The San Francisco call., 1910-11-27
Loss OF memory
is A DEVELOP nENT
Mankind Is Now Aided by Liz
braries and Taught to
''Think"

Science now says that mankind is
losing it's memory along with its hair
and teeth. This. scientists declare, is
not matter Of regret-it is a sign of
progress and of intellectual develop
ment Memoryssis not, the scientists
say a sign of big brains. On the con-
trary extra ordinary memories are
usually possessed by others than cele-
brated thinkers. and many celebrated
thinkers have been noted for poor mem
cries, says the New Haven Palladium.
The causes given for the decrease in
memory powers are the tremendous in
crease in cheap and good books of
every description, and the fact that all
advanced teachers now try to instruct
school children how to think" as
against the old fashioned method. which
was mostly an effort to teach children
to remember" The reason for the
change is logical enough and thorough
ly practical. Well educated, smart men
were. generation or two back. con-
sidered those individuals who could re-
cite history, poetry or other literary
material which had been committed to
memory.
Today the tremendous advance in in
vention with the vast Importance
gained by engineering chemistry and
practical science has greatly reduced
the former eminence held by sciences
or professions where a fine or long
memory was of the first Importance.
Today education teaches the why and
wherefore" and the remembrance of
mere details is relatively unimportant-
Wherefore science declares that
memory as a mental faculty is much
on the retrograde. For memory is mere
ha abit-a habit of the blind The less
actual thinking required in the habit
the stronger grows the memory. This
is shown by the fact that eccleS1astcs
who learn long sermons-in Latin, for
example-always possess extraordinary
memories.
The memories of all religious stu
dents of the middle ages would have
caused wonder in any modern class
room. Every student in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries obtained a
tremendous memory simply from the
sort of studies he was required to take.
These old time students memor1zed
hundreds of thousands of words and
recited them with little or no attention
to their meaning.
Many old time students could recite
an Grafton in Latin after hearing 1t
once pronounced. History teens with
examples of bishops, cardinals and
lesser church dignitaries who could re-
cite whole books without a single mis-
take. The celebrated Monestrier who
was head of a great college at Lyons.
France, about the year 100. once was
put to a marvellous memory test. A
discourse or rather an aggregation of
300 words taken from many languages,
was read off to him once. He imme-
diate1y recited the whole 800 words
without an error, and afterward recited
every other word in its order, and
finally recited the whole thing back
ward.
But such memories, while marvellous.
have little intellectual value in a CEN
tury where good Libraries are abundant
and every person can obtain books of
reference for no charge and, with no
trouble Moreover. the old time train
ing, which endowed its students with
great memories, had also, according to
modern scientists and teachers, a dull
ing effect on the reasoning powers and
hampered brain action by loading up
the brain with a vast quantity of ma
terial that would have today no prac-
ticaI value.