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 /Ibental Calisthenics 
 
 OR 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL • MEMORY 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. 6. A. SCHRAM 
 
 he Natural Pome^s and Pf oeesses of Atten> 
 
 tion and ^eeolleetion Placed undei* 
 
 Intelligent and Peffeet 
 
 Control of the 
 
 UJill 
 
 ^ MIND -WANDERING QUICKLY CURED ^ 
 
 The Pooue* to Iiearn and Heeolleet more than 
 •^doubled immediately • 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1892. 
 
 m 
 
Mental Calisthenics 
 
 OR 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY 
 
 THE NATURAL LAWS AND PRINCIPLES GOVEENING THE INTELLECTUAL 
 PROCESSES. 
 
 IT IS POSITIVELY A NEW DEPARTURE ON THE SUBJECT OF ATTENTION 
 AND MEMORY. 
 
 NO MNEMONICAL TRICKS U8ED. 
 
 ATTENTION ENGAGED ONLY WITH THAT WHICH IS TO 
 BE LEARNED. 
 
 I THE METHOD APPLIES TO EVERYTHING THAT CAN POSSIBLY ENGAGE 
 ATTENTION. 
 
 Ji 
 
 Rev. G. A. SCHRAM 
 
 "_ ^7Ws X 
 
 CHICAGO: ( C 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR 
 1892 
 
 Press of K. R. McCabe & Co., Chicago. 
 
 c^D 
 
*£ 
 
 r 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1892. 
 (All rights reserved.) 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In presenting this little book to the reader, I 
 feel that a few words by way of introduction will not 
 be amiss. 
 
 I am fully aware of the boldness of my under- 
 taking to write upon a subject of so vast importance, 
 and. withal, one whose practical side has so long 
 evaded the pursuit of the thousands who have tried 
 to capture and bring it forth to the light of day. 
 
 I apprehend that the first thought of the reader 
 may be to consign the book to the fate of the 
 "mnemonical systems" preceding, "whose name is 
 legion," but are generally worse than useless. 
 
 But trusting to the forbearance of the reader, 
 where he does not find the subject put with sufficient 
 perspicuity and fullness to suit him, I send it forth 
 with a confidence born of personal verification. 
 
 A few years ago I found myself a wreck in 
 nerves and memory. I had so completely lost the 
 power of sustained mental effort, that for two years 
 I could not read a column in a newspaper. This 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 was brought about by such fool-hardiness as study- 
 ing sixteen hours a day for months in succession. 
 
 My power of prolonged continuity in study, is. I 
 believe, permanently gone. Two hours of contin- 
 uous application without rest is all I can endure at 
 this date, fifteen years after my breakdown. Yet 
 in these two hours I can do more effective study by 
 the method set forth in this book, than I could do 
 in six hours before my loss of strength, and before I 
 discovered my new method. 
 
 I am the more confident, because similar results 
 are produced in other persons by my method. 
 
 I have not aimed at treating the subject exhaus- 
 tively. 
 
 The earlier pages of the book are given some- 
 what to theoretical aspects of the subject, but the 
 latter part is practical. 
 
 The reader may pass at once to the practical parts 
 if he wishes to do so, and will find equally good 
 results, if he follows my directions. 
 
 I have found it difficult to decide just what to 
 write and what to leave unsaid. 
 
 There may be points on which some may desire 
 fuller explanations or instructions; I therefore hold 
 myself in readiness, as far as possible, to answer any 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 question in harmony with the purposes of the book, 
 and without cost to the student beyond postage. 
 
 The reader will find some repetition in the book. 
 This I have indulged in, that I may the more fully 
 impress certain truths vital to the subject and method 
 set forth. 
 
 The moment the reader gets the meaning of the 
 book and applies it, he will realize the soundness of 
 the principles presented, and yet he will find that it 
 unfolds more and more in its endless application to 
 all our intellectual activities. 
 
 Again let me urge that if any of my readers do 
 not find that there is a wonderful improvement in 
 their power to pay attention and to recollect, after 
 carefully studying and using my method, they will 
 immediately write to me explaining their difficulties. 
 
 Non-improvement will be a proof that you have 
 not understood nor applied my method. 
 
 The Author. 
 
MENTAL CALISTHENICS. 
 
 *<^} -^ P u P^ s ' no * critics. 
 
 ' J Do not class my methods with the hundreds 
 of attempts made by. others to aid the memory by 
 inventing devices to bolster and prop it up. 
 
