The actor should have correlated the word “Numitorius,” which he could not remember, to the word “Uncle” as the BEST KNOWN that preceded it, which he could remember, or to his “cue” the word “Question” thus:

Had the actor memorised either of these Correlations, he would not have forgotten Numitorius in his performance. In all similar cases mere In. by sound, like the word “Numbers” which Macready proposed, and which is really not a genuine In. by sound, is of little service to a poor memory. A Correlation would have been much better.

To any conceivable “Isolated Fact” you can find a Best Known to which you can correlate it, and thereby always have it at command. This is true, even in cases of anticipatory memory. Instead of tying a string round your finger to remind you to buy something when you get to the bazaar, and when you get there forgetting to notice the string or forgetting what the string was intended to remind you of, correlate the name of what you wish to purchase to the name of something you are sure to think of at the place you are going to, and memorise the Correlation. When you see the Best Known, the thing you correlated to it will at once occur to mind. I will add only one more illustration:—A commercial traveller was in the habit of putting his watch under his pillow, and also in the habit of forgetting‌ that he put it there! After losing two watches in this way, he came to me to improve his memory, and asked me if my System could aid him to think of his watch and where he had put it. “Infallibly,” I replied, “if there is anything you can mention which you are certain to think of when you get up, such as boots, trousers, hat, &c.” “There is one thing,” he rejoined, “I am more certain to think of than any article of clothing. I always think what a shame it is I have to get up.” “Well, you are sure to think of the words ‘get up;’ that then is your Best Known. Correlate the word ‘watch’ to it … thus: ‘GET UP’—Spring up—Watch Spring—WATCH.” After a tour of four months he reported he had always thought of his watch the moment he awoke.

SPEAKING WITHOUT WRITTEN OR PRINTED NOTES.

After the clergyman has decided on his text, or the speaker on any subject he has selected for his special topic, the next step is to think it out—to make his plan—his mode of development of his ideas—their order and sequence, illustrations, &c. All this will constitute an outline—the SKELETON OF THE DISCOURSE. This should usually be committed to paper. If he possesses the requisite command of language to enable him to express his views, all he now requires to do is to thoroughly memorise this Skeleton.

When this is done, the orator will have no occasion to have any notes before him to refer to, and thereby to remind his audience that he is merely rehearsing fervour a week or more old; but, having the exact order of ideas in his memory, he can proceed to speak on each successive topic until he has exhausted all the points and illustrations that he had intended to use.

A young clergyman is very apt to imagine that he will correlate together 20 to 100 propositions in every discourse—a theoretical conjecture never verified in fact. In practice, he will find that he will very rarely correlate more than ten propositions together, and he will correlate sub-propositions, citations, or illustrations to the respective propositions‌ to which they belong. Instead of correlations, he may unite his propositions together by analysis. Each person will manage this matter as he finds most convenient to himself; or, if he desires to literally memorise his discourses, he can do so in the manner pointed out in learning sentences, or by two or three careful perusals. But, by one who speaks without notes is generally understood one who has only memorised his leading ideas, and it is always a judicious practice for a beginner to rehearse his leading topics and their amplifications in private, that he may test his memory, and then become familiar with a procedure in private in order to be sure to be perfect in it before the public. This private discipline is all the more necessary in the early stages of extempore speaking—if the speaker is at all troubled by nervous anxieties or mind-wandering.

Suppose a teacher of the Art of Expression has studied Moses True Brown’s [see his Synthetic Philosophy of Expression] reduction of Delsarte’s Nine Laws of Gesture to Brown’s One Law of Correspondence—and suppose this teacher wishes to explain to his class, or to an audience, how Mr. Brown proceeded. If he desires to do this without notes, he must memorise the order of those Nine Laws; they are abstractly stated and difficult to correlate, but it can be done. The Laws are as follows:—