Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 115, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1910 — CHILD’S WONDERFUL MEMORY. [ARTICLE]

CHILD’S WONDERFUL MEMORY.

Uttle Indiana Girl Caa Repeat Whale Book,, Word tor Word. It <is no little" problem confronting the parents of Gladys Sears, a 6-year-old Indiana child, who is evidencing the existence in her little brain of amemory that threatens to eclipse the stories of eastern prodigies who formulate ponderous theories of the fourth dimension and play concertos before they can speak. Little Miss Sears lives on a farm six miles north, of Thornton and stories of her remarkable memory were brought to Indianapolis, the Star of that city says* by the Rev. Arthur Harffion, who happened to visit in the Sears family while he was holding revival services in the neighborhood. The child has not merely an extraordinary memory—lt is more wonderful than that. An extraordinary memory even in a child might be expected to retain longer poems than “Twinkle* Twinkle, Little Star,” but it could hardly be expected to retain word for word the usual illustrated story In a Sunday magazine or the contents of a book a dozen or more pages long. But Qiat is what Gladys Sears can do without even going to the trouble to “commit it to memory.” She merely just remembers it. Poems and stories committed to memor/ do not flit in one ear and out at the other, but are retained by the child, and she can recall them after a long time. Her father and mother have been afraid to read many very long stories to her, because they fear it would tax her brain, but when any one is reading aloud in the house little Gladys’ mind is working and she usually startles every one by showing she knows the story word for word.