Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It

A good plan in developing this faculty is to visualize the faces of persons you have met during the day, in the evening. Try to develop the faculty of visualizing the features of those whom you know – this will start you off right. Draw them in your mind – see them with your mind's eye, until you can visualize the features of very old friends; then do the same with acquaintances, and so on, until you are able to visualize the features of every one you "know." Then start on to add to your list by recalling in the imagination, the features of strangers whom you meet. By a little practice of this kind you will develop a great interest in faces and your memory of them, and the power to recall them will increase rapidly. The secret is to study faces – to be interested in them. In this way you add zest to the task, and make a pleasure of a drudgery. The study of photographs is also a great aid in this work – but study them in detail, not as a whole. If you can arouse sufficient interest in features and faces, you will have no trouble in remembering and recalling them. The two things go together.

CHAPTER XIII

HOW TO REMEMBER PLACES

There is a great difference in the various degrees of development of "the sense of locality" in different persons. But these differences may be traced directly to the degree of memory of that particular phase or faculty of the mind, which in turn depends upon the degree of attention, interest, and use which has been bestowed upon the faculty in question. The authorities on phrenology define the faculty of "locality" as follows: "Cognizance of place; recollection of the looks of places, roads, scenery, and the location of objects; where on a page ideas are to be found, and position generally; the geographical faculty; the desire to see places, and have the ability to find them." Persons in whom this faculty is developed to the highest degree seem to have an almost intuitive idea of direction, place and position. They never get lost or "mixed up" regarding direction or place. They remember the places they visit and their relation in space to each other. Their minds are like maps upon which are engraved the various roads, streets and objects of sight in every direction. When these people think of China, Labrador, Terra del Fuego, Norway, Cape of Good Hope, Thibet, or any other place, they seem to think of it in "this direction or that direction" rather than as a vague place situated in a vague direction. Their minds think "north, south, east or west" as the case may be when they consider a given place. Shading down by degrees we find people at the other pole of the faculty who seem to find it impossible to remember any direction, or locality or relation in space. Such people are constantly losing themselves in their own towns, and fear to trust themselves in a strange place. They have no sense of direction, or place, and fail to recognize a street or scene which they have visited recently, not to speak of those which they traveled over in time past. Between these two poles or degrees there is a vast difference, and it is difficult to realize that it is all a matter of use, interest and attention. That it is but this may be proven by anyone who will take the trouble and pains to develop the faculty and memory of locality within his mind. Many have done this, and anyone else may do likewise if the proper methods be employed.

The secret of the development of the faculty and memory of place and locality is akin to that mentioned in the preceding chapter, in connection with the development of the memory for names. The first thing necessary is to develop an interest in the subject. One should begin to "take notice" of the direction of the streets or roads over which he travels; the landmarks; the turns of the road; the natural objects along the way. He should study maps, until he awakens a new interest in them, just as did the man who used the directory in order to take an interest in names. He should procure a small geography and study direction, distances, location, shape and form of countries, etc., not as a mere mechanical thing but as a live subject of interest. If there were a large sum of money awaiting your coming in certain sections of the globe, you would manifest a decided interest in the direction, locality and position of those places, and the best way to reach them. Before long you would be a veritable reference book regarding those special places. Or, if your sweetheart were waiting for you in some such place, you would do likewise. The whole thing lies in the degree of "want to" regarding the matter. Desire awakens interest; interest employs attention; and attention brings use, development and memory. Therefore you must first want to develop the faculty of Locality – and want to "hard enough." The rest is a mere matter of detail.

One of the first things to do, after arousing an interest, is to carefully note the landmarks and relative positions of the streets or roads over which you travel. So many people travel along a new street or road in an absent-minded manner, taking no notice of the lay of the land as they proceed. This is fatal to place-memory. You must take notice of the thoroughfares and the things along the way. Pause at the cross roads, or the street-corners and note the landmarks, and the general directions and relative positions, until they are firmly imprinted on your mind. Begin to see how many things you can remember regarding even a little exercise walk. And when you have returned home, go over the trip in your mind, and see how much of the direction and how many of the landmarks you are able to remember. Take out your pencil, and endeavor to make a map of your route, giving the general directions, and noting the street names, and principal objects of interest. Fix the idea of "North" in your mind when starting, and keep your bearings by it during your whole trip, and in your map making. You will be surprised how much interest you will soon develop in this map-making. It will get to be quite a game, and you will experience pleasure in your increasing proficiency in it. When you go out for a walk, go in a round-about way, taking as many turns and twists as possible, in order to exercise your faculty of locality and direction – but always note carefully direction and general course, so that you may reproduce it correctly on your map when you return. If you have a city map, compare it with your own little map, and also re-trace your route, in imagination, on the map. With a city map, or road-map, you may get lots of amusement by re-traveling the route of your little journeys.

