Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-05-19
(To be Continued.)
PEPPER A MEMORY SHARK
Senator From Pennsylvania Began to
Remember Early.


George Wharton Pepper is, among
countless other things, senator from
Pennsylvania author Of several num-
dred pounds Of law books, athlete
mountaincer, college professor, base
ball expert, Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, color
sergeant of the First Provisional
Plattsburg Regiment, and champion
heavy weight rcmcmbcrer of North
America.
The reason for the peculiar Pepper
memory is not due to the fact that
his family was training him for the
senate but to the fact that he was
expected to be blind. His eyesight
was so bad when he was child that
he was never sent to school, but was
tutored at home by his mothcr-who
! learned Greek in order that she might
teach it to her son.
A year before he entered college a
tutor was secured for him--a blind
tutor, so that he might. be instructed
in the ways of blindness in addition TO
his studies. The tutor taught him
tricks of memory that made it possi-
BILE for him to read a thing once and
remember it or to have it read to
| him once and remember ii. Such an
accomplishment is a very handy asset
for blind man.
The tutor was cminently success
| ful. 1t was no more difficult for young
/ Pepper to remember offhand such
| difficult and annoying matters as the
| date of the Battle of Sa1amis and the
n"mes OF the kings OF Egypt than it
WAS for him to remember how TO tie
his necktic. After he had read over
two or three times q piece of prose
or poetry sufficiently abstruse to
make the average person clutch
wildly at his brow anu wonder what
! il all meant lie had it by heart. Ono
OF the most difficult pieces of poetry
! to mcmorizc is Francis ThOmpson'G
''Thc Hound of Heaven" Pcppc.
learned il in an hour.
Boyd Carpenter, bishop of Ripon
was remarkable for his skill at de-
vclopinG a complicated argument.
! Pepper once heard him deliver Il lee
turc on deep, mystifyinG, brain
twisting philosophical subject; and
after the lecture wa& over Pepper,
who had taken no notes, went away
ard dictated the entire lecture 10
a stcnogra phCr from memory. He c1r
I SAY the Book of Psalms from memory
if hc has time.
When he WAS an undergraduate at
Tic University of Pennsylvania hc
took the leading part in "Thc Ach-
arianS" of AristOphancS, the first cc-
casion that Greek comedy had ever
been given in America. Tho play
hes large cast, and the dialogue is
composed Of single lines and halt
lines, so that there are Il great many
speeches in it, Pepper learned not
only his own part but all the other
parts as we'll. When the rChcarSals
came to an end Pepper could rccite
the entire play, which took ovc:' two
and half hours 10 present. This
would have been somewhat Of a
stunt if the play had been in Eng
lish. Instead Of that it was in Greek
ard each vowel sound in C1ch word
| had to receive the personal attention
of the dclivcrcr.
: When President Wilson declared
before congress that American parti-
Cipation i'm the war was essential Pep
! per and n party of friends were ca
gclly waiting in Philadelphia to hear
what The president would say. When
the speech WIS released it was read
over the telephone TO Pepper, who
! digestcd it carefully and then hung