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Updated: May 20, 2025
Macaulay could recite Paradise Lost, while Rossetti was a little doubtful whether the sun went round the earth or the earth round the sun. I once met an American elocutionist who could recite ten of Shakespeare's plays, and he showed me the wonderful system of mnemonics by which he achieved the miracle. But he was a mere recording machine a dull fellow.
The teaching of the University is based entirely on the mediaeval principle of mnemonics, and as there are no examinations, no degrees, no limits to the duration of any given course, nor is any disgrace attached to slowness in learning, it is not surprising that many students, coming as youths, linger by the fountain of Kairouiyin till their hair is gray.
In "long" multiplication, for instance, they write every figure down, and "carry" nothing, so that a much more formidable addition than need be has to conclude the calculation. But they have a quaint system of learning their multiplication tables by mnemonics, in which every number is represented by a letter, and these being made up into words, are committed to memory in place of the figures.
Theory apart, it is conceded that a system of memorizing which had proved widely or generally successful in making a good memory out of a poor one, would deserve much credit. Most of the systems of mnemonics that have been invented are constructed on the principle of locality, or of utilizing objects which appeal to the sight.
If the general conception in which this ends is merely a dry notation in Chinese fashion, language becomes a kind of algebra, religion and poetry are reduced to a minimum, philosophy is brought down to a sort of moral and practical common sense, science to a collection of recipes, classifications, and utilitarian mnemonics, the mind itself taking a whole positive turn.
You already know my opinions on that subject which are: that a knowledge of what is usually termed `the classics' is of about as much use to a reasoning man as might be an equally profound knowledge of Chinese mnemonics. The time I have spent in the study of the dead languages has been sheer waste; and all I have learnt wont raise us a foot higher here.
No doubt the versions which we have are the result of compressing a free discourse into numbered paragraphs and repetitions: the living word of the Buddha was surely more vivacious and plastic than these stiff tabulations. But the peculiarities of scholars can often be traced to the master and the Buddha had much the same need of mnemonics as his hearers.
It was his custom always to think out his speeches, mentally wording them, and then memorizing them by a peculiar system of mnemonics which he had invented. On the dinner-table a certain succession of knife, spoon, salt-cellar, and butter-plate symbolized a train of ideas, and on the billiard-table a ball, a cue, and a piece of chalk served the same purpose.
Systematic, or scientific study is invaluable as supplying a natural kind of mnemonics, if for nothing else. You cannot properly learn the facts you want from Anatomy and Chemistry in any way so easily as by taking them in their regular order, with other allied facts, only there must be common sense exercised in leaving out a great deal which belongs to each of the two branches as pure science.
Of course I remember all her little darling ways and coquetries. Love is a great master of the art of mnemonics, and might be quoted by Mr Stokes as one of the greatest "aids to memory" that is known. Trifling trivialities, by others passed by unobserved, are graphically jotted down with indelible ink in his cordal note-book
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