Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-01-14
TRAINING THE MEMORY.
THE FACULTY FOR PRESERVING
 DATES, NAMES AND EVENTS.

sta1t Perusal of Slowly Enlarged List
 of Dates-weaIx Points Should be Trained
 Separately.
 In order to attain the highest form of memory it is necessary to cultivate the faculty of imagination, or the power of hold ing up to the mind past sensations or i'm pressions if they were again actually pres ent We can retain the impression of an object in the mind for some time after the object itself has passed away, by allowing the mind to dwell upon it, and we can after wards readily recall it. Lay an object, say your watch, on the table, and look at it in tently for few seconds; you will find on shutting your eyes that you still retain a more or less distinct image of it. Even after a considerable time you may recall the image of the watch and the exact spot where 1t lay. So if ill place of one object, two or three are placed on the table, after conten- plating them short while their images may be reproduced in the brain and afterwards recalled with great distinctness.
 TO REMEMBER CARDS.
 In this way one may soon learn to remem- Der all the cards that have been played in game of whist, which mere playing for a life time may fail to teach him. Let him begin
 
 upon the table, observing each by itself and the order in which it is laid down, as we'll as the whole together till he feels that he has learned them. Let him then take them up and after timo replace them as they were before from memory, and this till he feels that he has thoroughly mastered them For q second lesson let him take four cards and treat them in this way, and then other four; and let him proceed in this way, always in- creasing the number till he take ill the whole pack and tell of each card when and where it was thrown down. That mere play ing may never teach man this is owing to the attention being taken up with the play and not sufficiently directed to this operation
 Attention is the remedy for weak mem- ory and the tonic for one that requires i'm provement. First impressions made upon tho mind must be strong and complete to be lasting. The usual image carried to the mind must be as complete almost as the orig inal object itself, and to obtain perfect image undivided attention must be given to the subject One thing at a time, and that thing thoroughly. William T. Harris in dorseS this precept, and he adds a personal reminiscence to illustrate his point that tho true method of cultivating and strengthening defective memory is to practice it on the kind of items it easily forgets.
 The writer, when in his 18th year, was en- barrassed by the feebleness of his memory for dates. He commenced learning list of the dates of accession of English kings William the Conqueror in lOG6, William Rufus in 10S7, etc-three or four dates the first day; two new ones added the second day; one new one added the third day; there after less often. Constant review by and by made the entire list familiar. It had to be learned anew year after, and once again -Nf,, P,,ttl tl,n ,N1X for dates grew steadily, and, without con. scious effort, dates and numbers soon came to be seized with firmer grasp than before. This kind of memory still increases with the writer from year to year, and, although It Is not by any means phenomenal memory, 1t | is very serviceable. A similar cultivation of the special memory for proper names (which | in the writer's case had become very weak and threatened to go altogether) has proved | Serviceable.
 | EXAMPLES FOR PRACTICE The special kind of memory that is weak should bo cultivated by itself and not at tached to some other form of memory. The simile of magnet is to the point here Load it today with iron filings, and tomorrow it will support few more. The memory, if l only strong enough to retain a singlo iten, with effort, will grow stronger by the effort and will soon retain two items, and finally others ill vast numbers and without effort By this method we avoid fantastic associa tions and correct the weak faculty itself, in stead of fastening it's work on another faculty Let the exercise be a list of dates valuable to retain for themselves Or, if il is names that enc wishes to remember, select a list of important persons that furnish cen ters of historical information; such, for in stance, as the names of the Roman enperors the English and French kings, the heroes o
 Plutarch's histories, or of typical personau ties, such as tho characters in Shakespeare' dramas or in Homer's "Iiad"-items O.
 world historical importance. A list of 10, proper names learned i'll their orders a
 kings of France and of England, and the em
 perors of Rome, will furnish central nuclei t,
 historic material, and the memorizng O
 such list, or, indeed, a list half as large
 will so discipline the memory for names as t.
 permanently remove all embarrassment iron
 this source. It is not the length of the list s
 much as the thoroughness with which it i
 learned that develops the memory. It is no
 well to go beyond 100 items, for tho reasol
 that such mechanical memory should not b made too strong.-David Rays work ol "MemOry"