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PRICE, 10 CENTS. 
 
 "Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of 
 thy words." — Proverbs. 
 
 The Accretive System of 
 Developing 
 
 Address before the COSMOS CLUB, Jersey City, N. J., 
 September 23, 1889, 
 
 BY 
 
 James Pierson Downs 
 
 "A well cultivated memory means an intelligent manhood and an active 
 old age. He who remembers most thinks the most, for he has the most 
 to think with." Chas. G. Leland. 
 
1 I 
 
 1 5 
 
 | The Accretive System Comprises a Series J 
 
 | of Six Manuals, as Follows: J 
 
 | I. The Mastery of Memorizing. 
 
 | II. Quickness of Perception. J 
 
 I III. Ear Memory and Eye Memory Training-. § 
 
 | IV. The Study of Languages. | 
 
 | V. Memory and Thought. 5 
 
 | VI. Memory Training of the Young J 
 
 See Third Paoh of Covbr for Terms. 
 
 COPYRIGHTED 1390, BY JA8. P. DOWNS. 
 
'Speak not in the ears or a fool: i«>r lie will despise the wisdom ot 
 tliv words."— Proverbs. 
 
 The Accretive System of 
 Developing 
 
 MEMORY 
 
 AND 
 
 THOUGHT. m 9 Ji%Vl 
 
 / 
 
 Address before the COSMOS Club, Jersey City, N. J., 
 September 23, 1889, 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES TIERSON DOWNS. 
 
 "A well cultivated memory means an intelligent manhood and an 
 .ctive old age. He who remembers most thinks the most, for he has 
 he most to think with." Chas. G. Leland 
 
 PRICE, 10 CENTS, 
 
 E. H. LIBBY, PUBLISHER, 
 TIMES BUILDING, NEW YORK CITY' 
 
4& 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Memory — Neglect 4 
 
 Destruction 5 
 
 Possibilities 6 
 
 Importance of Memory — Quotations 34 
 
 Memory vs. Books 8 
 
 Memory ' ' The Fountain of Youth " 15 
 
 The Cure for Mind Wandering 16 
 
 (Compare Mnemotechnic tin-can and dough-dough formulae, 19, 20, 23.) 
 
 Mnemonic Systems — Loisette 1 Worthlessness and ab- 
 White > surdities. See also 
 
 Evans, etc. J "Comparisons".. . 17 
 
 Association and Comparisons — Defects and limitations . . 25 
 
 Attention — Insufficiency of 28 
 
 The Accretive System 29 
 
 The Importance of Memory 34 
 
 He who has a memory that can seize with an iron grasp 
 and retain what he reads (the ideas simply without the lan- 
 guage) and judgment to compare and balance, will scarcely fail 
 of being distinguished. Many are afraid of strengthening the 
 memory, least it should destroy their inducement and power to 
 originate ideas — lest their light should be altogether borrowed 
 light. The danger does not seem to me to be very great, especi- 
 ally since I have noticed that those who are so fearful of employ- 
 ing this faculty are by ho means to be envied for their originality." 
 ■—From Todd's Student's Manual. 
 
 J. Horace McFarland, Printer, Harrisburg. Pa. 
 
Memory. 
 
 ' ' Memory is the mother of wisdom ; for what is wisdom without 
 memory but a babe that is strangled in its birth.' 1 '' — Bias. 
 
 A good healthy memory is so rare as to be phenome- 
 nal, and its possessor is regarded as one specially gifted. 
 Yet notwithstanding its importance, and the infinite pos- 
 sibilities of its development, modern educational systems 
 ignore, if they do not condemn, its cultivation, while at 
 the same time by both educators and the world at large 
 the memory is constantly recognized and adopted as the 
 standard of excellence and advancement. 
 
 Our youth enter the primary schools ; there they are 
 given certain tasks to learn ; in order to pass into a higher 
 class they are questioned to ascertain how much they re- 
 member ; their entrance into still higher classes is deter- 
 mined by their progress, or in other words, by what they 
 remember. On entering the intermediate schools they 
 have to pass examinations again to exhibit how much they 
 remember of their past studies, and their progress 
 through the various classes of the intermediate schools 
 is continually determined by tests of memory. 
 
 To enter the high school they have another gauntlet of 
 examinations to run — success in passing each of them 
 being conditioned on the memory. 
 
 At entrance to college, examinations again confront 
 them — they must show how much they have remembered 
 of their past studies, and having successfully matricu- 
 
4 Neglect. 
 
 lated, their life for four years is one of mingled hope and 
 despair as the middle term and final examinations roll 
 around, and their memories on each occasion are subject- 
 ed to a rigid scrutiny. If they pass, they rejoice, but if 
 they fail, they and their friends feel disgraced. 
 
 Yet of those who do pass the various college and other 
 examinations, there are very few, who, without review- 
 ing their studies, could do the same three months after. 
 
 The professional course is then taken up, and followed 
 for three or four years, but before being credited by the 
 University as competent to preach, plead or physic, they 
 must pass still further examinations, and after such an 
 experience during a period of perhaps twenty years — 
 success in every case depending chiefly or wholly on 
 memory — they enter upon actual life and find fortune 
 still dependent upon the same faculty. 
 
 How often has it occurred to teachers, during all these 
 years of study, while thousands and tens of thousands 
 of facts and principles are being forced into the minds 
 of pupils, that while so many things are given pupils to 
 retain, they are not taught, and no attempt has ever 
 been made to teach them how to remember ? It is urged 
 by the progressive educator of the present day that no 
 effort should be made to train the memories, that what 
 is wanted is to make the children and youth reasoning 
 creatures, and not parrots. 
 
 Educate your youth, then, strictly on a logical basis, 
 and when his reasoning powers shall be so well trained 
 that he can differentiate with accuracy betwixt the north 
 and northwest sides of a hair, propose him for entrance 
 at a college, or for a college degree. 
 
 But should he present himself for admission to any col- 
 lege, and claim that although he could not remember 
 enough to pass the examination, yet his reasoning and 
 
Memory Destroyed. 5 
 
 logical powers were of a high order, he would be con- 
 sidered a fool. If after attendance for four years he should 
 then demand graduation and a degree on the ground that 
 his intellect was great, though his memory was poor, he 
 would be considered insane. 
 
 However strictly, therefore, pupils are taught that the 
 memory is of little worth and that the reason and judg- 
 ment should be made the supreme objects of training, 
 yet so long as the memory alone is taken as evidence 
 of fitness for entrance into college, for graduating from 
 college, and for a professional degree, they will quite 
 rationally conclude that after all there must be much 
 good in a strong, healthy memory. 
 
 A great deal has been written about the wonderful 
 memory power of children and youth. Undeveloped, 
 this is much less than is supposed ; but trained, it ex- 
 ceeds the wildest dreams of educators. 
 
