air, set before you an imaginary target and direct the voice toward it, raising and lowering the target as you desire to raise and lower the tone. Remember to think the voice out, as you can get it out no other way.

HOW TO STRENGTHEN THE MEMORY

If any one ask me what is the only and great art of memory, I shall say it is exercise and labor. To learn much by heart, to meditate much, and, if possible, daily, are the most efficacious of all methods. Nothing is so much strengthened by practice or weakened by neglect as memory.

-QUINTILIAN

These words, uttered by the scholarly rhetorician of Rome during the first century of the Christian era, are as true today as when they were first spoken. Application, concentration, association, opposition, and use are the principal means for the effectual training and strengthening of the memory. Many systems have been devised for memory training, but none of them is of more than superficial use, the majority making it more difficult to remember the means whereby the thought is to be recalled than to remember the thought itself. They are cumbersome, burdensome, and unworkable. Loisette, in his much exploited system, Assimilative Memory, advises paying particular attention to the location of figures in order to remember them, and he cites the following example:

'Pike's Peak, the most famous in the chain known as the Rocky Mountains in America, is fourteen thousand one

hundred and forty-seven feet high.. .. There are two fourteens in these figures, and the last figure is half of fourteen." This is all very well in this particular instance of Pike's Peak, but what are we to do with mountains that are ten thousand and eighty-five feet, seven thousand and fortynine feet, or five thousand six hundred and fifty-one feet in height? The specific case works out nicely, but the general case cannot be worked out at all.

It is the object of this work to show how to do things and not to controvert the advice given by other authors, its mission being constructive and not destructive, therefore nothing further will be said regarding the Loisette or any other system of memory training; but specific advice will be given regarding the best way of laying hold of and retaining what enters the mind.

Application is one means of strengthening the memory. Whatever you desire to retain, be sure you apply your mind to it until you have it firmly impressed thereon. Do not merely see or hear a fact and then permit it to pass into forgetfulness; but, if you wish to retain it, apply your thought to it, think deeply and strongly on it, on all the circumstances pertaining to it, and then pass it into the chamber of memory, there to repose until you desire to awaken it. Study it carefully before putting it

away.

Concentration is another valuable adjunct in memory training. Focus all your mental power upon the thing, person, or theme you wish to remember. Bear all your mental heat upon the one spot, and you will be able to

burn through whatever keeps your object from you, and after having once been perceived in this manner by the mental eye that object will never be forgotten.

A lawyer may be examining a witness and ask that witness if he remembers seeing John Smith on a certain occasion. The witness may say he has no recollection of having done so. The lawyer may say, "Do you not remember that on the twenty-first day of June you attended a meeting of the directors of the Second National Bank which was called to elect a new president? and this part of the happenings of that day may then bring all the other occurrences to the mind of the witness, and he may then say, "Oh, yes! John Smith gave me his check for $500 on that date. I now remember that fact quite well." This would be re-collecting.

Association of words, events, or ideas, helps wonderfully in strengthening the memory, in that it enables one to group together quickly scattered parts and thus recall things in their entirety. This is what the lawyer did for the witness when he mentioned the meeting of the board of directors of the bank, and by means of the association of events enabled the witness to recall that the meeting of the directors took place on the day that Smith paid him the five hundred, in this manner re-collecting the scattered parts of the events of the twenty-first day of June and bringing Smith clearly into the picture. In trying to remember any occurrence, endeavor to bring to mind some incident in connection with it, and if successful in so doing, the whole train of events pertaining to

that occurrence will soon move regularly along in the channels of the mind.

Opposition. A knowledge and use of the rule of opposition will greatly assist the memory. Suppose an advocate should say, "The thoughtless members of the community may censure me for entering upon the prosecution of this case," and should desire to make the thought more comprehensive, he could do so by placing a phrase against the one quoted and say, "but the sober-minded men and women will surely commend me for performing my duty as I understand it." Double and triple oppositions may be used as aids to the memory; as: The Biblical account of the flood states that God was angry with His children of earth because of their many sins, and He determined to destroy all animal life except that of the chosen few who were to accompany Noah into the ark. After the rains had ceased and the waters had subsided, Noah feared to return to the land, but God dispelled that fear by placing a bow in the heavens as a covenant between Him and man that never again would He permit a deluge of water to visit the earth. After four years of civil war, after the land of America had been deluged with blood, we set our Nation's flag against the cloud as a covenant between North and South that never again, in this dear country of ours, shall brother's hand be raised in enmity against his brother.

The whole idea of this passage can be kept clearly in mind by setting "deluge" against "civil war," "bow" against "flag." Keep the idea, or the picture, before you,

and there will be no difficulty in remembering what you desire to say, nor will there be any trouble experienced in finding words to express the idea.

When reading, do not bother about words, but dig down deep for the thought, lay hold of it, impress it on the memory, and the substance of what you read (the really valuable part of it) will remain with you forever. In his letter to Mrs. Bixby, dated Nov. 21, 1864, President Lincoln says:

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

The points to remember are that five brothers died gloriously on the field of battle, and that a mother gave those treasures to her country. The pictures to place upon memory's wall are the raging battle, and the lonely mother at home. These two pictures tell the whole story, and by gazing on them the complete narrative can be given.

Use. Use is another of the great aids in memory training. Employ the mind. Keep it busy. Make it alert through exercise. Train it to move quickly from point to point, picture to picture. Work it hard while you work it, but give it frequent periods of rest. Do not cumber the brain with a mass of words. Learn words by all means, learn their meaning, relationship, and power, but do not try to remember them merely as words. Think of them, rather, in their relationship with one anothertheir power of conveying an idea or explaining a thought,