Always note the names of the various streets over which you travel, as well as those which you cross during your walk. Note them down upon your map, and you will find that you will develop a rapidly improving memory in this direction – because you have awakened interest and bestowed attention. Take a pride in your map making. If you have a companion, endeavor to beat each other at this game – both traveling over the same route together, and then seeing which one can remember the greatest number of details of the journey.

Akin to this, and supplementary to it, is the plan of selecting a route to be traveled, on your city map, endeavoring to fix in your mind the general directions, names of streets, turns, return journey, etc., before you start. Begin by mapping out a short trip in this way, and then increase it every day. After mapping out a trip, lay aside your map and travel it in person. If you like, take along the map and puzzle out variations, from time to time. Get the map habit in every possible variation and form, but do not depend upon the map exclusively; but instead, endeavor to correlate the printed map with the mental map that you are building in your brain.

If you are about to take a journey to a strange place, study your maps carefully before you go, and exercise your memory in reproducing them with a pencil. Then as you travel along, compare places with your map, and you will find that you will take an entirely new interest in the trip – it will begin by meaning something to you. If about to visit a strange city, procure a map of it before starting, and begin by noting the cardinal points of the compass, study the map – the directions of the principal streets and the relative positions of the principal points of interest, buildings, etc. In this way you not only develop your memory of places, and render yourself proof against being lost, but you also provide a source of new and great interest in your visit.

The above suggestions are capable of the greatest expansion and variation on the part of anyone who practices them. The whole thing depends upon the "taking notice" and using the attention, and those things in turn depend upon the taking of interest in the subject. If anyone will "wake up and take interest" in the subject of locality and direction he may develop himself along the lines of place-memory to an almost incredible degree, in a comparatively short time at that. There is no other phase of memory that so quickly responds to use and exercise as this one. We have in mind a lady who was notoriously deficient in the memory of place, and was sure to lose herself a few blocks from her stopping place, wherever she might be. She seemed absolutely devoid of the sense of direction or locality and often lost herself in the hotel corridors, notwithstanding the fact that she traveled all over the world, with her husband, for years. The trouble undoubtedly arose from the fact that she depended altogether upon her husband as a pilot, the couple being inseparable. Well, the husband died, and the lady lost her pilot. Instead of giving up in despair, she began to rise to the occasion – having no pilot, she had to pilot herself. And she was forced to "wake up and take notice." She was compelled to travel for a couple of years, in order to close up certain business matters of her husband's – for she was a good business woman in spite of her lack of development along this one line – and in order to get around safely, she was forced to take an interest in where she was going. Before the two years' travels were over, she was as good a traveler as her husband had ever been, and was frequently called upon as a guide by others in whose company she chanced to be. She explained it by saying "Why, I don't know just how I did it – I just had to, that's all – I just did it." Another example of a woman's "because," you see. What this good lady "just did," was accomplished by an instinctive following of the plan which we have suggested to you. She "just had to" use maps and to "take notice." That is the whole story.

So true are the principles underlying this method of developing the place-memory, that one deficient in it, providing he will arouse intense interest and will stick to it, may develop the faculty to such an extent that he may almost rival the cat which "always came back," or the dog which "you couldn't lose." The Indians, Arabs, Gypsies and other people of the plain, forest, desert, and mountains, have this faculty so highly developed that it seems almost like an extra sense. It is all this matter of "taking notice" sharpened by continuous need, use and exercise, to a high degree. The mind will respond to the need if the person like the lady, "just has to." The laws of Attention and Association will work wonders when actively called into play by Interest or need, followed by exercise and use. There is no magic in the process – just "want to" and "keep at it," that's all. Do you want to hard enough – have you the determination to keep at it?

CHAPTER XIV

HOW TO REMEMBER NUMBERS

The faculty of Number – that is the faculty of knowing, recognizing and remembering figures in the abstract and in their relation to each other, differs very materially among different individuals. To some, figures and numbers are apprehended and remembered with ease, while to others they possess no interest, attraction or affinity, and consequently are not apt to be remembered. It is generally admitted by the best authorities that the memorizing of dates, figures, numbers, etc., is the most difficult of any of the phases of memory. But all agree that the faculty may be developed by practice and interest. There have been instances of persons having this faculty of the mind developed to a degree almost incredible; and other instances of persons having started with an aversion to figures and then developing an interest which resulted in their acquiring a remarkable degree of proficiency along these lines.

