The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1900-09-16

consciousness: II IL q sort OF scheme In
which every detail bears relation to all
the other details.
Let US admit that Paderewski's roper
toire Ia represented In musical notation
BY I.co0. 900 characters of printed impress
sions. Is II pure memory that enables
him TO play these pieces without looking
at the notes7 II II is, he ought 70 be able
to remember 1000 notes written at ran
dom and having no rhythmic order, no
melodis form. no musical sense or CO.
berency. But he probably could not
memorIze 100 notes thrown together in a
chaotic and uninteiligible tumble. Where
fore 1t II plain that some faculty other
than memory is brought into play In his
performance.
why, II memory was the thing, there
would be no diversity of attachments and
no phenomenal achievements in special
directions. II Is all a matter OF brain
structure-of taste and receptivity and
natural selection. Take little children
before the process OF education begins.
Ono can sing a tune before he can count
five: in another these Accomplishments
are reversed. Each child IS pronounced
bright In his own way. but II would be
absurd to gay that either exercises.
really or apparently, the so-cailed fac
ulty OF memory
But how about children at school?"
not memorize their iessons?"
They seem to, but many OF them only
retain for a time visual Impressions of
the printed pages. Take mental arith-
metic lesson containing dozen simple
problems. suppose No. reads: III you
have six oranges and give away three
OF them. how many VIII you have left?s'
! have known children in n class who
could answer II correctly II put by the
teacher I'm the exact language OF the
book and In the consecutive order Of It's
appearance on the page. But IL the
teacher substituted apples for oranges.
or transposed tho examples the children
would DO bewitched and could not give
the correct answer. SO with history and
spelling lessons The children retain
visual impressions of the print long
enough TO get through their recitations
fairly well. but not much longer. Such
cases are by no means uncommon. They
show that the real process OF education
begins after a child energies from the
so-callcd memory period and enters the
reasoning stage of it's mental existence.
And II Is a perfectly welI-known fact
that II teacher has forty pupils all of
them equally studious. capable and PAINS
taking. there will be differences of apti-
tude and success,
'Of course the human mind Is a mvs-
terry. and II would be Idle to attempt 10
account for all It's phenomena. knew
young woman who was afflicted In mind
and body Her physique was frail her
mental powers far below the normal
and her stupidity something almost re-
pulsive. She could repeat half dozen
pages OF Browning. or any othor writer,
no matter how abtruse. Immediately af-
ter single reading. But she had no idea
OF the meaning OF the compositions and
In m hour they werc gone from her. But
or course We are not discussing freak
performances like this or like those sof
people to whom the solutions Of intricate
mathematical problems come In q mys-
terlous way.
Returning to memory. 10 called,
am firmly Of the opinion that II - largely
a myth. that It plays but small part In
human achievement. that It does not ex-
vt ~ en- independent and self-acting fac
Mty. These propositions are sustained by
fact ana logic, and defy anybody to dis
prove them."-sNew York Sun.