Chapter twenty eight, Memory Training quote lull'd in the countless chambers of the brain,
our thoughts are link'd by many a hidden chain awake, but one and
low what myriads rise, Each stamps its image as the other flies. Hail
memory, Hail in thy exhaustlest mine from age to age, unnumbered treasures shine
thought and her shadowy brood, Thy call obey and place and time a subject
to thy sway unquote Samuel Roger's Pleasures of Memory. Many an orator like Thackeray,
has made the best part of his speech to himself on the way home
from the lecture hall. Presence of mind, it remained for Mark Twain to
observe is greatly promoted by absence of body. A hole in the memory is
no less a common complaint than a distressing one. Henry Ward Beecher was able
to deliver one of the world's greatest addresses at Liverpool because of his excellent memory.
In speaking of the occasion, mister beech has said that all the events,
arguments, and appeals that he had ever heard, or read or written
seemed to pass before his mind as oratorical weapons, and standing there he had
but to reach forth his hand and quote, seize the weapons as they went
smoking by unquote. Ben Johnson could repeat all he had written. Scaliger memorized
the Iliad in three weeks. Locke says, quote without memory, man is
a perpetual infant unquote. Quintillian and Aristotle regarded it as a measure of genius.
Now, all this is very good. We all agree that a reliable
memory is an invaluable possession for the speaker. We never dissent for a moment
when we are solemnly told that his memory should be a storehouse from which a
pleasure he can draw, facts, fancies, and illustrations. But can the
memory be trained to act as the warder for all the truths that we have
gained from thinking, reading, an experience? And if so, how let
us see? Twenty years ago a poor immigrant boy employed as a dishwasher in
New York wandered into the Cooper Union and began to read a copy of Henry
George's Progress and Poverty. His passion for knowledge was awakened, and he became
a habitual reader. But he found that he was not able to remember what
he read, so he began to train in his naturally poor memory until he
became the world's greatest memory expert. This man was the late mister Felix Beryl.
Mister Beryl could tell the population of any town in the world and five
thousand inhabitants. He could recall the names of forty strangers who had just been
introduced to him, and was able to tell which had been presented third,
eighth, seventeenth, or in any order. He knew the date of every
important event in history, and could not only recall an endless array of facts,
but could correlate them perfectly. To what extent mister Beryl's remarkable memory was
natural and required only attention for its development seems impossible to determine with exactness,
but the evidence clearly indicates that, however useless were many of his memory feats,
A highly retentive memory was developed, where before only a good forgettory existed.
The freak memory is not worth striving for, but a good working memory
decidedly is. Your power as a speaker will depend to a large extent upon
your ability to retain impressions and them fourth when occasion demands, and that sort
of memory is like muscle. It responds to training heading what not to do
it is sheer misdirected effort to begin to memorize by learning words by rote,
for that is beginning to build a pyramid at the apex. For years,
our scores were cursed by this vicious system. Vicious not only because it is
inefficient, but for the more important reason that it hurts the mind. True,
some minds are natively endowed with a wonderful facility in remembering strings of words,
facts, and figures, but such are rarely good reasoning minds. The
normal person must be labor and force the memory to acquire in this artificial way.
Again, it is hurtful to force the memory in hours of physical weakness
or mental weariness. Health is the basis of the best mental action, and
the operation memory is no exception. Finally, do not become a slave to
a system. Knowledge of a few simple facts of mind and memory will set
you to work at the right end of the operation. Use these principles,
whether included in a system or not, but do not bind yourself to a
method that tends to lay more stress on the way to remember than on the
development of memory itself. It is nothing short of ridiculous to memorize ten words
in order to remember one fact heading the natural laws of memory, Concentrated attention
at the time when you wish to store the mind is the first step in
memorizing, and the most important one by far. You forgot the fourth of
the list of articles your wife asked you to bring home, chiefly because you
allowed your attention to waver for an instant when she was telling you. Attention
may not be concentrated attention. When a siphon is charged with gas, it
is sufficiently filled with the carbonic acid vapor to make its influence felt. A
mind charged with an idea is charged to a degree sufficient to hold it.
Too much charging will make the siphon burst. Too much attention to trifles leads
to insanity. Adequate attention, then, is the fundamental secret of remembering.
Generally, we do not give a fact adequate attention when it does not seem
important. Almost everyone has seen how the seeds in an apple point and has
memorized the date of Washington's death. Most of us, have perhaps wisely forgotten
both. The little nick in the bark of a tree is healed over and
obliterated in a season, but the gashes from the trees around Gettysburg are still
apparent after fifty years. Impressions that are gathered lightly are soon obliterated. Only
deep impressions can be recalled at will. Henry Ward Beech has said, quote
one intense hour will do more than dreamy years unquote to memorize ideas and words.
