_a._ Walk slowly through a room with which you are not familiar. Then
make a list of all the contents of the room you can recall. Do this
every day for a week, using a different room each time. Do it not
half-heartedly, but as if your life depended on your ability to
remember. At the end of the week you will be surprised at the
improvement you have made.

_b._ As you walk along the street, observe all that occurs in a space of
one block, things heard as well as things seen. Two hours later make a
list of all you can recall. Do this twice a day for ten days. Then
compare results.

_c._ Make a practice of recounting each night the incidents of the day.
The prospect of having this to do will cause you unconsciously to
observe more attentively.

This is the method by which Thurlow Weed acquired his phenomenal memory.
As a young man with political ambitions he had been much troubled by
his inability to recall names and faces. So he began the practice each
night of telling his wife the most minute details of incidents that had
occurred during the day. He kept this up for fifty years, and it so
trained his powers of observation that he became as well known for his
unfailing memory as for his political adroitness.

_d._ Glance once at an outline map of some State. Put it out of sight
and draw one as nearly like it as you can. Then compare it with the
original. Do this frequently.

[Sidenote: _Invention and Thought-Memory_]