 Take an adult, a university graduate who has had 
 twenty years of scholastic training according to modern 
 educational methods ; yet in ninety-nine cases out of a 
 hundred it will be found impossible for such a one to 
 memorize ten isolated facts daily for a hundred days, and 
 at the end of that time be able to recall them all. In the 
 case of youths at school, their minds being weaker and 
 untrained, their memory power is of course less ; never- 
 theless, it is the general practice for children at school to 
 have assigned to them half a dozen different branches of 
 study, each subject covering more than a dozen new state- 
 ments of fact. This disciplining process is adhered to five 
 days in the week and nine months in the year. The minds, 
 instead of being previously gradually awakened and 
 strengthened, are weakened by over-pressure. The re- 
 sult of this cramming and over-pressure is to destroy 
 the memory of youth, and such is the tendency of the 
 
6 Memory Possibilities. 
 
 present system of school education, on the testimony of 
 able and experienced teachers. 
 
 Inquire among acquaintances. How few there are 
 with good memories ! How many there are with poor 
 memories ! Are not people continually complaining of 
 their poor memories — or that they have no memory at 
 all — even among those who have had every educational 
 opportunity and advantage ? Is it unreasonable to expect 
 that education, instead of destroying the memory, should 
 rather have strengthened it ? 
 
 " It seems remarkable that the question should ever 
 have arisen whether a powerful memory is compatible 
 with great soundness of judgment. Soundness of judgment 
 without a fair development of memory is impossible. 
 
 "The mistake on this subject has probably arisen from 
 two misconceptions. In the first place, a cultivated and 
 disciplined memory has been confounded with a miscel- 
 laneous and unclassified collection of facts. In the 
 second place, the abuse of memory has been confounded 
 with the use of it." 1 
 
 That the memory of the average scholar may be im- 
 proved indefinitely, has been tested and proved to per- 
 fection. 
 
 This fact was well known in the early ages, when there 
 were no books and scholars were self-dependent ; and it 
 was proved during the Middle Ages that not merely men 
 of special natural endowment, but all men who devote 
 themselves to study, may have what would now be re- 
 garded as marvelous memories. 
 
 During these Middle Ages there was in Europe a re- 
 ligious sect called Bogomiles, which spread from Bulgaria 
 even unto England. It was said that there was not one 
 person in the sect who did not know at least the New Tes- 
 
 Wayland. 
 
 f 1 ) 
 
The Need of Memory Training. 7 
 
 tament by heart, and one of their bishops, in a letter, 
 asserted that in his flock of four thousand there was not 
 one who had not every word both of the Old and New 
 Testaments perfectly in his memory. 
 
 Before the invention of writing there was no other way 
 of preserving learning, whether sacred or profane, and 
 in consequence every precaution was taken against acci- 
 dents. Stranger still is the fact that the Brahmins, 
 who may be considered the especial guardians of the 
 sacred traditions of India, in our own day, do not em- 
 ploy either the written or the printed texts in learning 
 and transmitting their holy lore. " They learn it as 
 their ancestors learned it thousands of years ago, from 
 the mouth of a teacher, so that the Vedic succession 
 should never be broken," and so well do they perform 
 the duty, and so accurately do they transmit the text, 
 that " there is hardly a various reading, in the proper 
 sense of the word, or even an uncertain accent, in the 
 whole of the Rig-Veda, which consists of more than a 
 thousand hymns, averaging ten verses, and contains more 
 than one hundred and fifty thousand words." 1 
 
 "We in the West," says Dr. W. Robertson Smith, 
 "have little idea of the precision with which an Eastern 
 pupil even now can take up and remember the minutest 
 details of a lesson, reproducing them years afterwards 
 in the exact words of his master." 
 
 It is very remarkable that in all European and American 
 education children are set at hard intellectual tasks on 
 the theory that memory already exists, instead of giving 
 them the proper training to create it. It is just as if 
 children should be set at physical labor far beyond their 
 power, on the theory that strength will come at once. 
 
 When a man is to enter a prize-fight, or a foot-race, or 
 
 (1) Practical Education. 
 
8 Memory vs. Books. 
 
 take part in a rowing match, we know enough to train 
 his muscles beforehand ; but as regards the memory, we 
 wait till the contest begins in the struggle for life, and 
 then bid the pupil become strong, or train while striving 
 for the prize. 
 
 In order to remember whole libraries perfectly, the 
 memories of the students in Ancient India were sys- 
 tematically trained and strengthened beforehand. 
 
 Their memories having thus been first developed and 
 made capable of retaining what was committed to them, 
 they were then given the various works which they must 
 master and remember. 
 
 Many people greatly undervalue memory. "We no 
 longer need," they say, "such vast memories as men 
 cultivated in the early ages — our libraries and cheap 
 books supply their places. It would be better to culti 
 vate the more active intellectual faculties. ' ' 
 
 It may be well to remind such objectors that books 
 now multiply very rapidly, and vast memories are needed 
 only to know what books exist. Moreover, "reliance 
 upon indexes and authorities must limit research and de- 
 ductions to the scope of one's predecessors. The result 
 must be mere imitation or repetition — a multiplication 
 of volumes without originality — and too much of this 
 already prevails. ' ' 1 
 
 Those who urge that there is no longer occasion for 
 great memories, since printing cheaply records every- 
 thing for us, might as well urge that bodily strength or 
 health are no longer of such value as they were in the 
 old rough-and-tumble times, because now we have such 
 excellent physicians and medicines. They are forgetful — 
 or are more probably ignorant — of the fact that an active 
 memory is the great feeder and stimulus of an active in- 
 
 (i) G. F. C. Smillie. 
 
Memory vs. Books. 9 
 
 tellect, and that it is perfectly possible to have the great 
 memories of the old time allied to the libraries and learn- 
 ing of the new. 
 
 ''From the days of Plato there have always been 
 great minds who have understood, more or less, the 
 truth that memory in perfection was the basis of thought, 
 and not merely a convenient receptive faculty. Certainly 
 the man who, like the Scholar in Barclay's Ship of 
 Fools, has all his learning in his books and none in his 
 head, is little likely to think or create much, and those 
 who maintain that we can do without great memories 
 may quite as sensibly maintain that we can also dispense 
 with wisdom and wit, because both may be found in 
 books — like the man commemorated by Nasby 'who had 
 no occasion to read or write, because he always kept a 
 nigger to do both for him.' " x 
 
 *' It is a popular fallacy that any special development 
 of the memory is obtained at great cost to the intellec- 
 tual faculties. This is a delusion, and the best possible 
 proof that it is, consists in the fact that the science of 
 dialectics never flourished so brilliantly as during the 
 ages when men had to trust to theii memories for all 
 aids to controversy and ratiocination. The learned then 
 carried their libraries in their heads, and there is ample 
 and varied proof that the erudition thus stowed away 
 was so orderly arranged as to be at the instant command 
 of its owners. What we now consider prodigious me- 
 mories were then the common possession of thousands 
 everywhere * * *. Also it is to be observed that 
 this cultivation of the memory tended to the production 
 of strong individuality. Each man took what he most 
 needed or preferred in the way of learning, and each 
 assimilated all he took, working it into the warp and 
 
 (1) Mastery of Memorizing. 
 
io Memory Develops Individuality. 
 
 woof of his own intellect, as Shakespeare worked the 
 crude and clumsy plays and novels out of which he 
 wrought the immortal dramas which bear his name. At 
 present the influences of educational systems operate in 
 the contrary direction. They conform all minds to a 
 common model, and tend to the establishment of a mo- 
 notonous and rather low intellectual level. ' ' 1 
 
 In disproof of the idea that memory development is at 
 the cost of intellectuality, it is extremely interesting to 
 note that the time of the greatest memory cultivation 
 was also the time of the production of great works. 
 
