Book Description

POSTERITY will scarcely believe that this generation had daily before its eyes so many clear lessons on the easiest ways of remembering, and that it failed to profit by these lessons. So far behind our Advertisers have our Teachers lagged. The former generally succeed in interesting and teaching the public, and in impressing their ideas almost indelibly upon the minds and memories of the public. The latter frequently fail. Now, setting aside the consideration of what the Advertisements teach, and asking simply how they teach, we are likely to arrive at very interesting results, which will become very important results if once we realise that our various powers and faculties were given us to be used, and not to be left unused or even scorned. Thus our power of remembering by means of Rhythms and Rhymes was surely intended to be applied to all sorts of things that are worth remembering, and not merely to one small class of them. It has been the fashion to condemn all Systems of Memory as unnatural or even as positively ' low ' and degrading: it has been maintained practically, if not in so many words, that it is far better for the schoolboy to be the veriest parrot or phonograph, accurately reproducing his text-book or his teacher's words, with only the vaguest idea as to what they mean or how they can be applied, than for him to make use of any artificial 'aid to memory'. ' Memory -Systems', however different from one another they may be in their main characteristics or in their details, are all grouped together in a single class and labelled as rubbish or something worse than rubbish. But the learning by ' heart '-' heart ' forsooth !-the usually dull and often unreliable learning by ' heart ', the very treadmill of education, that must be one of the chief kinds of mental exercise ! I am speaking here particularly of the old-established English methods of Education. As the reader will start reading this book with an inevitable bias against it, I would ask him to be so kind as to listen to a few words first. I assure him, to begin with, that this book is not a mere collection of ' Systems ': ' Systems ' are included, it is true, and among these, it is true, there are ' Systems ' which can be, and frequently have been, most shamefully misused. But the careful reader will notice that these ' Systems ' come in the second places in the book; moreover he will notice that they are not all necessarily ' short cuts for the lazy '; and he will candidly admit that even short cuts are not always an unmitigated curse. PREFACE xiii I ask the reader to come to the book with a determination to hear at least a part of it before he decides against it: I ask him, for instance, to do me the favour of reading through the example worked out in Part II. (this shows the various Helps and * Systems ' actually at work), and the answers to objections, in Section XLVII.; then, if he will still go on, let him glance at the advantages of these methods and 'Systems', in Section XLIII. If he will have the boldness to use his reasoning powers freely and confidently, I think he will agree that some of the suggestions demand a fair trial as their right and due. Throughout the work I shall try to appeal to his intelligence and common sense and experience, rather than to the statements of any celebrated authority. I shall say to him, for instance: ' Does it help you to remember the shape of Italy when you see that it is like a booted leg stepping towards the left ? ' He will at once candidly admit that it does. ' But ', I shall say, ' why does this help you ? ' He will answer ' Because the booted leg is more familiar to me: it is a thing I know already '. ' Well then ', I shall say, ' is there any reason why you should confine to only a few instances this excellent method of remembering one thing by means of a second thing which is like it, and which is more familiar to you (see the System in Section XXV.) than the first