The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1883-08-19
The TrustwOrthiness OF Early Trndi'
rRrooke HEREFORD.

brooke HEREFORD, In Atlantic Tor AnensII
Il memory capable OF preserving through
successive generations the facts OF history
or whatever else peoples are continuously
interested in knowingY At first one Is
ant to saw "No," remembering how sell
dom two people can agree In their rccol-
lection of even the briefest saying or com
monest occurrence. But look into the
matter. Note how the power OF memory
differs in different people and how u
NAV be cultivated, and especially how II
strengthens when Systematically depended
ON. while when little Is left to it, 1t
weakens. 1t is small fact, but not with
out significance, that among the first things
which children are set To fix in their memo
rjes. apart from any idea OF sacredness, are
long series Of historical names, dates, and
eycnts-English kings, American colonists.
and presidcnts-far exceeding In difficulty
those Israeitsh histories which kuenen
thinks cannot be trusted because only
preserved by memory. This shows that II
is less question OF the power OF memory
than Of how far memory is looked on rs
sacred, and guarded so as to hand on it,
contents unimpalred. As for evidence OF
the power OF memory. what better can we
desire than the wcll-known fact OF the
transmission OF Had, with its 1857 lines,
for generations, perhaps for centuries, be-
fore il was even writtenl Yet even that
is mere trifle compared with the trans
mission OF the Vedas. The Rig-Neda,
with its 1917 hymns, is about four times the
length OF the Had. That is only part OF
the ancient Vedic literature. and the whole
was composed and fixed and handed down
by memory-only, as Max Miller says, by
"memory kept under the strictest disci-
pline." There is still class Of priests IN
India who have to know by heart the whole
of the Rig-Neda. And there is this GU
rious confederation OF the fidelity with
which this memorizing has been carried
on and handed down; that they have Kept
on transmitting in the ancient literal form
laws prohibiting practices that have never
theless become established. Suffice j. now
found To he condemned by the Nedas them
selves. This was first pointed ont by their
Europcan students, but has since been
admitted by the native Slnskrlt scholars.
Nothing could show more clearly the faith
fnlness of the traditional momory and
transmission. II has, too, thi, further
bearing on the date OF the SO-called
Mosaic legislation il shows that the fact
of customs existing III a country for ages
unchallenged does not prove that laws
cOndemning such customs must necessarily
be of later origin. But there is more thai
is instructive i'm the transmission Of this
Nedc literature. There has been writing
in India for 1900 years now, YET the cllst0-
dams Of the Nedic traditions have never
trusted to il. They trust, for the perfect
perpeIuaton and transmission Of the sa-
cred books. to disciplined memory. They
have manuscripts. they have even printed
text. hut, says Max Muller, "they do not
learn their sacred lore from them. They
learn il, a. their ancestors learnt il thou
sands OF years ago, from the lips OF "A teach
er, so that the Ncdic succession should
never be broken" For eight years in then
youth they are entirely occupied in learn
ing this. "They learn a few lines every
day, repeat them for hours, so that the
whole house resounds with the noise; and
they thus strengthen their memory to thai
degree that. when their apprenticeship i
finished. YOU can open them like book
and find any passage You like, any word
any accent" And Max Muller shows,
from rules given in the Ncdas Themselves
that this oral teaching OF them was carried
on, exactly as now, at least as early as jOt
b. &.
Very much the same was il with those
Rabbincal schools amid which the Talmud
gradually grew up. All OF that vast lite
nature. exceeding many times in bulk llo
mer and the Nedas and the Bible altogether
was, at any rate until its later periods. the
growth of oral tradition. II was prose
| tradition, too, which is the hardest to
| remember. and yet it was carried down
century after century in the mem
ory. and long after il had been all commit
ted to writing the old memorizing con
| tinucd in the schools. Indeed. IT has moi
entirely ceased even now; for my friend
DR.. GOttheil OF New York, tells me that
| he has had in his study man who thus
knows the entire Tamud by heart, anC
can take il up at any word that Is given
| him and 90 on repeating il syllable by syl'
liable with absolute correctness.