 To every man his own mind represents a capital which 
 he desires to invest to the best advantage. His first 
 thought is to acquire knowledge (be it of business or 
 books), because he believes it to be power. But behind 
 knowledge lies Power itself, which not only masters 
 knowledge, but everything worth acting out. The great 
 factor of this mental power is Memory, which has hith- 
 erto been treated as a mere passive recipient of sensa- 
 tions, but which, according to the Accretive system, is 
 active, and works with intellect as an indispensable part 
 of it. 
 
 It is common to confuse the word memory as a recep- 
 tacle, with memory as the active faculty of accumulating, 
 and as the ability to find at once, or to refer to anything 
 in the mass. To do the latter requires thought or active 
 knowledge, i. e., knowing. Thus, thought creates memory 
 and memory begets thought. And it is entirely due to 
 ignorance of this, or want of thought, that there is so 
 much popular misconception of memory. He who has 
 only a vast number of images laid up, has merely the ma- 
 terial for memory. But the power of remembering these 
 when needed, involves and implies good classification of 
 
 (t) New York Tribune. 
 
Memory the Basis of Thought. 1 1 
 
 all our knowledge and ideas, and this is correlative with 
 intelligence. One-sided thinkers always have one-sided 
 memories. Passive and active memories are the same 
 with passive and active knowledge. There is no instance 
 of a really great man of science, or mechanics, who is 
 also a man of business, a man of the world, and, let us 
 add, a scholar, who has not a good memory in the full 
 sense of the word. 
 
 Memory is the great combining element of the facul- 
 ties. By it they are enabled to work harmoniously, and 
 to a result — without it confusion reigns and distraction 
 follows. 
 
 Everyone desires to have a good memory. "Me- 
 mory," said Bias, one of the seven wise men of Greece, 
 "is the mother of wisdom." Wisdom here includes 
 not only "higher intellect," but plain practical common 
 sense. In fact, the cleverness which is the soul of "law 
 and business" is more dependent on a good, working 
 memory than is genius, "which soars by inspiration. ' ' It 
 is a fact little reflected on, that since the days of Bias 
 and Plato down to the present time, there have been no 
 great thinkers who have not approved the opinion that 
 memory is the basis of reflection and intelligence. 
 
 But this appreciation of the value of memory has 
 always been held subject to what, according to the 
 greatest investigators of our day, is an error. This is 
 the belief that every man has a good or bad inborn me- 
 mory — i just so much, not more or less' — in fact, that it 
 is "finite, definite and limited." "Everyman," says 
 the proverb, "complains of his memory — none of his 
 judgment." This, if it means anything at all, means 
 that he is not responsible for his good or bad memory — 
 it being just what was allotted to him, while his judg- 
 ment is the result of his will or natural cleverness. " I 
 
12 Memory Practically Infinite. 
 
 have not naturally a good memory/' may be heard from 
 people who would never dream of saying so if they knew 
 the absolute truth — that a very good memory may be ac- 
 quired as certainly as one can learn French, or the piano, 
 but in much less time. 
 
 It has been demonstrated that every man of ordinary 
 intelligence can, by a proper system of training, create 
 a vigorous memory of practically infinite extent. When 
 the world believed — as it did, till within a few years — 
 that memory was a mystery or ' ' gift ' ' of which all that 
 was known was that there was only just so much allotted 
 of it, people took what they found, and sought no 
 further, nor did they complain. It was a "gift," and 
 they would not look a gift horse in the mouth. Now we 
 know, thanks to Carpenter, Kay and many others, that 
 "memory is a vast collection of brain cells, every one of 
 which contains an impression, idea or image," and these 
 are so numerous that in all probability no man ever lived 
 who received, consciously or unconsciously, more than 
 one-sixth of what his memory could contain. 
 
 This means that there is simply no end to what the 
 memory may take in or receive. But this does not make 
 a practical memory , or put things "at our fingers' ends." 
 
 The writer has known a bookseller who had got 
 together many thousands of old books, piled away, and 
 of this immense number only a small portion was really 
 available, for he did not know what he had. We must 
 take and keep account of stock — or we can make no sales. 
 
 In reality there are but two ways of remembering. 
 One of these is the direct method, by which memory is 
 trained by an easy and unerring process, to grasp and 
 retain an idea. This is the Accretive system, which 
 while doing so, also stimulates and developes thought, 
 so that "the more memory the more mind ' ' is the result, 
 
Memory Develops Intellect, 13 
 
 and the more we learn, the less danger is there ot weak- 
 ening any of our intellectual powers. 
 
 Opposed to the direct grasp we have associated me- 
 mory, which gives a factitious but altogether uncertain 
 aid, of a vague and fanciful kind. It does not pretend 
 to record sensations in general, and all its efforts devoted 
 merely to remembering certain things or specific images. 
 
 It has been well remarked that the former as compared 
 to the latter is like mathematics compared to poetry ; and 
 the simile becomes a truth when we remember that all 
 great mathematicians or men of science do recall facts 
 at once, while poets place the art of their art in similes or 
 associated images. But as direct or mathematical me- 
 mory takes in all that association can give and has great 
 power over and above this, so the Accretive system in- 
 cludes all that is useful or practical in mnemotechny, 
 while rejecting its clumsy methods. 
 
 By the Accretive system a child can, in the time usually 
 devoted to school studies, master them far more perfectly 
 than is now done, while developing in addition a general 
 memory power which would seem to most persons mar- 
 velous, if not miraculous. 
 
 This same general power can be developed by a grown 
 person in the time generally required to learn a language 
 or a musical instrument — that is to say, from one to two 
 years ; although in many cases remarkable and most 
 encouraging results ensue even after a few weeks. 
 
 There is not a so-called art of memory or mnemo- 
 techny in existence in which the methods and lessons or 
 exercises are not far more difficult to master than those 
 of the Accretive system ; the great principle of progress 
 in the latter being always to keep the work down to the 
 capacity of the pupil, and that within the limit of per- 
 fect ease. 
 
14 Memory Easily Developed. 
 
 A good memory in its proper sense implies the fullest 
 exercise of intellect of every kind. When properly 
 taught, the more we remember the more we think, and 
 (conversely) the more we think the more we remember. 
 This higher view of memory as an active power and 
 correlative of thought has occurred to many sages, who 
 have borne witness to it in many ways. A useful or act- 
 ive memory is one which gives us what we want prompt- 
 ly when needed, on all occasions, and this can only exist 
 when it is in touch, or in accord, with a superior intelli- 
 gence. Merely to have the Bible by heart is not to have 
 a great memory, but to be able to quote any text in an 
 appropriate manner is a perfect proof of one. " Not 
 those things which we commit to memory are always the 
 easiest to remember." 
 
 The result of the Accretive system is to make the wit 
 perfectly familiar with all the stores of the memory, so 
 that it can awaken them at a touch. This is affected by 
 a series of very gradual, easy exercises, which call both 
 memory and reflection more and more into play, at com- 
 pound ratio of increase. The first great perceptible re- 
 sult of the system is a well ordered, admirably controlled 
 thinking power, and an instinctive avoidance of mind- 
 wanderingv 
 
 To attain this result in the young is to achieve some- 
 thing so important that for this alone a year would be 
 well spent in Accretive training. And it is very certain 
 that no person of intelligence, and above all, one familiar 
 with education can read the manuals of the Accretive 
 system without admitting that the system is perfectly 
 adapted to discipline a mind. 
 