 Neither must it be supposed that I or any other 
 person can give powers or faculties that the reader 
 does not already possess. 
 
 Many persons suppose that good and bad memory 
 are alike natural endowments for which the possessor 
 is not responsible, and cannot change. 
 
 All natural memory is good and reliable. Bad 
 memory is the result of artificial or perverted use of 
 the natural powers and faculties, excepting in cases 
 of nervous derangement, weak digestion, and poor 
 blood. 
 
 It is to point out nature's method that I have 
 undertaken this work, having first verified the sound- 
 ness of each principle and method presented. 
 
Z MENTAL CALISTHENICS. 
 
 Having familiarized myself with nearly all the 
 devices and tricks used by Mnemotechnists, I 
 entirely discard their use as being burdensome, con- 
 fusing, and hurtful. They are unnatural, and usu- 
 ally productive of the very evils they profess to 
 remedy or cure. Their authors seem never to 
 have discovered how and what it is that we come 
 to know in gaining knowledge, and what and how it 
 is again made present to the mind in Recollection. 
 This must first be understood, then each successive 
 step will be easy, natural, and clear. 
 
 I shall at once proceed to my work by asking 
 and answering a few questions, hoping thereby to 
 lead the reader by easy steps to grasp the basal 
 truths of the following pages. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ^Dfyat is tfye Material of J{notolebge? 
 
 IN a word it is anything of which we may become 
 conscious, of which the world about us furn- 
 ishes a great variety; objects to be seen, sounds to 
 be heard, odors to be smelt, flavors to be tasted, 
 pain or pleasure to be felt, etc. 
 
 For the perception of these we are endowed with 
 special senses, which constitute the machinery of the 
 mind. This machinery is composed of sentient 
 nerve matter, divided or arranged appropriately for 
 the special uses intended, and having an exterior end 
 organ, upon which the corresponding object of sense 
 may act, and thus set up a commotion along the 
 whole nerve-tract, and corresponding brain-centre. 
 And it is really this nerve-commotion, or modified 
 condition that the mind comes to perceive, # and not 
 
 the object that has produced it. This will be clear 
 
 3 
 
4 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 to the reader if lie will but think what would be the 
 condition of the mind and the amount of knowledge 
 if we had none of these special senses, nor any 
 sensitive nervous organs whatever. We could 
 evidently know nothing. 
 
 But the Creator has wonderfully adapted us to 
 our environment, by giving us a nervous mechanism 
 — divided into special senses, by the proper use of 
 which the mind may become conscious of, pay atten- 
 tion to, come clearly to perceive, and afterwards to 
 re-present the same before the mind without having 
 it actually present to the end-organs of sense ( eyes, 
 ears, etc.). Absence of one of these senses from 
 birth prevents all knowledge, such as it might 
 have been a channel for the reception of ; e. g. : one 
 born blind has no true conception of what it is to 
 see light, color, form. He may feel, but that is 
 entirely different. 
 
 So of deaf mutes, sound to them does not exist. 
 They can feel a jar or the beating of a drum, but 
 cannot hear. 
 
 From the foregoing we gather three facts : 
 
 1. That the primary matter of our knowledge is 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 5 
 
 composed of what may be seen, heard, felt, tasted, 
 smelt, etc. 
 
 2. That the only media of communication between 
 these and the mind are our" special senses, or, in a 
 word, the nervous system, in a normal condition, or 
 sufficiently so to admit of the mind's perception of 
 the kind of nerve-commotion, and which of the 
 special senses it is that is so impressed. 
 
 3. That the kind and clearness of our perceptions 
 and knowledge is limited by the kind and degree of 
 nervous action, and the clearness of our perception 
 of the same. 
 
 Personal knowledge of the world about us 
 requires but attention to the impressions received 
 through the nervous organism. But man's social 
 conditions and relations have required some means of 
 conveying to one mind what was present to another. 
 This might be done in one of two ways. 
 
 I 1 1 By presenting to the senses of the one that 
 which was formerly present to the senses of the 
 other, and is now present only to mind and the inner 
 nerve mechanism. 
 
 ( 2 ) He might use such gestures as would pre- 
 
6 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 sent the same before the mind, as the deaf mute 
 does. 
 
 (3) He might use sounds, whose meaning had 
 first been fixed by being associated with the object 
 indicated. 
 
 (4) Certain marks or written signs might be 
 used whose meaning had been fixed. 
 
 In this work I am concerned chiefly with word- 
 signs — spoken, and written. 
 
