MEMORY 



3729 



MEMORY 



hundred forty-four," and yet if he be asked 

 suddenly "How much is seven times nine?" he 

 may be unable to tell until he has run over 

 in his mind t*he table of sevens. Many a child, 

 too, learns such a poem as Bryant's Robert of 

 Lincoln, yet could tell nothing, off-hand, of the 

 appearance and the habits of the bobolink. 

 This is mere mechanical memorizing "learn- 

 ing by heart," as the children call it and if 

 too much indulged in is likely to retard the 

 development of the reasoning powers. 



In logical memory, on the other hand, de- 

 pendence is placed, not on the power to recall 

 mere words in a certain order, but on the 

 organization and orderly arrangement of ideas. 

 The rules in grammar or arithmetic are re- 

 membered, not because "the book says so," but 

 because there is an appreciation of the under- 

 lying principles which work out in these rules. 

 The latter form of memory is the higher, but 

 the verbal, or mechanical, memory is by no 

 means to be despised. Sometimes 'people, just 

 because "learning by heart" is so often abused, 

 affect to scorn a mere "memory for dates," 

 but if properly used this kind of a memory 

 may be of the greatest help. Macaulay, whose 

 extraordinary powers were mentioned above, 

 could never have been the remarkable historian 

 he was had he not had an excellent mechanical 

 memory. He read everything that came to his 

 hand not just the things which stood on 

 everybody's bookshelves, but obscure historical 

 publications and manuscripts; and years after- 

 ward, when in his writing he had need of a 

 certain fact he could not only state it, but tell 

 the volume and often the page whereon the 

 original was to be found. He combined with 

 his verbal memory a logical memory, and the 

 result was unusual mental strength. 



On the other hand, mechanical facility some- 

 times exists as a sort of a freak in minds which 

 have no other element of strength. A person 

 who is little more than half-witted may be 

 able to repeat a number of meaningless syl- 

 lables or a list of unrelated numbers after 

 hearing them once. Blind Tom, whose mar- 

 velous musical memory attracted the attention 

 of the world, was subnormal in other respects. 



Helping the Memory. On the whole, the im- 

 portance of a reliable memory is so obvious, 

 not only during the preparatory years which 

 are spent in school or college, but in the later 

 years of business or home activity, that stu- 

 dents have spent much time devising methods 

 of cultivating the memory. The art known 

 as mnemonics is a rather formal or mechanical 

 234 



way of assisting the memory. It consists of 

 the formation of various devices or associations 

 which will make recall easy. Almost everyone, 

 for instance, remembers the lengths of the 

 months by means of the little jingle: 



Thirty days has September, 

 April, June and November ; 

 All the rest have thirty-one, 

 Excepting February alone, 

 Which has but twenty-eight in fine 

 Till Leap Year gives it twenty-nine. 



And students of history are familiar with the 

 roughly-metrical list of the sovereigns of Eng- 

 land which begins 



First William the Norman, then William his son, 

 Henry, Stephen, Henry, then Richard and John. 



But of course to remember dates or other facts 

 in this way there must be some actual device 

 connected with each one, and it is often as 

 difficult to recall the device as the thing to be 

 remembered by it. Good memory always de- 

 pends upon: 



Attention. This is one of the primary factors 

 in memory, and no one can have a really good 

 memory who cannot concentrate his attention. 

 Teachers dealing with young people are fre-~ 

 quently amazed to find how little they retain 

 of a paragraph read over; and this is usually 

 because the habit of attention has never been 

 cultivated. Closely allied with this is interest; 

 anyone is certain to give attention to anything 

 in which he is vitally interested, and the 

 teacher or parent should do all he can to 

 broaden and deepen the interests of the child. 

 See ATTENTION; INTEREST. 



Reproduction. Reproduction of what is read 

 is important. The teacher or parent cannot 

 find a more helpful exercise than that of hav- 

 ing children give in their own words, either 

 orally or in writing, the substance of something 

 which they have read or studied. 



Training all Senses. This brings up another 

 point. Some people remember best what they 

 have seen, some what they have heard; in other 

 words, some people have a visual, some an 

 auditory memory. But almost always that 

 thing is best remembered which is gained 

 through more than one sense. That is, if a 

 child has heard a poem recited, has read it 

 himself, and perhaps has written it out, he is 

 far more likely to remember it than if he had 

 merely read it. If a pupil seems to remember 

 things only when he has seen them, he should 

 be required occasionally to reproduce some- 

 thing which he has heard read, while the child 

 with the strong auditory memory should be 