 "The history of mental development is that of the 
 progressive blending of memory and thought." 
 
 "The distinguishing characteristics of a growing intel- 
 
Memory the Fountain of Youth. 15 
 
 lectuality is the perception of the relation of new facts 
 to old, the discovery of missing links, and of the greater 
 laws that govern and connect broad areas of seemingly 
 disconnected phenomena." 
 
 ' ' Growing old mentally means nothing more or less in most 
 cases than the losing memory, and with it, of course, the habit 
 of reflecting on or thinking about what once we knew. I have 
 paid great attention to this subject for many years, and am satis- 
 fied that remaining young, i. e. , intelligent, depends on review- 
 ing ideas. Men like Goethe and Gladstone keep young by keep- 
 ing all their memories awake. Men who when young never 
 cultivated memorizing and reviewing beyond a certain point, 
 have, of course, only a given measure of mind. Every day of 
 their lives they experience something new which they take no 
 special pains to remember, nor do they review what was once 
 learned, and then perhaps at sixty years of age, because they 
 cannot remember some certain fact of all this vast accumula- 
 tion, complain that they are growing old and that memory is 
 failing. The fountain of youth lies indeed, as Ponce de Leon 
 thought, in a new and unknown realm — I mean the Accretive 
 system — which is as yet almost unknown, but in which the real 
 and only fountain of youth really exists." — Chas. G. Leland. 
 
 "If the memory grow dim in old men, then some greater mal- 
 ady is to be feared (tunc timendum est de pejori aegritudine) — 
 i. e. lethargy, epilepsy, apoplexia, paralysis, and all diseases 
 which have their origin in the brain. For these we run to the 
 doctor, but may go in vain, if the patient be so old as to be pas*, 
 reviving his memory." — William Gratarolo, M. D. 
 
 <' That which is known and dreaded as mind-wandering, 
 may be explained as follows : When we are quite awake 
 our thoughts are guided and controlled by that reason 
 which is practically will in association with common 
 sense, as Dugald Stewart understood it — or the thinking 
 and acting according to a standard established by exper- 
 ience. When we dream, reason sleeps, and all kinds of 
 images or memories associate, apparently as atoms form 
 
1 6 The Cure for Mind Wandering. 
 
 by affinity chemical proportions. Not being guided by 
 reason, the mind wanders into all kinds of wild and errat- 
 ic combinations. 
 
 "Now it may be observed that if we, while awake, 
 drowse or fall into a brown study, reason or common 
 sense retires a little, and we begin to dream ; that is, the 
 memories of things, being less controlled, frisk about 
 freely by association. This is mind-wandering. It may, 
 according to the manner of association of images, be- 
 come mere lunacy, or refined imagination, poetry or art. 
 One thing is certain, that it is a departure more or less 
 from fully waking will. 
 
 ' ' But it is also true that common sense will may be wide 
 awake, and yet give play to imagination while control- 
 ling it. This can be effected in one way only— by mas- 
 tering memory. For as reflexion is based on sensation, 
 so both common sense and imagination are based on 
 memory. And it is very apparent that the more mem- 
 ory itself is trained and disciplined by reason, and the 
 more it is under control, the less erratic mind-wandering 
 there will be. 
 
 ' C A lunatic is a man who dreams while wide awake — that 
 is, his memories scatter irregularly. If our memories 
 are well regulated, we cannot be insane. 
 
 "Yet the most perfectly organized working reason or 
 will and common sense, so far from checking or benumb- 
 ing imagination, actually knows how to let it play while 
 watching it, and to guide it to the grandest results. All in- 
 vention, all great and original thoughts, are the result of 
 the mastery of memory by reason. As the Norse sorcerer, 
 king Froda, compelled the wild witches Fenja and Menja 
 to grind out from the magic mill all that he wanted, gold 
 or salt, so reason can make memory and imagination 
 
MnemotecJinic Systems. 17 
 
 yield all that they possess, be it the gold of poetry or the 
 salt of common sense." ( x ) 
 
 Within a few years, owing to an increased dissemina- 
 tion of knowledge in cheap literature, and many other 
 forms, there has been a corresponding demand for 
 methods of training the memory. 
 
 During the reign of William IV of England and the 
 early days of Victoria, or in " the penny magazine pe- 
 riod," when there was a very sudden and general exten- 
 sion of popular knowledge, there was also a correspond- 
 ing outburst of " Arts of Memory," and a like cause has 
 produced a like effect of late in " Anglo-Saxony, " espec- 
 ially in its American division. 
 
 There are now before the public, as there have been 
 for hundreds of years, various systems professing to teach 
 the art of getting by heart certain things, and of improv- 
 ing or even developing the memory. Not one of them 
 however, teaches in any way the art of creating or form- 
 ing a memory before proceeding to cram or drill it. The 
 generic term for all these systems is that of Mnemotechny 
 or the Art of Memory, i. e., of applying Memory — not of 
 making it. 
 
 There have been published about three hundred of these 
 "Arts of Memory " — "Mnemotechnics, " "Phrenoty- 
 pics," "Phreno-mnemotechnics, " "Mnemologics," 
 ' ' Memory Aids ' ' — even i ' Pills for Aiding the Memory, ' ' 
 — and "Memory Doctors" — mostly by memory quacks 
 who have stolen ideas from the few great minds who 
 have surmised the truth that memory is " a manageable 
 quantity," and endeavored to solve the problem of its 
 management. 
 
 A waste garden must be cleared of noxious weeds be- 
 fore a healthy growth of useful plants can be had ; so the 
 
 (1) Memory and Thought. 
 
1 8 Mnemotechnic Systems. 
 
 errors of the mnemotechnic or associative systems must 
 be cast aside before genuine benefit can be secured. 
 
 As the modern systems are simply trifling variations 
 on their predecessors, it will suffice to name only a few 
 of the former; e. £.,the systems of Loisette, Evans, White, 
 Pick, Stokes. The basis of all is the same \ that is to 
 say, Association of ideas by artificial and external aids. 
 Not one of them trains memory to a direct straightforward 
 grasp of a subject. Yet the whole history of culture 
 shows distinctly that all men in whom great minds have 
 been combined with great memories have had the "di- 
 rect grasp" on what they had accumulated, and did not 
 recall one image by another, much less by a long list of 
 similarities. In fact, "the greater the mind the more 
 direct the memory" may be taken as an axiom, and it is 
 the most practically minded men who go straight at an 
 idea and recall it without ceremony 
 
 To become thitikers, we should not only remember 
 tilings, but try to create a perfect memory. A perfect 
 memory is pre-eminently a thinking one, which, when 
 anything is needed, knows so well where it dwells as to 
 go directly to it, and grasp it at once, and not wander 
 about inquiring from one quarter of the town to another 
 for it, as those do who rely on associations to find it. 
 