Many of the celebrated mathematicians and astronomers developed wonderful memories for figures. Herschel is said to have been able to remember all the details of intricate calculations in his astronomical computations, even to the figures of the fractions. It is said that he was able to perform the most intricate calculations mentally, without the use of pen or pencil, and then dictated to his assistant the entire details of the process, including the final results. Tycho Brahe, the astronomer, also possessed a similar memory. It is said that he rebelled at being compelled to refer to the printed tables of square roots and cube roots, and set to work to memorize the entire set of tables, which almost incredible task he accomplished in a half day – this required the memorizing of over 75,000 figures, and their relations to each other. Euler the mathematician became blind in his old age, and being unable to refer to his tables, memorized them. It is said that he was able to repeat from recollection the first six powers of all the numbers from one to one hundred.

Wallis the mathematician was a prodigy in this respect. He is reported to have been able to mentally extract the square root of a number to forty decimal places, and on one occasion mentally extracted the cube root of a number consisting of thirty figures. Dase is said to have mentally multiplied two numbers of one hundred figures each. A youth named Mangiamele was able to perform the most remarkable feats in mental arithmetic. The reports show that upon a celebrated test before members of the French Academy of Sciences he was able to extract the cube root of 3,796,416 in thirty seconds; and the tenth root of 282,475,289 in three minutes. He also immediately solved the following question put to him by Arago: "What number has the following proportion: That if five times the number be subtracted from the cube plus five times the square of the number, and nine times the square of the number be subtracted from that result, the remainder will be 0?" The answer, "5" was given immediately, without putting down a figure on paper or board. It is related that a cashier of a Chicago bank was able to mentally restore the accounts of the bank, which had been destroyed in the great fire in that city, and his account which was accepted by the bank and the depositors, was found to agree perfectly with the other memoranda in the case, the work performed by him being solely the work of his memory.

Bidder was able to tell instantly the number of farthings in the sum of £868, 42s, 121d. Buxton mentally calculated the number of cubical eighths of an inch there were in a quadrangular mass 23,145,789 yards long, 2,642,732 yards wide and 54,965 yards in thickness. He also figured out mentally, the dimensions of an irregular estate of about a thousand acres, giving the contents in acres and perches, then reducing them to square inches, and then reducing them to square hair-breadths, estimating 2,304 to the square inch, 48 to each side. The mathematical prodigy, Zerah Colburn, was perhaps the most remarkable of any of these remarkable people. When a mere child, he began to develop the most amazing qualities of mind regarding figures. He was able to instantly make the mental calculation of the exact number of seconds or minutes there was in a given time. On one occasion he calculated the number of minutes and seconds contained in forty-eight years, the answer: "25,228,800 minutes, and 1,513,728,000 seconds," being given almost instantaneously. He could instantly multiply any number of one to three figures, by another number consisting of the same number of figures; the factors of any number consisting of six or seven figures; the square, and cube roots, and the prime numbers of any numbers given him. He mentally raised the number 8, progressively, to its sixteenth power, the result being 281,474,976,710,656; and gave the square root of 106,929, which was 5. He mentally extracted the cube root of 268,336,125; and the squares of 244,999,755 and 1,224,998,755. In five seconds he calculated the cube root of 413,993,348,677. He found the factors of 4,294,967,297, which had previously been considered to be a prime number. He mentally calculated the square of 999,999, which is 999,998,000,001 and then multiplied that number by 49, and the product by the same number, and the whole by 25 – the latter as extra measure.

The great difficulty in remembering numbers, to the majority of persons, is the fact that numbers "do not mean anything to them" – that is, that numbers are thought of only in their abstract phase and nature, and are consequently far more difficult to remember than are impressions received from the senses of sight or sound. The remedy, however, becomes apparent when we recognize the source of the difficulty. The remedy is: Make the number the subject of sound and sight impressions. Attach the abstract idea of the numbers to the sense of impressions of sight or sound, or both, according to which are the best developed in your particular case. It may be difficult for you to remember "1848" as an abstract thing, but comparatively easy for you to remember the sound of "eighteen forty-eight," or the shape and appearance of "1848." If you will repeat a number to yourself, so that you grasp the sound impression of it, or else visualize it so that you can remember having seen it – then you will be far more apt to remember it than if you merely think of it without reference to sound or form. You may forget that the number of a certain store or house is 3948, but you may easily remember the sound of the spoken words "thirty-nine forty-eight," or the form of "3948" as it appeared to your sight on the door of the place. In the latter case, you associate the number with the door and when you visualize the door you visualize the number.

