April, June and November,
All the rest have thirty-one
Save February which alone
[18]Has twenty-eight, and one day more
We add to it one year in four.
In like manner how do we remember the order of the prime colors? Few there are who do not know the coined word, made from the initial letters of Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red—Vibgyor. Again, the student of geology, who forgets the order of his great epochs or eras, might recall them by formulating a sentence that presents the initial letters of the names of these epochs. Thus, “Careful men pay easily,” suggests Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, Eozoic. Of course no one of common sense presumes to assert that these constructive thought-links are any other than crutches, footbridges over streams too wide to stride or jump unaided. They should frankly be recognized as such, and only reverted to in case of necessity, or as a last resort. But it is equally foolish in view of the testimony of their almost universal usage and helpfulness, to deny that they are an aid to most memories.
Think of the Impressions
To “think of the impressions.” This is the final admonition of Stokes’s golden rule of memory. One word conveys his idea—review. The things to be remembered must be thought over. They must be re-collected—again collected. You will thus re-observe them, re-reflect upon them, re-strengthen your original mental impressions and the ideas that have grown around them. Experience demonstrates that all memory impressions are lasting. One may have forgotten something for twenty, thirty, forty years, when suddenly a chance word, sound, sight, or even odor, will recall it with an intensity and reality that are startling. All works on mental philosophy give illustrations of this asserted fact. The practical need of all men, however, is to cultivate the ability to call up mental impressions at will.
Ready recollection is the great desideratum. Hidden knowledge is of slight use. It is as if one had a fortune stored away in some hidden dungeon, carefully locked up, but he had lost the key. Availability, readiness, promptness are essentials to efficiency. The hat-boy at the hotel dining-room would be useless did his memory not act promptly, instantly. To-morrow will not do. Now is the accepted time.