 The main difference between the practical and the un- 
 practical genius is, in almost all cases, to be reduced to 
 the discursive habit, or that of going astray on some asso- 
 ciation. Now, it is a fact, and one self-evident to a 
 thinker, that all Arts of Memory or mnemotechnics 
 foster and develop this evil tendency to an excessive de- 
 gree. For they develop association, and thereby weaken 
 or destroy the power of grasping directly by the me- 
 mory. But to remember the word; or date, or fact itself, 
 directly and straightforwardly by a simple effort of the 
 
Mnemotechnic Systems. I0 
 
 mind, they do not teach, and yet it is far easier to learn. 
 
 A few mneno-techno-mnemologic-phrenetic examples : 
 
 " Haydn— haymaking— perspire— wash-^^w^-j^. 
 t. e. 1732-1809." r 
 
 " Curo-curry (an article of food)_cookery-cucurri-bad- 
 ly cooked— disgust— curse— cursum. 
 
 "David was crowned King at Hebron-David Saw 
 Lion Jump ; i. e . 1056." 
 
 'The shield is not worn by a warrior to satisfy a 
 
 ™ ere whim (William HI) but to enable them to 
 
 dodge off a fighter sidewise. (1688-14-10) ■ that is 
 ascended the throne in l6 88, occupied it i 4 years, and 
 belongs to the 10th dynasty." 
 
 (The "intermediates" or -correlations" form what 
 is mnemotechnically termed a -bridge" or -chain " b V 
 means of which it is taught by the mnemotechnists that 
 any desired word, date or fact can be retained in a man- 
 ner that is easy, permanent, infallible ) 
 
 After reading the further illustrative examples, the 
 student will be amply able to judge of the truthfulness of 
 this claim. 
 
 THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC. 
 
 Zodiac-zoon (Greek for animal)-animal-ram 
 Aries — arise— get up— toss up— -bull"— 
 Taurus -tore us-four of us-two of us-twins- 
 GEMiNi-gem- diamond - carbon - charcoal - char- 
 coal tin — tin can— 
 
 Cancer— disease— diseased- feeble^strbng— "Strong 
 
 asahon"— 8 
 
 Leo— lion — lioness — female 
 
 Virgo— virgin— maid— weighed— scales— 
 
 LiBRA-hber-liberate-capture-cobweb-spider- 
 
 Scorpio -reptile- rattle-snake -snakewood-bow- 
 arrow — sagitta 
 
20 Mnemotechnic Systems. 
 
 Sagittarius — bowman — sportsman — game — goat — 
 Capricornus — capsize — fall overboard — wetting — wa- 
 ter — aqua — 
 
 Aquarius — aquarium — fishpond — 
 Pisces — fishes — sheephead — lamb — ram — 
 Could anything be more directly conducive to mind 
 wandering, or the irregular feeble habit of straying from 
 one ridiculous resemblance to another as in a feverish 
 dream, than these nonsensical stringings together of 
 bulls, charcoahtins, spiders, virgins, bows and arrows, 
 tin-cans, rattlesnakes, goats, rams, fishponds, feeble 
 lions and diseased females, and all manner of idle jingles 
 without ideas. That such a system can be recommend- 
 ed, as it is by the White, Evans and Loisette schools of 
 professors, and their approvers for memory-training, 
 and as a cure for mind-wandering, almost surpasses be- 
 lief ! 
 
 A protest against such methods of memory-training 
 and of curing what are called treacherous memories is 
 made by Mr. Hamerton in his Intellectual Life. " They 
 are generally," he says, "founded upon the association 
 of ideas, but the sort of association which they have re- 
 course to is unnatural, and produces precisely the sort of 
 disorder which would be produced in dress if a man were 
 insane enough to tie, let us say, a frying-pan to one of his 
 coat-tails, and a child's kite to the other." 
 
 In the Educational Times, Sept. ist, 1888, Dr. J. H. 
 E. Brock, B. Sc, in an editorial on memory, says: 
 
 4 'Mr. Loisette places a high value on his system, but he 
 operates by means of a very complicated machinery. I was 
 once tempted to learn a subject for examination by Mr. Loi- 
 sette's system*, and I shall not easily forget my state of mind 
 on the eve of the examination. My first difficulty in working 
 with this system was how to get the facts into my head. I 
 found the task of committing facts to memory enor?nously in- 
 
Mnemotechnic Systems, 21 
 
 creased by the machinery employed during the effort ; and I 
 was confronted by this still more serious drawback, that hav- 
 ing learned my facts, I became totally unable to recall them, 
 except through the medium of the same machinery that was 
 employed in learning thern. With the slightest flaw in the 
 mechanism, I was brought to a complete standstill, and was 
 perfectly unable to recall any further information on the subject 
 before me." 
 
 A recent review of mnemotechnic systems quotes 
 President Seelye, of Amherst College as condemning 
 "the entire Loisette system as absolutely worthless ;" 
 and in this opinion many others concur. 
 
 It has been asserted by a writer who has examined 
 with care all the current systems of mnemotechny, that 
 what are called new systems are only the old ones car- 
 ried to a more ridiculous extent, and that "in such cases 
 as that of W. W. White, a follower or imitator of Loi- 
 sette, the exercises are simply long strings of words hav- 
 ing no ulterior use or object." 
 
 ' ' The absurdity of all these ' systems ' lies in their assump- 
 tion that if you want to remember A and X in connection with 
 each other, you will facilitate matters by putting B, C, D and 
 E between them, and remembering them also, although they 
 have nothing to do with A and X. Not only must B, C, D, 
 and E be remembered, but if you wish to recall A, X, you 
 cannot do so unless you can recall B, C, D, and E. It must 
 be obvious that if A and X are the things you want to remem- 
 ber, that it is a very poor method or " system" that directs 
 you to wander off to four or five " intermediates " having noth- 
 to do with them. Yet such, in a nutshell, is the whole sum and 
 substance of the Loisette and White and Evans systems." 
 
 In the beginning, by means of mnemotechny, the pupil 
 can frequently recall by remembering .something else — 
 if he can remember it, and does not miss the cue. But in 
 a very short time the apparatus becomes complicated 
 
22 Mnemotechnic Systems. 
 
 and harder to remember than the images themselves 
 which it professes to recall. 
 
 The student may be deluded for a few weeks — perhaps 
 months. Then the appalling absurdities and crushing 
 impossibilities of applying mnemotechny to serious pro- 
 blems of memory begin to manifest themselves. The 
 associations which it was confidently believed would be 
 helps become hindrances. They cut across and con- 
 stantly interfere one with the other, the result being sim- 
 ply this, that the further the student goes the more he 
 goes astray. In all such mnemotechnic systems it soon 
 becomes necessary to use some word which has already 
 been used as an "intermediate." This leads to confu- 
 sion. Suppose the word "white 1 ' had been used, and 
 in one "correlation" it led to Washington, and in 
 another to India. Three months after you have made your 
 chain, or series, it will be mere guess work as to which is 
 the right path. 
 
 Mr. Evans, Loisette's former assistant lecturer, has 
 within a short time himself come out with a "system." 
 Mr. Evans recognizes the liability to err just shown, and 
 says that in such cases, to prevent mistakes, we must 
 rely on the context (/. e. know first what you are trying 
 to remember). 
 