Concentrate on them until they are fixed firmly and deeply in your mind,
and accord to them their true importance. Listen with the mind, and you
will remember. How shall you concentrate? How would you increase the fighting effectiveness
for a man of war? One vital way would be to increase the size
and number of its guns. To strengthen your memory, increase both the number
and the force of your mental impressions by tending to them intensely. Loose skimming
reading, and drifting habits of reading destroy memory power. However, as most
books and newspapers do not warrant any other kind of attention, it will not
do all together to condemn this method of reading, but avoid it when you
are trying to memorize. Environment has a strong influence upon concentration. Until you
have learned to be alone in a crowd and undisturbed by clamor when you set
out to memorize a fact or a speech, you may find the task easier.
Away from all sounds and moving objects. All impressions foreign to the one
you desire to fix in your mind must be eliminated. The next great step
in memorizing is to pick out the essentials of the subject, arrange them in
order, and dwell upon them intently. Think clearly of each essential one after
the other. Thinking a thing not allowing the mind to wander, and non
essentials is really memorizing. Association of ideas is universally recognized as an essential in
memory work. Deed, whole systems of memory training have been founded on this
principle. Many speakers memorize only the outlines of their addresses, filling in the
words at the moment of speaking. Some have found it helpful to remember an
outline by associating the different points with objects in the room. Speaking on peace,
you may wish to dwell on the cost, the cruelty, and the
failure of war, and so lead to the justice of arbitration. Before going
on the platform, if you will associate four divisions of your outline with four
objects in the room, this association may help you to recall them. You
may be prone to forget your third point. But you remember that once when
you were speaking, the electric lights failed. So arbitraley the electric light globe
will help you to remember failure. Such associations, being unique, tend to
stick in the mind. While recently, speaking on the six kinds of imagination,
the present writer formed them into an acrostic, a visual, auditory,
motor, gustatory of factory, and tactile furnished the nonsense word vamgut. But
the six points were easily remembered in the same way that children are taught to
remember. The spelling of teasing words separate comes from sepa and as an automobile
driver remembers that two seas and then two h's lead him into cast A Road,
Cottman Street, Haines Street, and Henry Street. So important points in
your address may be fixed in mind by arbitrary symbols invented by yourself. The
very work of devising the scheme is a memory action. The psychological process is
simple. It is one of noting intently the steps by which a fact,
or a truth, or even a word has come to you. Take advantage
of this tendency of the mind to remembered by association. Repetition is a powerful
aid to memory. Thurlough Weed, the journalist and political leader, was troubled
because he so easily forgot the names of persons he met from day to day.
He corrected the weakness, relates Professor William James, by forming the habit
of attending carefully to names he had heard during the day, and then repeating
them to his wife every evening. Doubtless, missus Weed was heroically long suffering,
but the device worked admirably. After reading a passage, you would remember,
close the book, reflect and repeat the contents aloud if possible. Reading
thoughtfully aloud has been found by many to be a helpful memory practice. Write
what you wish to remember. This is simply one more way of increasing the
number and strength of your mental impressions. By utilizing all your avenues of impression.
It will help to fix a speech in your mind. If you speak
it aloud, listen to it, write it out, and look at it
intently, you have then impressed it on your mind by means of vocal,
auditory, muscular and visual impressions. Some folk have peculiarly distinct auditory memories.
They are able to recall things heard much better than things seen. Others have
the visual memory. They are best able to recall sight impressions. As you
recall a walk you have taken, are you able to remember better the sights
or the sounds? Find out what kinds of impressions your memory retains best,
and use them the most to fix an idea in mind. Use every possible
kind of impression. Daily habit is a great memory cultivator. Learn a lesson
from the marathon runner. Regular exercise, though ever so little, daily will
strengthen your memory in a surprising manner. Try to describe in detail the dress,
looks, and manner of the people you pass on the street. Observe
the room you are in, close your eyes and describe its contents. View
closely the landscape and write out a detailed description of it. How much did
you miss notice the contents of the show windows on the street? How many
features are you able to recall? Continual practice in this feat may develop in
you as remarkable proficiency as it did in Robert Oudin and his Son. The
daily memorizing of a beautiful passage in literature will not only lend strength to the
memory, but will store the mind with gems for quotations, But whether by
little or much, add daily to your memory power by practice. Memorize out
of doors. The buoyancy of the wood, the shore, or the stormy
night on deserted streets may freshen your mind, as it does the minds of
countless others. Lastly, cast out fear. Tell yourself that you can,
and will and do remember by pure exercise of selfism. Assert your mastery.
Be obsessed with the fear of forgetting, and you cannot remember. Practice the
reverse. Throw aside your manuscript crutches. You may tumble once or twice,
but what matters that for you are going to learn to walk and leap and
run. Heading memorizing a speech. Now, let us try to put into
practice the foregoing suggestions. First, reread this chapter, noting the nine ways
by which memorizing may be helped. Then read over the following selection from Beecher,
Applying some any of the suggestions as are practicable, Get the spirit of
the selection firmly in your mind. Make mental note of write down, if
you must, the succession of ideas. Now memorize the thought. Then memorize
the outline the order in which the different ideas are expressed. Finally, memorize
the exact wording. No. When you have done all this with the most
faithful attention to directions, you will not find memorizing easy unless you have previously
trained your memory or it is naturally retentive. Only by constant practice will memory
becomes strong. And only by continually observing these same principles will it remain strong.
