October 3, 1918 
LAND &? WATER 
17 
Famous Men on Pelmanism 
Admiral Lord Bereslord, G.C.B., G.C.V.O. 
Quite frankly, the Pelman System is devised to help a 
man or a woman to achieve practical, material success, some- 
times expressible in terms of money. Why not ? 
If the main principles of the system were to be defined, 
I should describe them as inculcating self-reliance, and the 
perfecting of the mind, memory, and mental equipment 
generally, the essential condition of success in any career. 
The test of the value of the Pelman System, like the test 
of the value of any other system, is the result. What is the 
testimony of the students who have taken the course ? I 
have read many letters written by students when they have 
completed their course. These epistles are signed by men in 
every profession and trade, and in every rank of them. The 
Servicer contribute letters from admirals down ranks 
and ratings to ordinary seamen and stokers, and from 
generals to privates, and it is remarkable that almost without 
exception these documents affirm the benefit received by the 
writers from the Pelman Course of study. 
The Pelman Institute, as I understand the matter, does not 
profes? to work miracles. What it does profess to accom- 
plish is to enable a man to make the best use of the abilities 
he already, consciously or unconsciously, possesses. The first 
condition of success is willingness to learn. The student 
must be prepared to do his part. It is 'not always an easy 
part, but it is fair to say both that it is always possible and 
always interesting. 
Hajor-General Sir F. Maurice, K.C.M.G., C.B. 
{[mIc Director of M Hilary Operations.) 
The Pelman System provides mind-drill based on scientific 
principles, and taught by experienced instructors. It claims 
to produce not only a good memory, but concentration, 
self-confidence, self-control, initiative, and observation, and 
the thousands of letters received from soldiers who have 
taken the course, both before and during the war, show_ 
that it makes no empty claim. 
I can think of no better method than the Pelman Course 
either for keeping the mind fit in times of leisure or slackness, 
or for restoring mental vigour to a soldier whose mind has 
become flabby from overstrain or physical weakness, and 
I can recommend no better investment than a Pelman 
Course to the soldier on convalescent leave. 
The Pelman System is not cram, or triclc, but a scientific 
method of training which has proved its value to the soldier 
in war, and it would, I am certain, be of the greatest benefit 
if it were adapted to Array training generally. 
Sir R. S. S. Baden -Powell, K.C.B. 
I have been asked many times whether I recommend 
Pelmanism, which is a system of mental training taught 
by correspondence. I cannot base a recommendation on 
personal experience of the Pelman Course because I have 
never been through it myself ; and I have made it, I am 
glad to think, my invariable rule throughout life never to 
i"ecommend a man or a measure with whose merits, achieve- 
ments, and possibilities I had not had personal experience. 
This rule, however, leaves me quite free to say that the 
Pelman System, so far as I can judge from wliat 1 have 
seen of it, appeals to me because it deals with the individual, 
and because it offers to him in a practical form the cardinal 
steps to the development and strengthening of mental 
character, which is the foundation of success in any line 
of "life. And many, if not most, of these steps are those 
which have been omitted in the average school training. 
"Sapper" (Author of "Sergeant Michael Cassidy," "Men, 
Woman, and Guns," etc.) 
What is this thing which Pelmanism teaches, and which 
its students wish to be taught ? It is well-nigh impossible 
to sum up the course in a phrase : it is^ altogether too big 
a thing. And yet — ^perhaps it can be done — more or less. 
Pelmanism, as I see it, teaches Human Nature — your own 
and the other man's. 
There is no catch in it. It is a system developed along 
perfectly common-sense lines, which leads to a definite 
goal. That goal is Efficiency. 
Pelmanism trains the untrained mind ; that is its raison 
d'etre. But from an intellectual point of view the thing can 
be put in a nutshell. It is not good to go through life blind ; 
and yet thousands do so. Their brains are blind ; they see, 
and do not appreciate ; they hear, and do not understand. 