 Loisette, however, does not publish such fatal defects 
 of his '< Instantaneous Art of Never Forgetting." The 
 probabilities of error nevertheless exist, for we cannot 
 put out the light of the sun b} T turning the head or shut- 
 ting the eyes, and the great liability to err here apparent 
 has called forth the condemnation already quoted, that 
 "Loisette's entire system is dangerous and entirely 
 worthless." 
 
 From the following exemplification of such systems 
 
Mnernotechnic Systems. 
 
 23 
 
 judge of the extreme improbability of exactness by their 
 methods : 
 
 Woma: 
 
 WHITES 
 
 Black — color — color-blind — blind- 
 ness 
 ' White-house — Washington. 
 
 /hite-wash — wash-tub — laundry. 
 /White dress — dressmaker* 
 ^White wood — poplar — popular — 
 
 vox populi 
 -White horse — horse — donkey. 
 
 {Africa 
 or 
 India. 
 ^Ivory — elephant — Barnum's white 
 elephant, 
 loses — bees — HUM — 
 
 J HUMBUG. 
 
 The enormous amount of ridiculous rubbish which 
 the pupil is expected to get together to remember facts 
 and dates by such a system as that of Loisette, (and 
 the systems of White and Evans are identical with 
 it) is absolutely incredible. As illustrating what he calls 
 his laws — which laws themselves require but once read- 
 ing to comprehend, and have been employed under vari- 
 ous names since the time of Aristotle — Loisette gives 
 many farcical exercises, consisting of long series of labor- 
 iously joined words. Those exercises he insists must 
 be recited several times daily for frojn one to two months 
 (necessary instantaneously to remember them by his 
 "instantaneous Method of Remembering"). He further 
 recommends students to make other (equally absurd) lists 
 of five hundred or more words each, and recite them at 
 least twice daily for several months, promising that great 
 memory strengthening will follow such labor. 
 
24 Mnemotechnic Systems 
 
 ( Vide " Flower ' ' Series and " Muse ' ' series of Evans ; 
 W. W. White's " Sun and Moon" series, and " White 
 Hat" series; and the "Dough-Dough" series of Loi- 
 sette. The observation of the latter that "A baby fish 
 now views my wharf," and "A bear may muzzle a gun- 
 case," must be taken with a grain of salt \ his averment, 
 that "I rarely hop on my sick foot" is therapeutically 
 sound. — Loisette Exposed, pp. 40 and 122.) 
 
 All memory exercise tends to increased memory 
 strength, and it is by virtue of this principle that even 
 the forced methods of mnemotechnists (Eva^s, White, 
 Loisette and others) have been of any benefit. White, 
 Loisette and others actually teach it, while they indi- 
 rectly proscribe it. 
 
 The method involves a truth, and may be illustrated by 
 the following : 
 
 It is related that, once upon a time, an ignorant In- 
 dian consulted the big medicine man of his tribe for the 
 cure of a weak arm. The sorcerer handed the patient a 
 small rod, and directed that it be waved in certain direc- 
 tions one hundred times morning and night for a lengthy 
 period, great care being taken at the same time to repeat 
 a certain magical incantation of great wonder-working 
 power, which magical incantation would certainly soon 
 effect great results. 
 
 How much of the benefit to be derived would be due 
 to the exercise so emphatically insisted upon, and what 
 proportion of the benefit would be due to the magical 
 incantation, is quite obvious ; but in the case of the mne- 
 motechnists' "Natural Memory Method," "Marvelous 
 Memory Discovery," and "Instantaneous Art of Never 
 Forgetting" professors, and many of their students, they 
 ignore the fact of benefit by exercise, and blindly worship 
 at the shrine of their absurd magical incantations. 
 
Association and Comparison. 25 
 
 The professors of " The Art of Memory" claim that 
 by practicing and mastering their enormously extensive 
 and complicated apparatus (magical incantations) the 
 memory is strengthened, and that their methods lead 
 at last to learning and wisdom, yet do not lend one line 
 in all their works to the practical acquisition of either, 
 nor do they create a real or direct memory ; on the con- 
 trary they injure it by substituting for it association 
 and tricks. The will and work which should have 
 been devoted to a straightforward grasp of facts they 
 divert into "weakening ways," and that to great harm. 
 A strong and perfected memory can exist only in unity 
 with intelligence, because, without the latter even a vast 
 and varied collection of ideas cannot be kept alive, or 
 exist at all. 
 
 The so-called laws of association, resemblance, con- 
 trast and contiguity have been for two thousand years 
 urged as effectual in assisting to remember. These, in 
 fact, constitute the basis of all mnemotechnics where they 
 appear under different names. 
 
 But comparisons themselves are subject to the same 
 loss by forgetfulness as are the facts without the com- 
 parisons, though comparisons certainly greatly aid re- 
 tentiveness. Comparisons may indeed prolong the me- 
 mory life, but do not confer immortality. 
 
 Moreover, it is not always possible to make a sugges- 
 tive comparison to fix in memory a particularly desired 
 fact, and even when made, comparisons strengthen only 
 in individual cases, but are without effect as regards 
 making the general memory any stronger. 
 
 ''The defect of most methods which have been devis- 
 ed and employed for improving the memory, lies in the 
 fact that while they serve to impress particular subjects 
 
26 Association and Comparison. 
 
 on the mind, they do not render the memory as a 
 whole, ready, or retentive. ' ' 1 
 
 Mnemonics aim at recalling, by suggestive and often- 
 times very ingenious comparisons, what is embodied in 
 language, spoken or in print, and failures in such at- 
 tempts, by their methods, are legion. But hearing and 
 sight, it will be recognized, are only two of the channels 
 conveying impressions to the brain ; the brain receives 
 impressions through all the other senses as well. More- 
 over, printed language forms but a very small part of what 
 we see, just as we hear many other things than speech. 
 But mnemonics and associations are helpless to recall a 
 beautiful picture, or landscape, or the face of a friend, or 
 the song of a bird, or vocal or instrumental music, or the 
 voice of a loved one, and the countless other impressions 
 received by sight and hearing only. 
 
 By means of various forms of association and com- 
 parison, mnemonics help to recall particular facts, but for 
 each new fact a new association has to be sought. No 
 matter how many such associations are collected, they 
 do not make the memory more quick to apprehend or 
 retain new facts ; each new fact has to be separately dealt 
 with, and for a great variety of facts all mnemonics are 
 confessedly at fault. 
 
 Mnemoetchnic systems greatly weaken the 'memory as 
 a whole, and while to a very limited extent they teach 
 it to recall certain thoughts, very much impair its ca- 
 pacity directly to grasp anything which has not been 
 included in certain categories. Several of the distin- 
 guished men whose names are paraded as endorsing cer- 
 tain Arts of Memory have themselves very bad general 
 memories 
 
 Remembering items by correlations, comparisons or 
 
 (i) Dr. J. M. Granville. 
 
Association and Comparison. 27 
 
 associations may be compared to gathering a herd of 
 prairie wild cattle, and tethering them to the ground by 
 a weak rope and an insecure peg — each animal has to be 
 caught and fastened separately, while the wildest and 
 most agile get away. 
 
 Much will depend on the degree of attention which 
 the mind gives to the consideration of a subject. When 
 little or fleeting, the impression will be slight ; when 
 mixed up with other impressions, it will be blurred and 
 indistinct. 
 
