Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1884 — A Science of Memory. [ARTICLE]

A Science of Memory.

Washington has a “teacher of memory” who says: “In a few lessons I will enable one to memorize the most difficult things without an effort.” “How can that be done?” “Oh, it’s a mutter of association according to a system I have worked upon for twenty-five years. It is all based upon the alphabet and numbers. I take persons, and in a few hours get them so that they can repeat and reproduce a long poem which I have read to them twice, or, at most, three times. They can repeat it backward or forward, or give you any line you call for by number. 1 had a boy about twelve years old who, after learning the system, went to hear Beecher and Cook lecture, and afterward repeated the lectures to an audience without having taken a note. He repeated Beecher’s lecture at the Young Men’s Christian Association rooms on New York avenue. Of course he did not give every word the lecturer used, but he covered every point in its regular order, just as the speaker had done, curtailing it sufficiently to be able to give in half an hour what it took an hour to deliver originally.” “Do many come to you to have their faculties cultivated ?”

“Yes, a great many of all classes. Some students, reporters—more particularly official reporters of the Senate and House—lawyers and preachers—preachers and lawyers particularly; the former to acquire an aptness in memorizing their sermons, and the latter to memorize authorities and dates. Orators, also, who memorize their speeches. “Then there is another class—the department clerks and persons preparing for civil-service examinations. Before going in for an examination many of them come to me to learn to memorize datea and events, location of rivers, historical, statistical, and political facts, etc. “I had a navv officer here not long ago who was preparing for an examination for promotion, and he perfected himself in the system so that he could without difficulty remember anything he desired.

“There is an old lady between 70 and 80 years old, who, with her daughter, has taken instructions, and she says that she finds no difficulty in remembering ane repeating all that she reads. She says that she can take two poems she has read and repeat them alternately, a line from each. —Washington Star.