# A Handbook of Phrenotypics for Teachers and Students/How to Commit to Memory Knowledge Belonging to the Third Phrenotypic Problem

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Returning back to our simile of the two boxes, I will, now suppose that I take with each hand but a few cards. Here the probability of having a common card in both hands is very small indeed; in fact it would be a miracle if, having taken but a few cards in each hand out of one million, I should happen to pick up with my right hand a card similar to that picked up with my left.
In order to make myself understood, and better to impress upon my pupils the method of managing this most difficult problem, which, by the bye, embraces the greatest portion of human studies, I find it effective and useful to relate circumstantially the following anecdote:—
In my early infancy, my father, a physician and an extraordinary linguist, initiated me in the mysteries of several mnemonic contrivances; in the study of languages I invariably employed the association of ideas. I succeeded so far, that when at the age of not full thirteen, my father sent me to study medicine at the university of Vilna, in Poland. Relying upon my extraordinary memory, as it was called, I attended several courses of lectures besides those usually prescribed for students ​in medicine. I succeeded perfectly everywhere during several months until spring came, and with it the study of botany; here, far from outstripping my fellow-students, I actually remained behind even those whom I was accustomed to look upon as poor, flat, mediocrities. The matter stood thus:—Besides attending the lectures on botany, the students are admitted twice a week to the botanic garden: there they find a metallic label with a number upon it: that number refers them to a catalogue where they find the respective names: these names they write out into a copy-book thus,—
| No. 1778 | . . . | Valeriana officinalis. |
| No. 9789 | . . . | Nepeta Cataria. |
| &c. &c. ||
And having thus found out the names of a dozen of plants, they endeavour to commit them to memory in the best manner they can. Any one finds it tiresome, awkward, and annoying to look to the huge numbers upon the label, then to the catalogue, then to the spelling of the names, then to the copy-book, and after all to be allowed to remain there only about an hour twice a week, when the taking away with you a leaf may exclude you for ever from entering the garden at all. But I was peculiarly vexed and broken-hearted: I came to the garden tired out by other studies; I had a full ​dozen of copy-books under my arm, a very old catalogue with many loose leaves; to which if you add an umbrella in my left, a pen in my right, an ink-bottle dangling from my waistcoat-button, and above all, a heart of a spoiled child in my breast, you will have a tolerable idea of my embarrassment. Week after week elapsed before I mastered a few plants: when I looked at home into my copy-book, the scribbled names did not make rise the respective plants before my imagination; when I came to the garden, the plants did not make rise their respective names. My fellow-students made, in the mean time, great progress in this, for me, so unmanageable study:—for a good reason—they went every morning at five into the fields, gathered plants, determined their names, put them between blotting-paper, &c.—in a word, they gave to botany about six hours per day. I could not possibly afford such an expenditure of time; and besides, I could not bear the idea of studying simply as others did. The advantages I derived from mnemonic contrivances in other departments, induced me to hunt after some scheme in botany also.
My landlady and her two daughters happened to be very inquisitive about the students passing by their parlour window, which was close to the gates of the university; they scarcely ever allowed me to sit down before I satisfied their inquiries respecting the names, respectability, pursuits, &c., of at ​least half-a-dozen pupils. I was never very affable, but on the days of my mischievous botanic garden they could hardly get from me a single syllable; I could not, however, refuse when they once pressed their dear request thus:—"Do tell us, pray, the name of that fish, do!" pointing most pathetically to a pupil just hurrying by close to the window. When I answered, "His name is Fisher" (I translate from the Polish, Ryba Rybski) they burst into a almost spasmodic chatter, "We guessed his name! oh! he could not have another name! Look only," continued they, "how his cocked hat sits upon his head, pointing from behind forward, exactly in the same direction with his nose! look to the number of papers and copy-books fluttering about on each side between his ribs and elbows! look how he walks—he is actually swimming! oh! the name Fisher becomes him exceedingly well." I could not but agree with the justice of their remarks; I complimented them; I became more attentive to their conversation when at table, which happened to run thus,—"Mother, what is become of the Long Cloak? I saw him yesterday with the Old Boot: do they reside together?" "O no; the Long Cloak looks often through yon garret window, where the Big Nose lived some time ago," &c. &c. They understood perfectly one another by these nicknames Long Cloak, Old Boot, Big Nose, &c.
​This conversation suggested to me at once the means of dispensing with my old anarchical catalogue when in the garden, and in fact the whole plan of proceeding in the study of botany stood before my view; I felt confident I should soon leave all the young jealous, triumphant, and sneering botanic geniuses at a respectable distance behind. It happening to be the time of admission, I proceeded immediately to that corner of the garden where the medical plants were, leaving the catalogue at home. I began christening these plants just in the same manner as my landlady and her ingenious daughters christened the students of the university,—viz. I gave them those names which spontaneously were suggested to me by the sight, touch, &c. of them. The first plant suggested imperatively the name of Roof covered with snow, from the smallness, whiteness, and peculiar disposition of its flowers, and so I wrote down in my copy-book No. 978, Roof covered with snow. Next I found No. 735, Red, big-headed, cocknosed plant; and so on to about twenty plants in a few minutes; then I tried whether I had committed to memory these plants—Yes. In looking to the plants, their nicknames immediately jumped up before my imagination; in looking to these nick-names in my copy-book, the plants themselves jumped up. My joy was extreme: in a quarter of an hour I left the garden, convinced that I had ​carried away twenty plants which I could cherish, repeat, meditate upon at my own leisure. The only thing that remained to be done was, to know how people, how learned people, call them. This being exactly the same business as that of committing to memory twenty foreign words—a business in which I was already clever—I settled it in a few a few minutes, thus: I put comfortably my catalogue upon the table, looked for No. 978, and found Achilæa Millefolium; this made rise before my imagination an eagle with a thousand feathers (on account of Aquila, in Latin eagle, mille thousand, and folium, leaf.)
I put simultaneously before my mind, roof covered with snow, and eagle; and high mountain rose immediately before my imagination thus—Roofs covered with snow are to be found in high mountains, and so are Eagles. In the same manner I treated all the 20, and afterwards several hundreds of medical plants in a few visits to the garden. The examination came—the effect produced by my answers was somewhat similar to the effects produced by my pupils upon those who witness with their own senses the generally declared impossible feats of memory performed by them with the greatest ease and cheerfulness.
The professor gave me a plant: this naturally brought before my imagination the nickname: this nickname led me immediately through the com​mon phantom to the familiar notion which I substituted for the 2d not-familiar notion; this substitute dragged invariably forth the little-familiar and often barbarous required name itself.
Symbolically I will represent this process thus—
I have to connect together a plant which I never saw before, with a name which I never heard before,
with
I know there is very little chance of my obtaining an associating notion—I therefore take separately the plant and creep out from it into a familiar notion, thus I do the same thing with the other not-familiar notion, the name, thus— Then I put the two sprung-up
familiar notions simultaneously before my mind, and I am pretty certain of obtaining a common or associating notion, thus—
​which, in the example of Millefolium, will appear thus—
High Mountain
And now I will represent the processes to be made use of in the three problems, in one view.
From all this I come to the following Corollary.
The rapidity and strength with which two given notions stick together, is in the ratio of their joint familiarity.
This is what I declare the first of the two principles of the art of memory discovered by myself, and christened with the name of
The Principle of Familiarity