LESSON I

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

It is important at the outset to understand just what memory is and what is aimed at in its development, for unless we know where we are going, we shall be like the man in the song, "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way."

A very good definition of memory is the one given by the Century Dictionary: "The mental capacity of retaining unconscious traces of conscious impressions or states, and of recalling these traces to consciousness with the attendant perception that they (or their objects) have a certain relation to the past.'

Locke's definition is also good: "The power to revive again in our minds those ideas which, after imprinting, have disappeared, or have been, as it were, laid aside out of sight, is memory.' In other words, memory is the knowledge of a fact or event which, having disappeared from consciousness, at a later time reappears, together with the additional consciousness that we have thought or experienced it before.

Since the quality and quantity of brain tissue in a given person remains practically fixed, it follows that no system of memory training can enlarge what may be called the

The

native retentiveness of the individual. advancement must come in mental habits and in methods of learning; these are capable of almost unlimited improvement. Many bad memories are merely bad habits.

Your body is controlled by your nervous system, comprising brain, spinal cord, and branches extending to every part of the body. It is now an accepted principle in science that the brain may be regarded as a storage-battery, storing a form of energy in many respects like electricity, but which may be called. nervous energy. Every activity of the body requires energy, and this energy is supplied from the brain storage-battery. Not the

slightest activity of any part of the body can take place unless energy is sent to that part over the nerves, which may be compared to the wires going out from a central power station and carrying electrical energy to all parts of a city. When nervous energy arrives at a muscle it is transformed into motion-a process corresponding to the transformation into motion of the electrical energy arriving in a motor over the wires from the power-house.

Every purposeful act of life which is repeated at greater or less intervals is a habit, formed by the nervous current flowing repeatedly through a certain series of nerve wires and meeting with less resistance to its flow each time. The process may be very roughly illustrated in this way: if you walk across a freshly plowed field, there is consid

erable resistance to your passage the first time; but if you repeatedly walk over the same course, a path is soon formed which makes walking easy. Any act of mind or body which you repeat from time to time wears a path, so to speak, in your nervous system, and thus forms a habit. It is easily seen from this that you must have habits, whether you want them or not; you cannot escape them. Whether the habits you have are to be a help to your progress and your achievement, or whether they are to be the reverse, depends on you. You can make of yourself what you will, by directing your habit formation. Form habits of remembering, and you will have a good memory. If you have formed wrong habits. and you want to get rid of them, you have a difficult task; but will-power and perseverance can accomplish it. Form right habits of study, of work, of play, of all the various activities of life, and you can attain any goal within reason that you may set for yourself.

These lessons give you methods for remembering. The first time you try to apply any particular method, you may find it hard, for you are forcing nerve currents over paths they have never traveled before. Keep at it; each repetition wears the path smoother and makes the method easier. Once the habit of remembering is established, it becomes as easy as not remembering.

Our knowledge comes to us through the senses. Each thing that we learn ar

rives in the brain through one or more of these five channels, or paths: Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or feeling. Of these, the first two bring us the greater part of our intellectual knowledge.

Some persons remember best the things they see; such persons are said to have the visual type of memory. Others remember better the things they hear; these are said to have good auditory memory. In some persons the relative activity of the two types is about even. In addition to these types of memory, there is still another in which the mind retains its impressions best when the person either speaks aloud or writes the information which is to be memorized. is known as the motor type of memory.

This

In beginning the development of the memory, you should discover as soon as possible whether your memory is predominantly visual or auditory. One of the best ways to go about this is to review in your mind a number of facts which you have acquired in the past few weeks or months, and in each case. try to recall whether you first acquired the fact through your eyes or through your ears. Given facts of as nearly as possible the same comparative importance, the method of acquisition which has the greatest number of facts to its credit, is the one which is best developed in you.

Another method of determining this point, and one which will give an indication of the