The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1909-07-15
MEMORY A PECULIAR
MENTAL FACULTY
Some Remarkable Instances
of Phenomenal Pow
ers.
From Lippincott's.

Inc average person uOeS HOI use
more than 1900 words in writing and
speaking, and the professional writer's
supply seldom exceeds 5000, yet Victor
Hugo commanded 5000 at will. Culver,
the French naturalist, n Louis Agas-
siz, the Swiss zoologist, could promptly
give the names, according to careful
estimates, of over 5000 animals. in adj
knew. Or. Asa Gray, the great botan-
list at Harvard, knew 5000 plants by
name and at sight; and the late DIR.
Joseph Leidy, for many years prest-
dent Of the Academy of Natural Sci
ences Of Philadelphia, was able to use
embracing what he knew Of four Lam
guages, including English. medicine.
geography, geology and a general SCI
ence. together with q large number Of
technical words.
If We investigate and compare GER
to believe what has often been averred,
that while memory may be. as DR..
Johnson puts it. ''the primary and
fundamental power without which
there could be no other Intellectual
operation yet it does not belong to the
rather than a function of the mind, and
may be abnormally developed in q
brain which gives no other indication
Of strength. The famous Antonio
M~agliabechi, Of Florence. knew at sight
every book in his great collections; and
it is further related that a gentleman.
to test his memory, lent him a manu-
script and, after its return. pretended
it was lost, w%hereupon M~agliabechi re-
peated its entire contents. A modern
instance in kind is that of Mr.. Spot
ford, for so many years h librarian
OF congress-, whose familiarity with the
contents of the great library is start
limo Vat uya Chny,l1 o1c0 Elon In mind,
the negro boy, William Ash, who was
employed in a New York book store.
1t was claimed for him that, having
grown up among the books there. he
could indicate h place Of every vol
ume in stock, though the classified
ton is complicated and the books num-
bered by the thousand. >
Leibnitz knew the Aeneid by heart;
the Duke of Cermoneta could recite the
whole of Dante's Divine Comedy" DR..
Leyden could repeat q long public doc
ument after reading 1t once; Daguesan
once startled Boileau by reciting a
satire read to him for the first time.
But such gifts are not alone the prop
erty of the learned. If the Rev. Will
liam Cullen Hicks, a %revivalist well
known in Kentucky. does nothing else
to p~erpetuate his NAME, he may be res
cued from oblivion by his extraordi-
nary memory, which he has exercised
with Holy Writ. Those who have heard
him claim that, excepting the Psalms,
he can recite the bible verbatim, be-
ginning at any passage in any chap
ter. DR.. Adam Clark had from boy
hood a memory SO retentive that after
listening to a sermon for an hour, he
but accompany the delivery with the
gestures used by the preacher, imitat-
ing his voice and manner. One is in
clined to associate such a performance
with decided mental developments; yet
we have it on the authority Of a mis-
sionary named Moffatt that after
preaching a sermon to val in At
RIGA on the subject of Eternity" he
was astonished to hear a young man
repeat it to another group of natives,
word for understanding which Moi
fatt could not have done himself.