Speaker 1: Memory systems. The subject of memory development is not a
new one by any means. For two thousand years at least,
there has been much thought devoted to the subject, many
books written thereupon, and many methods or systems invented, the
purpose of which has been the artificial training of the memory.
Instead of endeavoring to develop the memory by scientific training
and rational practice and exercise along natural lines, there seems
to have always been an idea that one could improve
on nature's methods, and that a plan might be devised.
By the use of some trick, the memory might be
taught to give up her hidden treasures. The law of
association has been used in the majority of these systems,
often to a ridiculous degree. Fanciful systems have been built up,
all artificial in their LIFs, character and nature, the use
of which to any great extent is calculated to result
in a decrease of the natural powers of remembrance and recollection.
Just as in the case of natural aids to the
physical system, there is always found a decrease in the
natural powers. Nature prefers to do her own work unaided.
She may be trained, led, directed, and harnessed, but she
insists upon doing the work herself, or dropping the task.
The principle of association is an important one and forms
a part of natural memory training and should be so used.
But when pressed into service in many of the artificial systems,
the result is the erection of a complex and unnatural
mental mechanism, which is no more an improvement upon the
natural methods than a wooden leg is an improvement upon
the original limb. There are many points in some of
these systems which may be employed to advantage in natural
memory training by divorcing them from their fantastic rules and
complex arrangement. We ask you to run over the list
of the principal systems with us that you may discard
the useless material by recognizing it as such, and cull
the valuable for your own use. The ancient Greeks were
fond of memory systems. Simonides, the Greek poet who lived
about five hundred BC, was one of the early authorities,
and his work has influenced nearly all of the many
memory systems that have sprung up since that time. There
is a romantic story connected with the foundation of his system.
It is related that the poet was present at a
large banquet attended by some of the principal men of
the place. He was called out by a message from
home and left before the close of the meal. Shortly
after he left, the ceiling of the banquet hall fell
upon the guests, killing all present in the room and
mutilating their bodies so terribly that their friends were unable
to recognize them. Somonodes, having a well developed memory for
places and position, was able to recall the exact order
in which each guest had been seated, and therefore was
able to aid in the identification of the remains. This
occurrence impressed him so forcibly that he devised a system
of memory based upon the idea of position, which attained
great popularity in Greece, and the leading writers of the
day highly recommended it. The system of Somonodes was based
upon the idea of position. It was known as the
topical system. His students were taught to picture in the
mind a law large building divided into sections and then
into rooms, halls, et cetera. The thing to be remembered
was visualized as occupying some certain space or place in
that building, the grouping being made according to association and resemblance.
When one wished to recall the things to consciousness. All
that was necessary was to visualize the mental building, and
then take an imaginary trip from room to room, calling
off the various things as they had been placed. The
Greeks thought very highly of this plan, and many variations
of it were employed. Cicero said, by those who would
improve the memory, certain places must be fixed upon and
of those things which they desired to keep in memory.
Symbols must be conceived in the mind and ranged as
it were in those places. Thus the order of places
preserve the order of things, and the symbols of the
things would denote the things themselves, so that we should
use the places as wax and tablets, and the symbols
as letters. Quintillion advises students to fix in their minds
places of the greatest possible extent, diversified by considerable variety,
such as a large house, for example, divided into many apartments.
Whatever is remarkable in it is carefully impressed on the mind,
so that the thought may run over every part of
it without hesitation or delay. Places we must have either
fancied or selected, and images or symbols which we may
invent at pleasure. These symbols are marks, by which we
may distinguish the particulars which we have to get by heart.
Many modern systems have been erected upon the foundation of seminidies,
and in some of which cases students have been charged
high prices for the secret. The following outline given by
K gives the secret of many a high priced system
of this class. Select a number of rooms, and divide
the walls and floor of each in imagination into nine
equal parts or squares, three in a row. On the
front wall that opposite the entrance of the first room
are the units. On the right hand wall, the tens,
on the left hand the twenties, on the fourth wall
the thirties, and on the floor the forties. Numbers ten, twenty, thirty,
and forty each find a place on the roof above
their respective walls, while fifty occupies the center of the room.
