The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1893-04-19
TRAINING MEMORY.
DR.. EDWARD PICKS VERY SIMPLE AND
SCIENTIFIC METHODS.

guages by Association and Comparison.
Something About the Man.
1t was when he was a medical student
in the University of Prague that DR..
Edward Pick, because Of his own de-
fective memory, gave his attention to
the discovery of practical method of
applying psychology to the acquiring of
knowledge. His first published work on
the subject was called 1.-THE Rational
Means For Improving the Memory"
This book was at once recognized by
scholars and educators as the work of
one who, having duly considered estab-
lished facts of consciousness, deducted
from them as a logical consequence GER
tain important practical conclusions.
1t was in this small book, which he
found in the British museum, that Loi-
settle, who wrote "LOisettian Art of
Never Forgotting," found<all that there
was of his system. DR.. Pick laughingly
declares that Loisette, or LarrOwe,
which was his real name, having come
upon his first book in the library of the
British museum, found it so interesting
that he thought he had invented it him.
self. At that time the book was out of
print, and as Loisette pledged all of
his pupils not to reveal anything in re-
gard to his plan it was some time before
the truth was known.
There never was the least secrecy
about DR.. Picks work or his books. He
has evolved and taught his system of
psychology precisely like other branches
of learning Indeed for the last 20 years
he has been engaged in lecturing on this
subject at Oxford, Cambridge, Elton and
other great English institutions of learn
ing.
Two simple propositions form the basis
of DR.. Picks system-that the attention
should be concentrated on as few ideas
as possible at one time, and to force the
attention to the ideas in question by COM
pairing them with each other 1t is #
course obvious that the fewer the ideas
of which a person is conscious at one
and the SINE time the stronger and
more definite the impression will be, and
also that if we scrupulously compare the
objects viii h they represent with each
other this { finiteness not only becomes
more clearl~ impressed, but no one Of
these ideas is recalled without bringing
others which cohere to it.
In this connection the statement that
there is not one but many memories in
each mind and that one kind of memory
is pre-eminently developed in one person
and another in another is interesting.
For example, persons having indivi6u-
atty strongly developed receive pec'-l-
iarly distinct impressions Of externals,
and therefore Of persons, and are able
to recognize them readily. Others hav-
ing locality strongly developed remember
even people by the place in which they
saw them, and others still there are who
have an especial faculty for remember
ing words and acquiring languages. It
is said of Cardinal Mezzofanti, who
knew more than 100 different languages,
that he was wont to declare that he
never forgot a word he once learned.
The relation between these facts in re-
gard to memory and DR.. Picks PROPOSE
ton is that if we would remember things
which do not by virtue of their own in
trinsic force produce vivid and strong
impressions we must associate them with
vivid and strong impressions already in
the mind. "This cohesion Of IDEAS" says
DR.. Pick, (which is constantly going on
in our minds is really not only the ba-
sis of all remem brance, but Of all intel
lectual activity. An idea never comes