Thinking and learning to think

by Nathan Christ Schaeffer

“Some people have been intellectually damaged by having what is called a good memory. An unskilful teacher is content to put before children all they ought to learn, and to take care that they remember it; and so, though the memory is retentive, the mind is left in a passive state, and men wonder that he who was so quick at learning and remembering should not be an able man, which is as reasonable as to wonder that a cistern if filled should not be a perpetual fountain. Many men are saved by their deficiency of memory from being spoiled by an education; for those who have no extraordinary memory are driven to supply its place by thinking. If they do not remember a mathematical demonstration, they are driven to devise one. If they do not remember what Aristotle or Bacon said, they are driven to consider what they are likely to have said or ought to have said.”[26]

In his letter to a student who lamented his defective memory, P. C. Hamerton says that, so far from writing, as might be expected, a letter of condolence on a miserable memory, he felt disposed to write a letter of congratulation. “It is possible that you may be blessed with a selecting memory which is not only useful for what it retains, but also for what it rejects. In the immense mass of facts which come before you in literature and in life it is well that you should suffer as little bewilderment as possible. The nature of your memory saves you from this by unconsciously selecting what has interested you and letting the rest go by.”[27]

Analytical memory.

In the last quotation we get a hint of the form of memory which Latham styles the analytical. “The analytical memory is exercised when the mind furnishes a view of its own and thereby holds together a set of impressions selected out of a mass. Thus a barrister strings together the material facts of his case, and a lecturer those of his science by their bearing on what he wants to establish.”

Many thinkers sift everything they read, hear, and see. That which they do not need is rejected and forgotten. That which has a bearing upon their investigations is selected, retained, and utilized. As an aid in thinking a form of retention called the index memory is very helpful. The lawyer should know where to find such law as he does not carry in his head. Having found the required statute or judicial interpretation, he applies it to the case in hand. No sooner is a case finally decided or settled than he drops its details from his mind and directs his intellectual strength to the interests of the next client.

In this ability to sift, select, and reject, as the occasion demands, lies the secret of the success of many a public lecturer, of many a magazine writer. The men in the pulpit or upon the platform who lack this gift soon wear out; the public speedily detects when they have nothing more to give. The preparation of debates, speeches, essays, and theses trains these forms of memory. After the analytical habit has been formed, the student unconsciously, yet constantly, gathers, classifies, and stores materials for thought. The public are frequently surprised by the array of striking facts, interesting data, apt illustrations, and pleasing anecdotes with which he enlivens every topic of discussion and elucidates every subject of investigation.

Assimilative memory.

Higher than the analytical is the assimilative form of memory which “absorbs matter into the system so that the knowledge assimilated becomes a part of the person’s own self, like that of his name or of a familiar language.” The assimilation of knowledge has a parallel in the assimilation of food. The phrase that knowledge is the food of the mind has almost become classical in treatises on education. The figure of speech throws light upon the relative functions of memory and thinking in the acquisition and elaboration of knowledge. Before the food is set before the child it should be cooked and put into the most palatable form,—a parallel to the preparation of the lesson by the teacher so that he may put it before the learner in its most attractive form.

Before the food is swallowed it should be masticated, broken into parts,—a parallel to the act of analysis by which the chunks of knowledge are resolved into their elements and each set before the mind in the simplest form, in the form in which it can be grasped most easily.

Transformation of knowledge.