 It is to the important matter of securing attention, 
 technically called " a vivid first impression," that mne- 
 monics owe most of the commendation they have receiv- 
 ed ; for, in the endeavor to form suggestive links and 
 comparisons, the subject matter has to be attentively ex- 
 amined and studied, and it is owing to such attention 
 that the matter is subsequently recalled, and not to the 
 mnemonical suggestion; for it is not uncommon to hear 
 persons say that they remember the fact to which they had 
 attempted to apply mnemonics, but forget the associat- 
 ing links ; or that they can recall the associative link they 
 were at such pains to devise, but forget the facts. 
 
 Loisette practically recognizes the limited efficacy of his 
 system by quoting on the title page of his prospectus Dr. 
 Johnson's dictum, " The True Art of Memory is the 
 Art of Attention." 
 
 This is only in part true. The initial "impression" 
 on the brain certainly depends, among other conditions, 
 largely on attention, and the memory is greatly influ- 
 enced by such initial impression ; it is not alone, however, 
 the strength or depth of an impression which determines 
 the permanency of the impression, but also the hardness 
 and durability of the substance in which the impression 
 is made. 
 
28 Attention. 
 
 Thus impressions made in the sand, in wood, in iron 
 and in granite respectively, though of equal depth and 
 distinctness in each, will, under like conditions, vary in 
 permanency not only by days or weeks or months, but 
 by hundreds of years. 
 
 In obtaining a photograph, the negative must first be 
 obtained by exposing the plate, which, however, is worth- 
 less until by proper chemicals it has been "developed," 
 and even then the image speedily vanishes unless by other 
 chemicals it is fixed and made permanent. 
 
 So in the matter of memory. The eyes may behold 
 and yet the mind take no notice. If now the attention, by 
 meana of comparison or otherwise, be directed and held 
 to the subject or matter in question, th« percept becomes 
 "developed," and appears vividly to the mind, but not- 
 withstanding the attention bestowed upon it, and its 
 vividness, it sooner or later vanishes unless the memory 
 has been trained to its permanent retention. 
 
 How this quality of durability or permanency can be 
 given to brain images, photographs or "impressions," 
 is first taught to the western world — it being partly in 
 the nature of a re-discovery — by the "Accretive System 
 of Developing Memory and Thought ' as set forth by 
 Charles G. Leland. 
 
 For centuries men have been teaching mnemonic sys- 
 tems, but the idea of developing a general memory for 
 all things perceptible by all the senses never before oc- 
 curred to any one. It is first taught in the Leland sys- 
 tem. The aim and effect of this system of memory- 
 training, is to make the brain receptive to the impressions 
 through all the sense-channels, and further, to make 
 such impressions durable and permanent. 
 
 By the Accretive system of Leland, such memory can, 
 by a series of easy and attractive lessons, be developed 
 
The Accretive System. 29 
 
 to a most extraordinary degree in the time generally re- 
 quired to learn a language fairly well, as language is 
 now taught. 
 
 The Accretive system does not teach interesting tricks 
 or feats in one lesson, or in a few days, nor are its pupils 
 u sworn to secrecy." It does not require one hundred 
 and fifty words or ideas to recall one. What it does 
 is to develop, by a simple process, a memory which grasps 
 directly and brings up at once, when needed, any image, 
 idea or fact whatever, without any intermediate chain of 
 words, numerals or letters. And it may be specially and 
 truly said of it, that just at the point and time when the 
 artificial mnemo-phreno-memoria-technic systems begin 
 to break down, the Accretive method manifests full and 
 increasing vigor. 
 
 There is no doubt that every man can be taught many 
 arts with his memory, and many curious tricks — but all the 
 arts in the world will not give him a good memory, or, in 
 fact, increase what he has, any more than teaching a man 
 a few tricks with cards will make him a good whist 
 player. Any man of average strength can be trained to 
 perform a few of the tricks of professional athletes, but 
 it will not make him a giant of the arena. 
 
 It has been observed that this system creates a general 
 memory, while mnemotechny, or "Arts of Memory" 
 teach it only to perform feats. This brings us to a sec- 
 ond radical difference between the two, and to one which 
 is even more important. Everybody knows that by ex- 
 treme hard work, or "will applied, " boys or men may 
 achieve miracles of memorizing, and that the strain very 
 often weakens the other faculties, so that even sheer 
 idiocy is sometimes the result. The author of the Accre- 
 tive system has collected and studied a great number of 
 such cases, the result being the conviction that in every 
 
30 7 he Accretive System. 
 
 instance the evil result has been due, first, to needlessly 
 hard work, or " over-pressure, '" and second, to the neg- 
 lect of gradually and gently developing with memory 
 intelligence, attention, interest and quickness of per- 
 ception. By this method, these are developed from the 
 first lesson, quite as much care being bestowed on them 
 as on mere memorizing. x\ccording to Leland, " memor- 
 izing,'" or getting by heart, is an art which can only be 
 perfectly acquired by awakening at the same time thought 
 or intelligence— all efforts to develop memory alone to 
 any great extent being absolutely injurious. 
 
 Very appropriate to the fact that a very great direct 
 (not associative) memory is identical with intellect, is the 
 following quotation from The Count of Monte Crist o, by 
 Alexander Dumas. Dantes and the learned and shrewd 
 Abbe Faria have been conversing, and the latter re- 
 marks : 
 
 " I possessed nearly 5,000 volumes in my library at Rome, 
 but after reading them over many times, I found out that with 
 150 well-chosen books a man possesses a complete analysis of 
 all human knowledge, or at least all that is either useful or de- 
 sirable to be acquainted with. I devoted three years of my 
 life to reading and studying these 150 volumns, till I knew them 
 nearly by heart. So that, since I have been in prison, a very 
 slight effort of memory has enabled me to recall the contents 
 as readily as though the papers were open before me I could 
 recite you the v/hole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Titus 
 Livius, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shake- 
 speare, Spinosa, Machiavel, and Bossuet. Observe, 1 merely 
 quote the most important names and writers." 
 
 Now, it is absolutely certain, first, that the man who 
 actually had these various works by heart could not have 
 " a memory enlarged at the expense of his judgment," 
 but that he inevitably must be an acute and well-trained 
 thinker ; second, that such feats cannot be achieved by 
 
The Accretive System. 31 
 
 any system of association ever invented ; and, third, that 
 it can be done by the Leland system, which, from the very 
 beginning, earnestly considers and teaches the manner of 
 executing it. To the man who is ?naster of this system, 
 such a feat is " f ar within the possibilities." 
 
 What it is proposed to teach is a very simple, easy 
 and practical system, by means of which any person 
 from infancy to mature age can so classify or arrange 
 and keep at hand the impressions of all the senses (that 
 is, all kinds of ideas) as to have them fully at command. 
 This, which is termed the Accretive system of Leland, 
 differs radically from every "Art of Memory ' ' or mnem- 
 otechny. Its great difference lies in this, that it is the 
 first and only system in which memory is regarded as the 
 active power to retain not only such ideas as are express- 
 ed by words, but also whatever can be seen, heard or ex- 
 perienced by any sense. As the phonograph not only con- 
 veys voices from afar, but also records them permanently, 
 so the memory may be made to convey and keep all 
 thought, and more than the phonograph, all sensation. 
 
