

 me of his own success in teaching others in a similar way. 



* Republished in an 8vo, entitled " Enseignement Artistique." Morel et Cie. Paris, IS'ZO. 



