CONTENTS:

The Connection of Ideas.

Condensing Facts.

Use of Homologues.

Feats with Figures.

A Simple Concordance.

Preparation and Memorization of Speeches.

Examination Hints.

Miscellaneous Examples.

The Connection of Ideas.

We have seen in the first lesson that no idea ever comes to the mind by itself, but is always recalled by some other idea, and that one of these must have been associated with the other when they entered the mind, or they would not return together.

This is only another way of saying that all knowledge is more or less intimately connected, and therefore all memory must be associated in the same way. The important thing is to establish the connection; to keep things classified, instead of leaving them lying round loose in our minds.

The moment that anything is brought to your attention which you know you will wish at some future time to recollect, you should compel your mind to act upon it, make it a perception, classify it, compare it with something you already know, make it blend with some idea which will always recall it.

An idea never comes back of itself, and it is never necessary that it should. You never want to recollect anything except in connection with something else.

• It is never necessary to remember a man’s name except in connection with the man.
• It is never necessary to recollect the price of anything except when you are thinking about that very thing.
• You never want to recall where you left your umbrella unless you first recollect the umbrella first.

In every case, without the possibility of an exception, one of the elements of the blended idea must be present in the consciousness, not only in order to recall the other, but in order that we shall be conscious that we want the other.

If you will think the matter over for a moment, you must admit that never, under any circumstances, have you tried to recollect anything which you have forgotten, except in connection with something that you remember distinctly.

The law of association which is at once the most rapid and reliable in its action is similarity, and it is the first one that should be applied to anything the pupil wishes to remember.

If he has conscientiously practised the exercises given in the preceding lessons, and has trained his mind to act under the control of the will, he will discover a great many cases in which he can find the elements of recollection in the things themselves, simply by the perception of a naturally-existing connection.

It is in the little things of life that the ability to remember without a note-book is the most useful. 

Suppose you are going to Fulton Street in Brooklyn, and ask where Association Hall is. You are told that it is on the corner of Bond Street. If your mind is well trained, the connection between "association" and "bond" must be self evident, and you should have no difficulty in recalling, even at some distance of time, that Association Hall is on the corner of Bond Street.

But if you have never trained your mind to act in the manner taught in these lessons, the similarity between the words "bond" and "association" might never occur to you, and by the time you had walked two or three blocks further, or had been interrupted by meeting a friend, you would probably have forgotten the name of the street.

Two men at the club look very much alike. One is named Weissmann and the other Gardner. Weissmann wears glasses, and you select the peculiarity to distinguish them, because there are two s’s in "Weissmann" and also in "eyeglass."

Two foreign words confuse you, and you can never recollect which is which. Let us suppose that they are the German words "unten" and "unter," one of which is an adverb, while the other is a preposition.

The only difference between the words themselves is in the final letters, "n" and "r."

Compare the alphabetical order of these final letters with the alpha-betical order of the initials of the words "adverb" and "preposition," and the agreement is at once apparent. In this case it is not the meaning of the words that you wish to fix, but their use.

There are many cases in which a knowledge of the meaning of the words is essential to the recollection of their use, as in the case of the rule in German grammar that conjunctions push the verb to the end of the sentence, "aber sondern und allein, oder denn," don’t push.

Unless you understand the meaning of these words, this very useful little sentence loses its force.

In an examination in geography, a little girl could never remember which mountain chain had the broader plateau, the Rockies or the Andes. When it was pointed out to her that there was an "n" in "Andes" and in "narrow," and none in "Rockies" or "broad," the idea was fixed.

The "Oxford" color is dark blue and the "Cambridge" is light blue. There is an "i" and also a "g" in "Cambridge" and in "light": there is neither in "Oxford" and in "dark."

To remember the difference between the complement and the supplement of an angle in geometry: the "complement" is what remains after subtracting from "one" right angle; the "supplement" is what remains after subtracting "two" right angles.

Observe that there is only one "p" in "complement," and that there are two in "supplement," which agrees with the number of right angles in each term.

More About Correlation.

It is a remarkable fact, proved by experience, that even if thousands of correlations are made and committed to memory, the intermediates pass into the unconscious stage, leaving the extremes connected by the law of contiguity.

But the pupil must be careful to master one correlation thoroughly before proceeding to the next one.

If you have a number of correlations to make, you may jot down the words you purpose using as intermediates, without committing them to memory at the time, and with a view to improving them later, but do not attempt to fix more than one correlation in the memory at a time.

When you have before you a task which requires you to recall a great number of these correlations in connection with the same object, an excellent plan is to write one extreme on a card, and on the back of the card write the other extreme, with the intermediates.

If all these cards are kept in a box, you can examine yourself on them by taking the cards out, one at a time, and seeing if you can recall what extreme is on the back of the card by looking at the face.

If you can, put it aside; if you fail, put it back in the box again among the others, and, when you come to it again, you will probably remember it.

When you can go through the whole box without putting any of them back you are perfect. Those wherein you fail more than once are probably bad correlations and want revising.

The same system of card examination will be found very useful in learning foreign languages. Write on the face of the card the verbs, beginning with the auxiliaries, and on the back write out the paradigm.

For instance: write in English on one side, I am, thou art, etc.; and on the other, Ich bin, du bist, etc. By going over a box of these cards once a day, the foreign words are soon fixed in the memory, and those you hesitate about, being put back in the box, are repeated more frequently.

It has been claimed that a correlation once made and committed to memory will never be forgotten, but such is not the case.

A person may commit to memory a great number of correlations for the purpose of mastering some specially difficult problem, examples of which will be given presently, but in the course of a year or two, if they are not occasionally revived and used, they will pass completely out of recollection, just as you may forget entirely the way from one place to another if you have not travelled it for many years.

The places of the unused correlations have been usurped by others; new combinations of brain cells have been built up, and the old ones have lost their power of association.

For some purposes it is fortunate that such is the case, because it is frequently necessary to forget the old order of things in order to remember a new order.

A pupil who had committed to memory the populations of all the towns in the United Kingdom according to the census of 1891, would find it very difficult to learn the census of 1901, and would be involved in continual confusion, if he could not forget the correlations by which he remembered the old census. The same is true of price lists, addresses, and many other things which are subject to change.