other than by connecting them with their logical associations. Such facts as may
be typified by the multiplication table, certain dates, events, names, numbers,
errands, and engagements of various kinds—all these need to be remembered
accurately and quickly when the occasion for them arises. We must be able to
recall them with facility, so that the occasion will not have passed by before we
can secure them and we have failed to do our part because of the lapse.
With facts of this type the means of securing a good memory are the same as in
the case of logical memory, except that we must of necessity forego the linking
to naturally related associates. We can, however, take advantage of the three
laws which have been given. If these methods are used faithfully, then we have
done what we can in the way of insuring the recall of facts of this type, unless
we associate them with some artificial cue, such as tying a thread around our
finger to remember an errand, or learning the multiplication table by singing it.
We are not to be too ready to excuse ourselves, however, if we have forgotten to
mail the letter or deliver the message; for our attention may have been very lax
when we recorded the direction in the first place, and we may never have taken
the trouble to think of the matter between the time it was given into our keeping
and the time we were to perform the errand.
Mnemonic Devices.—Many ingenious devices have been invented to assist the
memory. No doubt each one of you has some way of your own of remembering
certain things committed to you, or some much-needed fact which has a
tendency to elude you. You may not tie the traditional string around your finger
or place your watch in the wrong pocket; but if not, you have invented some
method which suits your convenience better. While many books have been
written, and many lectures given exploiting mnemonic systems, they are,
however, all founded upon the same general principle: namely, that of
association of ideas in the mind. They all make use of the same basis for
memory that any of us use every time we remember anything, from the
commonest event which occurred last hour to the most abstruse bit of philosophy
which we may have in our minds. They all tie the fact to be remembered to some
other fact which is sure of recall, and then trust the old fact to bring the new
along with it when it again comes into the mind.
Artificial devices may be permissible in remembering the class of facts which
have no logical associates in which we can relate them; but even then I cannot
help feeling that if we should use the same care and ingenuity in carefully
recording the seemingly unrelated facts that we do in working out the device and
making the association in it, we should discover hidden relations for most of the