 Mnemonics at most teach only how to learn with what 
 memory j^^ have. The Leland system aims at radically 
 creating a new memory. It does not show how to fill a 
 pint measure with ease from the great fountains of 
 knowledge, but how to make for yourself a measure of 
 any other size. In other words, the mnemonics of White, 
 Evans, Loisette and their imitators bear to the Leland 
 system about the same relation as alchemy to chemis- 
 try — charlatanism to science. 
 
 The reader who may think it claims to effect more than 
 can be easily taught, is requested to reflect that the theory 
 that there is practically no limit to increasing mental 
 power (or memory) may be found here and there, more 
 or less developed, in the writings of Darwin, Huxley, 
 
32 The Accretive System 
 
 and all their school, but especially in those of Mauds- 
 ley, Kay and Galton. Leland was the first to collect and 
 develop these hints into a practicable system of educa- 
 tion. 
 
 The mnemotechnists endeavor to show you how to in- 
 vest a part of your capital; the Accretive system teaches 
 you how to acquire the for time first, and then the most 
 profitable manner of investing it. 
 
 Of all the systems for developing memory and apply- 
 ing it to education which are now before the public, there 
 is not one which has in any degree whatever received such 
 approval from the greatest minds of the time as has the 
 Accretive. 
 
 As an illustration of only one of the applications of 
 the Accretive system to education, it may be mentioned 
 that when its author published a brief sketch of his 
 method of teaching languages by it in the St. James Ga- 
 zette of London, it attracted a very interesting series of 
 letters, among which was a long one from the distin- 
 guished Canon Taylor, in which he warmly commended 
 it. And when Mr. Leland read a paper in German con- 
 taining the same theory, before the Oriental Congress at 
 Stockholm in September, 1889, the first remark uttered by 
 the president of the day was a cordial approval of the 
 method. Many writers or thinkers have of late years re- 
 commended what may be called approaches to this system, 
 but it is certain that it is clearly set forth collectively for 
 the first time in the Manuals of Memorizing. 
 
 By the Accretive system a student may, in the same 
 time which is now required to learn short-hand or phono- 
 graphy, acquire the ability to commit a lecture, sermon 
 or debate to memory, and afterwards to write it out. And 
 he may, if so minded, with little extra effort recall it at 
 any time, as has been fully proved. 
 
The Accretive System. 33 
 
 The business man who masters it will find it gives him 
 the power constantly to take and keep account of stock. 
 Every lawyer who will examine it will find it infinitely 
 preferable to any Art of Memory for purposes of storing 
 up, classifying and recalling cases and experiences, and 
 the same will be admitted by physicians, chemists and 
 all men of science. And it is by the opinion of these 
 practical men that the promulgator of the system desires 
 that it may be judged 
 
 Mr. Leland has received letters or other testimonials 
 approving his system from many of the most advanced 
 scientists and writers on education, not only in Great 
 Britain, but in most of the countries of Europe. 
 
 When the system was set forth by Mr. Leland before 
 the British Royal Literary Society, Sir James Crichton 
 Brown voiced the general endorsement of that august 
 body in a brilliant speech of approval ; and when a part 
 of the system was first outlined in Practical Education, 
 it received from its many eminent reviewers such praise 
 as is seldom given with so little reserve to any work, 
 and it may be here observed that the most practical and 
 scientific magazines were the most enthusiastic in their 
 approbation. 
 
THE IMPORTANCE OF MEMORY. 
 
 'Much more attention ought to be paid to the improvement 
 of the memory than is paid, both at home, and in our schools." 
 — Dr. John Todd. 
 
 " It is of no use gathering treasures if we cannot store them ; 
 it is equally useless to learn what we cannot retain in the me- 
 mory." — Prof. Blaikie (Self -Culture.) 
 
 "The power of creating depends upon the power of remem- 
 bering, and he who has most enriched his mind with stores of 
 nature, and of art, will always have the most fertile and read- 
 iest invention." — Kay. 
 
 "The richer the memory and consequently the greater the 
 number of images that may arise to the poet, and of powers 
 and effects that may arise to the philosopher, the more copious 
 in both cases will be the suggestions of analogy which consti- 
 tute poetic invention or philosophic discovery, and the more 
 copious the suggestions of analogy may be, the richer and more 
 diversified, it is evident, must be the inventive powers of the 
 mind." — Dr. Thomas Brown. 
 
 "It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this 
 subject, as bearing upon education. The whole science of edu- 
 cation may be said to be embraced in the question of " How to 
 Improve the Memory." It includes not merely the cultivation 
 of the different mental faculties, and the furnishing them with 
 knowledge, but the training of the sense, and the developing of 
 the various physical powers. Every act in the training or cul- 
 tivation of any power or faculty depends on memory ; all the 
 habits we form are built up through it." — Kay. 
 
 ' ' The secret of business success is mainly the retention of 
 perceptions and experiences ; in social life memory is the fun- 
 damental pre- requisite to brilliancy in conversation and the con- 
 fidence of our fellows. It is the stepping stone to responsible 
 
 (34) 
 
The Importance of Memory. 35 
 
 and honorable positions, and the indispensable sine qua non of 
 the writer and the public speaker." — G. F. C. Smillie. 
 
 "The memory of what is elegant in oratory and sweet in 
 song, inspires and leads us to become orators and poets." — 
 Chas. G. Leland. 
 
 "There is neither knowledge, nor arts, nor sciences without 
 memory ; nor can there be an improvement of mankind in vir- 
 tue, or morals, or the practice of religion, without the assis- 
 tance and influence of this power." — Dr. Watts. 
 
 "Not only the learning of the scholar, but the inspiration of 
 the poet, the genius of the painter, the heroism of the warrior 
 all depend on memory." — Kay. 
 
The Accretive System of ^Developing 
 
 VIEMORY 
 
 AND 
 
 THOUGHT 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES G. LELAND, F. R. S. L. 
 
 M. A. (Harvard), 
 
 resident of the Gypsy Folk-Lore Society ; Late Director of the Indus. 
 
 t^Art I^luLhoois in Philadelphia; Member of the Oriental 
 
 Society of Great Britain; Official member of the American, 
 
 French and Hungarian Folk-Lore Societies and British 
 
 Home Arts and Industries Association ; Author of 
 
 Practical Education, Industrial Art m Schools, 
 
 Hints on Self-Education, The Minor Arts, 
 
 Tzvelve Manuals of Art, Etc, Etc. 
 
 fihe Accretive System Comprises a Series of Six Manuals, as follows. 
 
 I. The Mastery of Memorizing. 
 
 II. Quickness of Perception. 
 HI. Ear Memory and Eye Memory Training 
 IV. The Study of Languages. 
 
 V. Memory and Thought. 
 VI. Memory Training of the Young 
 
 Price, $5 for the series. Sold only in sets. Subscriptions filled consecu- 
 tively in the order of receipt IN PRESS. 
 
 New York 
 J AS. P. DOWNS, PUBLISHER, 
 
 TIMKS BUILDING, PARK ROW. (P. O. BOX 1202.) 
 
Remington 
 Standard Typewriter. 
 
 Embodying every improvement that study and capital 
 
 can secure. 
 
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 New York. 
 
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