 Now a word, whether it comes to us as a sound 
 impressing the ear, or as a written sign impressing 
 the eye, is in itself simply a sense-object (i. e. some- 
 thing that can impress one of the special senses i : as 
 such it may mean nothing to us and convey nothing 
 to the mind other than the fact of the peculiar ear 
 or sight impression it produces. 
 
 But what is a word in its common use? "A 
 sign of an idea, 11 says one. Not so, but it is a sign 
 of a sense object: nothing more; i. e., over against 
 every word of our own or any other language, there 
 stands a sense-object, and vice versa, e. </.. I say 
 horse, and instantly there is presented before your 
 mind the kind of an animal we drive before the 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. i 
 
 buggy. If I say white horse, the same is true with 
 the addition of color which you see in the shape of 
 a horse. 
 
 If I say the horse neighs, the sense object is still 
 more extended and his neighing becomes a sense- 
 object to the ear, and the act of neighing a sense- 
 object to sight. 
 
 Hence words, whether spoken or written, are but 
 arbitrary signs taken, to re-present to mind, things, 
 qualities, relations, actions, etc., that have been 
 previously present to mind with such words as signs 
 of the same. 
 
 These, and not the words, are the real and ulti- 
 mate objects of perception, to be made present and 
 distinct before the mind by means of the words. 
 There may be the same thought, or sense-object 
 presented to miud by different words, or words of 
 different languages. Tree means to me, or rather 
 brings to me, that object which grows on the lawn. 
 But I hear two Germans talking and they say bourn. 
 I am told that baum is the word for that same 
 object. The object of which I know is that form 
 growing on the lawn. 
 
o MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 To a person of any other language the same 
 object would be presented or represented to mind by 
 the word in his language used as a name for that 
 object. Knowledge is the same knowledge in all 
 languages. 
 
 If the words we see or hear are new to us, they 
 present nothing to m'ind but their form and the let- 
 ters they contain, and can never be understood until 
 their corresponding sense-object is in some way pre- 
 sented to mind. The two then become associated 
 together as impressions, each becoming a part of one 
 complete complex record in memory. 
 
 Hence all understood word signs have their inter- 
 pretation in the re-presentation of the corresponding 
 object, and so a process of recollection is carried on 
 as we see or hear familiar words. The sentences 
 may convey different complete notions from any pre- 
 viously heard, but they are composed of well-known 
 thought-objects constructed into new forms. 
 
 I shall show later that this tends greatly to 
 produce mind-wandering. 
 
 The one first thing to be clearly understood, and 
 for which I have tried to prepare the student, is that 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 9 
 
 the mind primarily engages itself through the senses, 
 with whatever stimulates these senses. And these 
 stimuli I will call (for the sake of having a conven- 
 ient common name for them) Sense Objects, and 
 for that which is represented to mind in recollection 
 I use the term Thought Objects. 
 
 What is seen is a Sense-Object to sight, sounds 
 are sense-objects to hearing, and odor to smell, a 
 flavor to taste, etc. 
 
 So we may say that a perception is a distinct 
 presentation of a Sense-Object to the mind, through 
 the special senses engaged therewith. 
 
 A Kecollection (or re-perception) is a presenta- 
 tion before the mind of that which was at some past 
 time, but is not now actually present to it, but is 
 represented by something corresponding closely 
 therewith — sometimes called a mental image, but 
 the mind does not deal with it, nor think of it as an 
 image during the mental processes of recollection, 
 and of intelligent reading or listening, but it treats 
 it as the veritable sense-object. As the whole 
 process is entirely internal, and independent of the 
 external object and the outer end-organ of sense, I 
 
10 MENTAL CALISTHENICS. 
 
 have termed it Thought Object. Do not confound 
 these two terms. 
 
 That I may make the lessons the better under- 
 stood, and prepare the students to take each step 
 in their progress intelligently, I shall first make a 
 brief 
 
 I. Analysis of Recollection. 
 
 II. I will show the process in Recollective Syn- 
 thesis, or building from the most indefinite state of 
 consciousness of impression to distinct perception 
 and power to reproduce the same before the mind 
 afterwards in Recollection. 
 
 III. I will explain the law of Reciprocal Predi- 
 cation, or the law governing the Recollective process. 
 
 IY. The Golden Link. 
 
 V. Certainty of Recollection. 
 
 VI. Exercises and suggestions. 
 
CHAPTEK II. 
 
 2\nalgsi5 of 7^ ec ollection. 
 
