"The habit of committing our knowledge to writing, assists the memory, because, in writing, we detain certain ideas long enough in our view to perceive all their relations; we use fixed and abbreviated signs for all our thoughts; with the assistance of these, we can prevent confusion in our reasonings. We can, without fatigue, by the help of words, letters, figures, or algebraic signs, go through a variety of mental processes, and solve many difficult problems, which, without such assistance, must have been too extensive for our capacities.
"If our books be well chosen, and if we read with discrimination and attention, reading will improve the memory, because, as it increases our knowledge, it increases our interest in every new discovery, and in every new combination of ideas."
We agree entirely with Mr. Stewart in his observations upon technical helps to the memory; they are hurtful to the understanding, because they break the general habits of philosophic order in the mind. There is no connection of ideas between the memorial lines, for instance, in Grey's Memoria Technica, the history of the Kings or Emperors, and the dates that we wish to remember. However, it may be advantageous in education to use such contrivances, to assist our pupils in remembering those technical parts of knowledge, which are sometimes valued above their worth in society.
The facts upon which the principles of any science are founded, should never be learnt by rote in a technical manner. But the names and the dates of the reigns of a number of kings and emperors, if they must be remembered by children, should be learnt in the manner which may give them the least trouble.[47]
It is commonly asserted, that our memory is to be improved by exercise: exercise may be of different kinds, and we must determine what sort is best. Repetition is found to fix words, and sometimes ideas, strongly in the mind; the words of the burden of a song, which we have frequently heard, are easily and long remembered. When we want to get any thing by rote, we repeat it over and over again, till the sounds seem to follow one another habitually, and then we say we have them perfectly by rote.[48] The regular recurrence of sounds, at stated intervals, much assists us. In poetry, the rhymes, the cadence, the alliteration, the peculiar structure of the poet's lines, aids us. All these are mechanical helps to the memory. Repetition seems much more agreeable to some people than to others; but it may be doubted whether a facility and propensity to repetition be favourable to rational memory. Whilst we repeat, we exclude all thought from the mind; we form a habit of saying certain sounds in a certain order; but if this habit be afterwards broken by any trifling external circumstances, we lose all our labour. We have no means of recollecting what we have learned in this manner. Once gone, it is gone for ever. It depends but upon one principle of association. Those who exert ingenuity as well as memory in learning by heart, may not, perhaps, associate sounds with so much expedition, but they will have the power of recollection in a greater degree. They will have more chances in their favour, besides the great power of voluntary exertion: a power which few passive repeaters ever possess. The following lines are easily learned:
"Haste, then, ye spirits; to your charge repair,
The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care;
The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign,
And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine;
Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favourite lock,
Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock."
To a person who merely learned the sounds in these lines by rote, without knowing the sense of the words, all the advantage of the appropriated names and offices of the sylphs would be lost. No one, who has any sense of propriety, can call these sylphs by wrong names, or put them out of their places. Momentilla and the watch, Zephyretta and the fan, Crispissa and the lock of hair, Brillante and the diamond drops, are so intimately associated, that they necessarily recur together in the memory. The following celebrated lines on envy, some people will find easy, and others difficult, to learn by heart:
"Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue;
But, like a shadow, proves the substance true:
For envy'd wit, like Sol eclips'd, makes known
Th' opposing body's grossness, not its own.
When first that sun too pow'rful beams displays,
It draws up vapour, which obscures its rays;
But ev'n those clouds at last adorn its way,
Reflect new glories, and augment the day."
The flow of these lines is not particularly easy; those who trust merely to the power of reiteration in getting them by rote, will find the task difficult; those who seize the ideas, will necessarily recollect their order, and the sense will conduct them to their proper places with certainty: they cannot, for instance, make the clouds adorn the sun's rays before the sun's powerful beams have drawn up the vapours. This fixes the place of the four last lines. The simile of merit and the sun, and envy and the clouds, keeps each idea in its order; if any one escapes, it is easily missed, and easily recalled.