Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-07-19
Some Trick. Of Memory.

The average person does not USE
more than three thousand words n
writing and speaking, and the PROBES.
sional writer's supply seldom exceeds
five thousand, yet Victor Hugo com.
manded eight thousand at will. Cuy-
Ter, the French naturalist, and Louie
Agassiz, the Swiss zoologist, could
promptly give the names, according
to careful estimates, of over five thou
sand animals, In addition to the ordi,
nary words they knew. DR.. Asa Gray.
the great botanist Of Harvard, knew
eight thousand plants by name and
at sight: and the late DR.. Joseph Leidy.
for many years president Of the Acad.
envy of Natural Sciences of PhiladeI.
pnia, was able to use at will twenty.
five thousand words-this vocabulary
embracing what he knew of four Ian
guages, including English, medicine.
geography, geology and a general SCI
ence, toether with large number Of
technical words. ~
If we investigate and compare Ger.
tain feats of memory, we are tempted
to believe what has often been aver.
red, that while memory may be, as
DR.. Johnson puts it, "the primary and
fundamental power without which
there could be no other intellectual op-
eration," yet it does not belong to the
higher mental processes, is faculty
rather than a function of the mind.
ana may be abnormally developed in
a brain which gives no other indica-
ton of strength The famous Antonio
Magliabechi. of Florence, knew at sight
every book in his great collection; and
it is further related that gentleman,
to test his memory, lent him a manu-
script and, after it's return, pretended
it was lost, whereupon Magliabechi re-
peated it's entire contents. A modern
instance in kind is that of Mr.. Spofford.
for so many years the librarian of COM
gress, whose familiarity with the corr
tents of the great library is startIjnx,
Yet we should also keep in mind the
negro boy, William Ash, who was em-
ployed in a New York bookstore. Il
was claimed for him that, having
grown up among the books there. he
could indicate the place of every vol
ume in stock, though the classification
is complicated and the books numbered
by the thousand. - Sst.
Leibnitz knew the Aeneid by heart;
the Duke of Sermoneta could recite the
whole of Dantes Divine Comedy: Dr.
Leyden could repeat long public docs.
ument after reading it once: Daeues4n
once startled Boilean by reciting a
satire read to him for the first time.
But such gifts are not alone the prop
er.y of the learned. If the Rev. Will
liam Cullen Hicks, revivalist well
known in Kentucky. does nothing else
to perpetuate his name, he may be
rescued 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 Verba-
tim, beginning at any passage in any
chapter. Dr. Adam Clark had from
boyhood memory so retentive that
after listening to sermon for an hour.
he could not only repeat it word for
word, but accompany the delivery with
the gestures used by the preacher. imi-
tating his voice and manner. One is
inclined to associate such perform
auce with decided mental development:
yet we have it on the authority of
missionary named Moffatt that after
preaching a sermon to savages in Afri-
ca on the subject of Eternity" he was
astonished to hear young man re-
peat it to another group of natives.
word for word-something which Moff-
att could not have done himself.-Lip-
pincotts