A Book for All Readers / An Aid to the Collection, Use, and Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private Libraries

by Ainsworth Rand Spofford

So vital and important is memory, that it has been justly denominated by the German philosopher, Kant, "the most wonderful of our faculties." Without it, the words of a book would be unintelligible to us, since it is memory alone which furnishes us with the several meanings to be attached to them.

Some writers on the science of mind assert that there is no such thing with any of us as absolutely forgetting anything that has once been in the mind. All mental activities, all knowledge which ever existed, persists. We never wholly lose them, but they become faint and obscure. One mental image effaces another. But those which have thus disappeared may be recalled by an act of reminiscence. While it may sometimes be impossible to recover one of them at the moment when wanted, by an act of voluntary recollection, some association may bring it unexpectedly and vividly before us. Memory plays us many strange tricks, both when we wake and when we dream. It revives, by an involuntary process, an infinite variety of past scenes, faces, events, ideas, emotions, passions, conversations, and written or printed pages, all of which we may have fancied had passed forever from our consciousness.

The aids to memory supposed to be furnished by the various mnemonic systems may now be briefly considered. These methods of supplying the defects of a naturally weak memory, or of strengthening a fairly good one, are one and all artificial. This might not be a conclusive objection to them, were they really effective and permanent helps, enabling one who has learned them to recall with certainty ideas, names, dates, and events which he is unable to recall by other means. Theory apart, it is conceded that a system of memorizing which had proved widely or generally successful in making a good memory out of a poor one, would deserve much credit. But experience with these systems has as yet failed to show, by the stern test of practical utility, that they can give substantial (and still less permanent) aid in curing the defects of memory. Most of the systems of mnemonics that have been invented are constructed on the principle of locality, or of utilizing objects which appeal to the sight. There is nothing new in these methods, for the principle is as old as Simonides, who lived in the fifth century before Christ, and who devised a system of memorizing by locality. One of the most prevalent systems now taught is to select a number of rooms in a house (in the mind's eye, of course) and divide the walls and the floors of each room into nine equal parts or squares, three in a row. Then

"On the front wall—that opposite the entrance of the first room—are the units, on the right-hand wall the tens, on the left hand the twenties, on the fourth wall the thirties, and on the floor the forties. Numbers 10, 20, 30, and 40, each find a place on the roof above their respective walls. One room will thus furnish 50 places, and ten rooms as many as 500, while 50 occupies the centre of the roof. Having fixed these clearly in the mind, so as to be able readily and at once to tell the exact position of each place or number, it is then necessary to associate with each of them some familiar object (or symbol) so that the object being suggested, its place may be instantly remembered, or when the place is before the mind, its object may immediately spring up. When this has been done thoroughly, the objects can be run over in any order from beginning to end, or from end to beginning, or the place of any particular one can at once be given. All that is further necessary is to associate the ideas we wish to remember with the objects in the various places, by which means they are readily remembered, and can be gone over in any order. In this way, one may learn to repeat several hundred disconnected words or ideas in any order, after hearing them only once."

This rather complicated machinery for aiding the memory is quite too mechanical to commend itself to any one accustomed to reflect or to take note of his own mental processes. Such an elaborate system crowds the mind with a lot of useless furniture, and hinders rather than helps a rational and straightforward habit of memorizing. It too much resembles the feat of trying to jump over a wall by running back a hundred or more yards to acquire a good start or momentum. The very complication of the system is fitted to puzzle rather than to aid the memory. It is based on mechanical or arithmetical associations—not founded on nature, and is of very small practical utility. It does not strengthen or improve the habit of memorizing, which should always be based upon close attention, and a logical method of classifying, associating, and analyzing facts or ideas.

Lord Bacon, more than two centuries ago, wisely characterized mnemonic systems as "barren and useless." He wrote, "For immediately to repeat a multitude of names or words once repeated before, I esteem no more than rope-dancing, antic postures, and feats of activity; and, indeed, they are nearly the same thing, the one being the abuse of the bodily, as the other is of mental powers; and though they may cause admiration, they cannot be highly esteemed."

In fact, these mnemonical systems are only a kind of crutches, sometimes useful to people who cannot walk, but actual impediments to those having the use of their limbs, and who by proper exercise can maintain their healthy and natural use indefinitely.

I have given you an account of one of these artificial systems of memory, or systems of artificial memory, as you may choose to call them. There have been invented more than one hundred different systems of mnemonics, all professing to be invaluable, and some claiming to be infallible. It appears to be a fatal objection to these memory-systems that they substitute a wholly artificial association of ideas for a natural one. The habit of looking for accidental or arbitrary relations of names and things is cultivated, and the power of logical, spontaneous thought is injured by neglecting essential for unessential relations. These artificial associations of ideas work endless mischief by crowding out the natural ones.

How then, you may ask, is a weak memory to be strengthened, or a fairly good memory to be cultivated into a better one? The answer is, by constant practice, and for this the vocation of a librarian furnishes far more opportunities than any other. At the basis of this practice of the memory, lies the habit of attention. All memory depends upon the strength or vividness of the impression made upon the mind, by the object, the name, the word, the date, which is sought to be remembered. And this, in turn, depends on the degree of attention with which it was first regarded. If the attention was so fixed that a clear mental image was formed, there will be no difficulty in remembering it again. If, on the other hand, you were inattentive, or listless, or pre-occupied with other thoughts, when you encountered the object, your impression of it would be hazy and indistinct, and no effort of memory would be likely to recall it.

Attention has been defined as the fixing of the mind intently upon one particular object, to the exclusion for a time, of all other objects soliciting notice. It is essential to those who would have a good memory, to cultivate assiduously the habit of concentration of thought. As the scattering shot hits no mark, so the scattering and random thoughts that sweep through an unoccupied brain lead to no memorable result, simply from want of attention or of fixation upon some one mental vision or idea. With your attention fastened upon any subject or object, you see it more clearly, and it impresses itself more vividly in the memory, as a natural consequence. Not only so, but its related objects or ideas are brought up by the principle of association, and they too make a deeper impression and are more closely remembered. In fact, one thing carefully observed and memorized, leads almost insensibly to another that is related to it, and thus the faculty of association is strengthened, the memory is stimulated, and the seeds of knowledge are deeply planted in that complex organism which we call the mind. This power of attention, of keeping an object or a subject steadily in view until it is absorbed or mastered, is held by some to be the most distinctive element in genius. Most people have not this habit of concentration of the mind, but allow it to wander aimlessly on, flitting from subject to subject, without mastering any; but then, most people are not geniuses. The habit to be cultivated is that of thinking persistently of only one thing at a time, sternly preventing the attention from wandering.