You will, however, have made a beginning, and that is no
mean matter quote heading the Reign of the common People. I do not suppose
that if you were to go and look upon the experiment of self government in
America, you would have a very high opinion of it. I have not
either, if I just look upon the surface of things. Why men will
say, it stands to reason that sixty million ignorant of law, ignorant of
constitutional history, ignorant of jurisprudence, of finance and taxes and tariffs and forms
of currency, sixty million people that never studied these things are not fit to
rule. Your diplomacy is as complicated as ours, and is the most complicated
on earth. For all things grow in complexity as they develop toward a higher
condition. What fitness is there in these people? Well, it has not
democracy merely. It is a representative democracy. Our people do not vote in
mass for anything. They pick out captains of thought. They pick out the
men that do know, and they send them to the legislature to think for
them, and then the people afterwards ratify or disallow them. But when you
come to the legislature, I am bound to confess that the thing does not
look very much more cheering on the outside. Do they really select the best
men? Yes, in times of danger they do very generally. But in
ordinary time kissing goes by favor. You know what the duty of a regular
republican democratic legislator is, It is to go back again next winter. His
second duty is what His second duty is to put himself under that extraordinary providence
that takes care of legislator's salaries. The old miracle of the prophet and the
meal and the oil is out done immeasurably in our days. For they go
their poor one year and go home rich in four years. They become money
lenders, or by a trust in that gracious providence that takes care of legislator's
salaries. Their next duty after that is to serve the party that sent them
up. And then if there is anything left of them, It belongs to
the Commonwealth. Someone has said very wisely that if a man traveling wishes to
relish his dinner, he had better not go into the kitchen to see where
it is cooked. If a man wishes to respect and obey the law,
he had better not go to the legislature to see where that is cooked.
Henry Ward Beecher, from a lecture delivered in Exeter Hall, London, eighteen
eighty six, when making his last tour of Great Britain, heading in case
of trouble, But what are you to do if, notwithstanding all your efforts,
you should forget your points and your mind for the minute becomes blank.
This is a deplorable condition that sometimes arises and must be dealt with. Obviously,
you can sit down and admit defeat. Such a consummation is devoutly to
be shunned. Walking slowly across the platform may give you time to grip yourself,
compose your thoughts, and stave off disaster. Perhaps the surest and most
practical method is to begin a new sentence with your last important word. This
is not advocated as a method of composing a speech. It is merely an
extreme measure which may save you in tight circumstances. It is like the fire
department. The less you must use it, the better. If this method
is followed very long, you're likely to find yourself talking about plum pudding or
Chinese Gordon in the most unexpected manner. So, of course you will get
back to your lines the earliest moment that your feet have hit the platform.
Let us see how this plan works. Obviously your extemporized words will lack somewhat
of polish, but in such a past, crudity is better than failure.
Now you have come to a dead wall after saying quote Joan of Arc fought
for liberty unquote. By this method you might get something like this quote.
Liberty is a sacred privilege for which mankind always had to fight these struggles platitude,
but push on fill the pages of history. History records the gradual triumph
of the serf over the lord, the slave over the master. The masters
continually tried to usurp unlimited powers. Power during the medieval Ages accrue to the
owner of the land with a spear and a strong castle. But the strong
castle and spear were of little avail. After the discovery of gunpowder. Gunpowder
was the greatest boon that liberty had ever known. Unquote. Thus far you
have linked one idea with another rather obviously, But you are getting your second
wind now and may venture to relax your grip on the too evident chain.
And so you say, quote, with gun powder, the humblest surf in
all the land, could put an end the life of the tyrannical baron behind
the castle walls. The struggle for liberty with gunpowder as its aid, wrecked
empires and built up a new era for all mankind. In a moment more,
you've gotten back to your outline, and the day is saved. Practicing
exercises like the above will not only fortify you against the death of your speech
when your memory misses fire, but will also provide an excellent training for fluency
in speaking. Stock up with ideas, heading questions, and exercises. One,
pick out, and state briefly the nine helps to memorizing suggested in this
chapter. Two. Report on whatever success you may have had with any of
the plans for memory culture suggested in this chapter, have any been less successful
than others? Freely criticize any of the suggested methods. Four, Give an
original example of memory by association of ideas. Five, List in order the
chief ideas of any speech in this volume. Six, Repeat them from memory.
Seven, Expand them into a speech using your own words. Eight.
Illustrate practically what you would do if, in the middle of the speech on
progress, your memory failed you and you stopped suddenly on the following sentence quote
the last century saw Marvel's progress in varied lines of activity. Nine. How
many quotations that fit well in the speaker's tall chest can you recall from memory?
Ten memorize the poem on page forty two. How much time does it
require? End of Section twenty eight