CHAPTER VII.

MEMORY CULTURE.

'Twas wisely said by Plato, when he called
Memory "the mother of the Intellect,"
For knowledge is to wisdom what his realm
Is to a monarch--that o'er which he rules;
And he who hath the Will can ever win
Such empire to himself--Will can do all.

There is nothing in which the might of the Will can be so clearly set
forth as in the _making_ of memory. By means of it, as is fully proved
by millions of examples, man can render his power of recollection
almost infinite. And lest the reader may think that I here exaggerate,
I distinctly assert that I never knew a man of science, familiar with
certain facts which I shall repeat, who ever denied its literal truth.

As I have already stated, there are two methods, and only two, by
means of which we can retain images, facts or ideas. One of these is
that which in many varied forms, which are all the same in fact, is
described in the old _Artes Memorandi_, or Arts of Memory. There are
several hundreds of these, and to the present day there are professors
who give instructions according to systems of the same kind. These are
all extremely plausible, being based on Association of ideas, and in
most cases the pupil makes great progress for a short time. Thus, we
can remember the French for bread, _pain_, Italian _Pane_, by thinking
of the pan in which bread is baked, or the difficult name of the
inventor, SSCZEPANIK (pronounced nearly _she-panic_) by thinking of a