To make this fad interesting, the mere commitment to memory of facts and
dates will not suffice. Items of history thus acquired will inevitably
fade. The conscientious but ill-advised student who attempts to commit
the "Epitome" to memory will fall by the way-side. Time is not wasted in
dwelling sufficiently long on one subject to feel a sense of ownership in
it, and there is opportunity for the exercise of individual ingenuity in
devising means to accomplish this end. If one has the knack, for
example, of writing nonsense verse (and this is a talent all too easy of
cultivation) it will aid him in fixing by rhyme names and dates otherwise
difficult to master, thus:

"Ten sixty-six is a date you must fix;" or "Drake was not late in fifteen
eighty-eight."

The study of music, history, trees, flowers, or birds doubtless seems of
trivial interest to one who occupies his leisure hours with such weighty
problems as figuring out how rich he would have been to-day if he had
bought Bell Telephone at 15, but such study is far more restful, and in the
long run quite as useful for the over-busy man.

It is not necessary to devote an enormous amount of time to such pursuits.
One has only to purchase Miss Huntington's "Studies of Trees in Winter"
and learn the trees in his own doorway, or upon his street, to awaken an
interest that will serve him in good stead upon a railroad journey, or
during an otherwise monotonous sojourn in the country. A walk around the
block before dinner with such an object in view is more restful than
pondering in one's easy-chair over the fluctuations of the stock market,
and the man who is "too busy" for such mental relaxation is paving the way
for ultimate, perhaps early, breakdown.