One room will thus furnish fifty places and ten rooms
as many as five hundred. Having fixed these clearly in
the mind, so as to be able readily and at
once to tell exactly the position of each place or number,
it is then necessary to associate with each of them
some familiar object or symbol, so that the object being suggested,
its place may be instantly remembered, or when the place
be before the mind, its object may immediately spring up.
When this has been done thoroughly, the objects can be
run over in any order, from beginning to end, or
from end to beginning, or the place of any particular
one can at once be given. All that is further
necessary is to associate the ideas we wish to remember
with the objects in the various places, by which means
they are easily remembered and can be gone over in
any order. In this way one may learn to repeat
several hundred disconnected words or ideas in any order after
hearing them only once. We do not consider it necessary
to argue in detail the fact that this system is
artificial and cumbersome to a great degree. While the idea
of position may be employed to some advantage in grouping
together in the memory several associated facts, ideas, or words,
still the idea of employing a process such as the
above in the ordinary affairs of life is ridiculous, and
any system based upon it has a value only as
a curiosity or a mental acrobatic feat. Akin to the
above is the idea underlying many other systems and secret methods.
The idea of contiguity, in which words are strung together
by fanciful connecting links, describes this underlying idea or principle
as follows. The recollection of them is assisted by associating
some idea of relation between the two, and as we
find by experience that whatever is ludicrous is calculated to
make a strong impression on the mind. The more ridiculous
the association is, the better. The systems founded upon this
idea may be employed to repeat a long string of
disconnected words and similar things, but have but little practical value,
notwithstanding the high prices charged for them. They serve merely
as curiosities or methods of performing tricks to amuse one's friends.
Doctor Cathay, a German teacher about the middle of the
nineteenth century, founded this last school of memory training, his
ideas serving as the found for many teachers of high
priced systems or secret methods since that time. The above
description of finegel gives the key to the principle employed.
The working of the principle is accomplished by the employment
of intermediates or correlatives as they are called. For instance,
the word chimney and leaf would be connected as follows, chimney, smoke, wood,
tree leaf. Then there are systems or methods based on
the old principle of the figure alphabet, in which one
is taught to remember dates by associating them with letters
or words. For instance, one of the teachers of this
class of systems wished his pupils to remember the year
fourteen eighty by the word b I, G R A T.
The capitals representing the figures in the date comment is unnecessary.
The student will find that nearly all the systems or
secret methods that are being offered for sale and courses,
often at a very high price, are merely variations, improvements, upon,
or combinations of the three forms of artificial methods named above.
New changes are constantly being worked on these old plans,
new tunes played on the same old instruments, new chimes
sounded from the same old bells, and the result is
ever the same in these cases disappointment and disgust. There
are a few natural systems on the market, nearly all
of which contain information and instructions that make them worth
the price at which they are sold. As for the others,
will judge for yourself after purchasing them, if you so desire.
Regarding these artificial and fanciful systems, Kay says, all such
systems for the improvement of the memory belong to what
we have considered the first or lowest form of it.
They are, for the most part based on light or
foolish associations, which have little foundation in nature, and are
hents of little practical utility, and they do not tend
to improve or strengthen the memory as a whole. Bacon
says that these systems are barren and useless, adding for
immediately to repeat a multitude of names or words once
repeated before, I esteem no more than rope dancing, antique postures,
and feats of activity. And indeed they are nearly the
same things, the one being the abuse of the bodily,
as the other of the mental powers. And though they
may cause admiration, they cannot be highly esteemed. And as
another authority has said, the systems of mnemonics as taught
are no better than crutches, useful to those who cannot walk,
but impediments and hindrances to those who have the use
of their limbs, and who only require to exercise them
properly in order to have the full use of them.
In this work there shall be no attempt to teach
any of these trick systems that the student may perform
for the amusement of his friends. Instead, there is only
the desire to aid in developing the power to receive impressions,
to register them upon the memory, and readily to reproduce
them at will, naturally and easily. The lines of natural
mental action will be followed throughout of this work is
not to teach how one may perform feats of memory,
but instead to instruct in the intelligent and practical use
of the memory in the affairs of everyday life and work.