 1. What is a Kecollection ? 
 
 The common idea is that thought is a kind of 
 entity acquired by the mind — that as such it some 
 how exists in the mind, perhaps like documents 
 stowed away in pigeon holes for future use, aud that 
 Recollection hunts them up and brings them out 
 from their hiding place when required, somewhat as 
 one would go to his library and find a favorite book 
 when needed. 
 
 The old philosophers treated the subject much in 
 the same way. "With them memory was the reten- 
 tion of ideas unconsciously in the mind, and Recol- 
 lection was the act of bringing them back to con- 
 sciousness. But this is both untrue, and impossible. 
 
 To ask, "Where is the thought you had at some 
 
 11 
 
12 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 previous time?" can receive no true answer but 
 Nowhere. 
 
 What is an idea or thought? Surely it has no 
 material existence, that the mind should be able to 
 treat it as a boy does his peanuts when he puts them 
 in his pocket for future use. 
 
 Is it not evident that thoughts and ideas bear 
 the same relation to the mind that movements and 
 definite acts do to the muscular powers! Where, 
 then, is the action of yesterday ? Nowhere of course. 
 It is past, you have not hoarded it up, nor could you 
 do so. But you may repeat it, and so may the mind 
 think the same again by having the same processes 
 which led thereto, repeated. Thought is the mind 
 in action — ideas are the result of such mental 
 activity, during the process of perceiving, analyz- 
 ing — constructing the sense objects presented 
 through the senses, or in re-perceiving, re-analyzing, 
 and re-constructing the same when presented to 
 mind in Recollection. 
 
 By a little introspection, or study of one's own 
 mental operations in recollecting, the following will 
 be apparent, viz: 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 13 
 
 (1) That in Recollection we get a past thought 
 or idea before the mind, or in the mind again, i. e., 
 we again think the same thoughts that we thought 
 at some former time. 
 
 (2) That back of and prior to the thought, 
 there is present to mind a thonght-object, about 
 which we think, from which the thought is insepa- 
 rable and without the presence of which, the thought 
 is impossible. 
 
 The Thought-Object comes to mind first, then 
 the processes of thought begin, but end or change 
 in subject as soon as the Thought-Object vanishes 
 from mental vision, or is changed for another. 
 
 (3) That in every distinct recollection there is 
 a representation to mind of all that was previously 
 present to it through the senses, and in the same 
 order of parts, and that, too, not by bringing the past 
 up to the present, hut by translating one's self to the 
 past, i. e., one seems to be again at the same place 
 — surrounded by the same objects, feeling the same 
 experiences, and always in the same relation to 
 one another as when first witnessed, and there is the 
 same ability to contemplate one feature in particular 
 
14 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 or all in general, and in any order desired, as from 
 first to last or from last to first — or from a given 
 point either way. We also find that as we thus 
 re-perceive or recollect, we not only experience a 
 repetition of former thought, but may extend 
 thought respecting these Thought-Objects. 
 
 We can exercise a creative, or constructive force 
 of mind and put these familiar objects into new 
 combinations and relations so as to produce an alto- 
 gether different whole. 
 
 ( Here lies the basis of imagination. ) 
 To illustrate No. 3, take the following: 
 I once visited Niagara Falls, with my sister. 
 And now as I recall that visit, I seem to be with the 
 same sister standing in the same spot, viewing the 
 falls — in every direction about me are the same 
 objects — and as each scene is repeated before the 
 mind the same thoughts recur. 
 
 These objects bear the same relation to one an- 
 other before my mind now as then — the eye passes 
 from one object to another in the same order, i. e.. 
 each part joins each other part now as then — thus 
 making up the complete scene. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 15 
 
 Nor is it a matter of sight only. I heard the 
 great roar of the cataract, and this is repeated in my 
 recollection not as a thought only, but as a roaring 
 then comes the thought or idea. 
 
 80, too, of the other senses. 
 
 Again, each Thought- Object has its individual 
 quality as then. It appears before the mind 
 possessing that quality, e. g. The river had not 
 only banks, but they were perpendicular. I mentally 
 see them again in recollection. The falls were of 
 great volume, and curved; a dense, whitish mist 
 arose, a beautiful rainbow was reflected from them, 
 so that every thing or quality becomes objective 
 to the particular sense concerned. But if objective, 
 then there must be a certain degree of correspond- 
 ing activity in that part of our organism through 
 which these are originally perceived. (See Prof. 
 Geo. T. Lad, in Physio. Psychology. M. Ribot, 
 on Diseases of Memory, and others of recent date. ) 
 
