How the Memory is to be Trained: Mnemonics; Defects of; The True System.

During the middle ages and down to the beginning of the present century many books have appeared on the subject of mnemonics or artificial memory, but they are all more or less based on the method of the ancients. The memory system of the ancients depended on places and symbols. The places where such as could easily be seized upon and retained by the natural memory, as streets, buildings, rooms, furniture. The Prendergast system of teaching languages proceeds very much upon the plan the author advocate, except that it does not make the training of the ear a distinct process as we are inclined to do. Mr. Bidder attributed his wonderful power of mental calculation, and expressed a strong conviction that most children if taught in this way might achieve similar results. In learning by heart we usually attempt to master too much at once, and hence the impressions formed on the mind lack clearness and distinctness.