Kay, speaking of visualization, or the reproduction of mental images of things to be remembered, says: "Those who have been distinguished for their power to carry out long and intricate processes of mental calculation owe it to the same cause." Taine says: "Children accustomed to calculate in their heads write mentally with chalk on an imaginary board the figures in question, then all their partial operations, then the final sum, so that they see internally the different lines of white figures with which they are concerned. Young Colburn, who had never been at school and did not know how to read or write, said that, when making his calculations 'he saw them clearly before him.' Another said that he 'saw the numbers he was working with as if they had been written on a slate.'" Bidder said: "If I perform a sum mentally, it always proceeds in a visible form in my mind; indeed, I can conceive of no other way possible of doing mental arithmetic."

We have known office boys who could never remember the number of an address until it were distinctly repeated to them several times – then they memorized the sound and never forget it. Others forget the sounds, or failed to register them in the mind, but after once seeing the number on the door of an office or store, could repeat it at a moments notice, saying that they mentally "could see the figures on the door." You will find by a little questioning that the majority of people remember figures or numbers in this way, and that very few can remember them as abstract things. For that matter it is difficult for the majority of persons to even think of a number, abstractly. Try it yourself, and ascertain whether you do not remember the number as either a sound of words, or else as the mental image or visualization of the form of the figures. And, by the way, which ever it happens to be, sight or sound, that particular kind of remembrance is your best way of remembering numbers, and consequently gives you the lines upon which you should proceed to develop this phase of memory.

The law of Association may be used advantageously in memorizing numbers; for instance we know of a person who remembered the number 186,000 (the number of miles per second traveled by light-waves in the ether) by associating it with the number of his father's former place of business, "186." Another remembered his telephone number "1876" by recalling the date of the Declaration of Independence. Another, the number of States in the Union, by associating it with the last two figures of the number of his place of business. But by far the better way to memorize dates, special numbers connected with events, etc., is to visualize the picture of the event with the picture of the date or number, thus combining the two things into a mental picture, the association of which will be preserved when the picture is recalled. Verse of doggerel, such as "In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue;" or "In eighteen hundred and sixty-one, our country's Civil war begun," etc., have their places and uses. But it is far better to cultivate the "sight or sound" of a number, than to depend upon cumbersome associative methods based on artificial links and pegs.

Finally, as we have said in the preceding chapters, before one can develop a good memory of a subject, he must first cultivate an interest in that subject. Therefore, if you will keep your interest in figures alive by working out a few problems in mathematics, once in a while, you will find that figures will begin to have a new interest for you. A little elementary arithmetic, used with interest, will do more to start you on the road to "How to Remember Numbers" than a dozen text books on the subject. In memory, the three rules are: "Interest, Attention and Exercise" – and the last is the most important, for without it the others fail. You will be surprised to see how many interesting things there are in figures, as you proceed. The task of going over the elementary arithmetic will not be nearly so "dry" as when you were a child. You will uncover all sorts of "queer" things in relation to numbers. Just as a "sample" let us call your attention to a few:

Take the figure "1" and place behind it a number of "naughts," thus: 1,000,000,000,000, – as many "naughts" or ciphers as you wish. Then divide the number by the figure "7." You will find that the result is always this "142,857" then another "142,857," and so on to infinity, if you wish to carry the calculation that far. These six figures will be repeated over and over again. Then multiply this "142,857" by the figure "7," and your product will be all nines. Then take any number, and set it down, placing beneath it a reversal of itself and subtract the latter from the former, thus:

117,761,90990,916,77126,845,138

and you will find that the result will always reduce to nine, and is always a multiple of 9. Take any number composed of two or more figures, and subtract from it the added sum of its separate figures, and the result is always a multiple of 9, thus:

1841 + 8 + 4 = 13171 ÷ 9 = 19

We mention these familiar examples merely to remind you that there is much more of interest in mere figures than many would suppose. If you can arouse your interest in them, then you will be well started on the road to the memorizing of numbers. Let figures and numbers "mean something" to you, and the rest will be merely a matter of detail.

CHAPTER XV

HOW TO REMEMBER MUSIC

Like all of the other faculties of the mind, that of music or tune is manifested in varying degrees by different individuals. To some music seems to be almost instinctively grasped, while to others it is acquired only by great effort and much labor. To some harmony is natural, and inharmony a matter of repulsion, while others fail to recognize the difference between the two except in extreme cases. Some seem to be the very soul of music, while others have no conception of what the soul of music may be. Then there is manifested the different phases of the knowledge of music. Some play correctly by ear, but are clumsy and inefficient when it comes to playing by note. Others play very correctly in a mechanical manner, but fail to retain the memory of music which they have heard. It is indeed a good musician who combines within himself, or herself, both of the two last mentioned faculties – the ear perception of music and the ability to execute correctly from notes.