Pelmanism brings that appreciation and that understanding. 
Therefore it would seem worth while to Pelmanise, for it is 
certainly worth while to understand. 
Sir Harry Jolinston, G.C.M.G., D.Sc. (Cantab). 
Pelm;uiism, it seems to me, is not so much an education 
in itself as the preparation of the mind for education else- 
where ; for the education of the streets and shops and 
countryside ; education by home reading, by foreign travel, 
by secondary schools, and, above all, by universities. So far 
from being in rivalry with sound educational institutions, 
with schools and colleges, it is a preparatory ground for 
them. Its intention is that its pupils shall be enabled 
henceforth to assimilate . and co-ordinate to the utmost 
advantage all the education they receive or seek for. 
Why do I write thus strongly and convincedly ? Because 
more than the mass of my fellow countrymen, more — alas ! — 
than many of those who direct our destinies in the Councils 
of State, in Parliament, in the Press, I realise the supreme 
need of a well-founded, practical, modern education if we 
are to attain to and maintain a supreme degree of efficiency, 
proportionate to the place we aspire to hold among the 
great nations of the world. 
Sir H. Rider Haggard. 
Education, properly understood, does not merely mean 
something which enables people to acquire facts that are 
useful in the passing of competitive examinations. Indeed, 
I believe, as I understand that the Directors of the Pelman 
Institute do also, the entire system of competitive examina- 
tions, also their results, to be of doubtful value. True 
education, if it is to prove really helpful to §. man or woman, 
and therefore to the nation, must have a moral side, some- 
thing that strengthens t-he character as well as stores the 
mind with the details of various sorts of learning. 
To me it seems that Pelmanism, as I understand it, does 
to a considerable extent fulfil this ideal ; and for that reason 
I recommend it to those who, in the fullest sense, really wish 
to learn and to become what men and women ought to be. 
Our nation, like others, is going through a period of awful 
strain and trouble. We hope and believe that we shall 
emerge from that trouble chastened but safe, if impoverished, ' 
distressed, and disorganised. Then, unless we are to sink 
in the world and bid farewell to the proud position which 
we have held for centuries, must come another period, that 
of reconstruction. On the wreck of the past we must rise 
to better things. Here it is, I think, that the applied prin- 
ciples of Pelmanism may help us, 
Tliomas Pellatt, M.A. {Author of "Public Schools and Public 
Opinion," "Public School Education and the War," etc.) 
Pelmanism is based upon those great and eternal principles 
which underlie the art of all genuine education, and which 
are just as permanent as the principles which underlie the 
art of painting, or of architecture, or of any other art. 
The system, therefore, being built upon a rock foundation, 
is not of the nature of a quack medicine, and needs no quack 
device to recommend it ; it makes no claim whatever to 
transform human nature ; to change the cart-horse into 
the race-horse, or so to metamorphose the elephant that 
he will "amble nimbly in a lady's chamber to the lascivious 
pleasing of a lute'.' ; but it does claim this : Success for all 
who follow the directions given ; success in the sense that, 
after they have been through the course, they will find them- 
selves "re-born," as it were, with aims, objects, possibilities 
— nay, certainties — in front of them, such as they never 
dreamed of before. 
And this claim is verified by the verdict of thousands 
and thousands of people who have proved its truth. That 
is why I call the Pelman System sound. 
"Mind and Memory" {in which the Pelman Course is fully 
described, with a Synopsis of the lessotis) will be sent gratis 
and post free, together leith a full reprint of Truth's famous 
Report on the Pelman System and a form entitling readers of 
L.\ND & Water to the complete Course for one-third less than 
the usual fees, on application to the Pelman Institute, 
39 Pelman House, Bloomsbury Street, London, W.C.i. 
Overseas addresses : 46-48 Market Street, Melbourne : 
13 Toronto Street, Toronto : Club Arcade, Durban. 