 (4) There is usually a conscious effort, in 
 Recollection, to revive or repeat the conditions 
 under which the original perception was acquired, 
 an effort to translate one's-self to the time, place, 
 
16 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 circumstances, surroundings, etc. Having accom- 
 plished this, or probably, too, in accomplishing it, 
 there is a more or less conscious effort to see, hear, 
 feel, etc., that of which we are in search; and yet 
 the effort is usually entirely confined to an internal 
 effort. The outer organ of sense is seldom used in 
 such case, never, indeed, unless the person con- 
 cerned is actually surrounded by the original condi- 
 tions. Thus a boy in school is asked to tell a num- 
 ber that was written upon the blackboard yesterday, 
 and he may look at the very spot on the board 
 where he saw it written, but if asked the question 
 out of school he mentally sees the board, its color, 
 etc. — looks at that part upon which the number was 
 written, then begins to arise into the field of mental 
 vision, the objects (figures) that he saw on that part 
 of the board yesterday. They come distinctly, not 
 all at once, but as many together as were originally 
 included in one act of perception. 
 
 This effort to see, hear, etc., in trying to Recol- 
 lect, is perfectly natural. It is an effort to have the 
 same nervous action repeated that took place prior to, 
 and continuing while the mind originally perceived. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 17 
 
 If this can be repeated, the same mental results 
 will follow. This may be accomplished by a volun- 
 tary effort of mind, beginning with the point of 
 present view, and following a series of associated 
 objects of sense until the desired link in the chain is 
 reached, just as in recalling some scene or experience 
 in travel we quickly pass along over the familiar 
 steps till we reach that particular stage desired. 
 
 Or it may be involuntary, in which case what is 
 now present to mind has resulted from nervous 
 activities similar to those originally produced by 
 some other sense-object. Thus the seeing or recol- 
 lection of O, may revive the recollection of Q, 
 because, excepting the tail, they are alike : or to read 
 of a journey may revive the recollection of one once 
 taken by yourself. Or it may result from the fact 
 that what is present to mind once formed part of a 
 complex object of perception, e. g., I once saw in a 
 trades' procession, a mottled soap firm led by a man 
 on a pure white horse, stained all over with spots of 
 blue, and ever since when I see a white horse in 
 such a position there is revived in recollection the 
 white horse and his blue spots. 
 
18 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 The white horse that I may see to-day has 
 revived a part of the same nerve commotion pro- 
 duced by the blue-white horse originally, and so the 
 remainder of the neural action as a part of the 
 original is reproduced and thus the mind reads it — 
 or rather reperceives it. Another, and familiar illus- 
 tration is found in a lapsus Ungues, — beginning to 
 pronounce a word correctly but ending with a sylla- 
 ble that makes it a word of entirely different mean- 
 ing from that intended. e. g., A person of my 
 acquaintance wished to say that a certain thing was 
 magnet ized, but he said it was magnified. Occasion- 
 ally similarity of sound will for the same reason 
 result disastrously. I overheard two ministers 
 laughing about another, who intended to recite the 
 stanza, 
 
 "Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
 
 The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 
 
 And nightly to the listening earth 
 
 Proclaims the story of her birth." 
 
 But alas! he got switched off on the similarity of 
 sound, even without sense, and said: 
 
 " Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
 The moon sticks up his wondrous tail," etc. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 19 
 
 (5) Personal experience shows that we never 
 recognize a thought as a recollection whose object 
 does not come to us (a) without the outward stimu- 
 lus of the sense-object, and (6) when it is so repre- 
 sented it is familiar to us as belonging to past time, 
 and certain associations with place, and other Objects. 
 
 (c) That which has been perceived when the physi- 
 cal conditions of the body were the best, the blood 
 richest, and most active, was most easily recollected. 
 
 (d) That we find it hard to recollect when the vital 
 forces are weak from any cause, such as indigestion, 
 poor blood, weariness, nervous derangement, either 
 from disease, fear, or extreme excitement. 
 
 In concluding this chapter I make the following 
 summary statement of the conditions necessary to 
 every recollection. 
 
 1. A highly sensitive nervous organism suscepti- 
 ble of a great variety of stimulus. 
 
 2. Sense-Objects or stimuli, which through the 
 end-organs of sense produce nervous activities in the 
 corresponding nerve particles, and tracts. 
 
 3. An original impression or nervous modifica- 
 
20 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 tion, and adjustment to the new conditions resulting 
 from the stimuli. 
 
 4.. A Record, or abiding modification of the nerve 
 particles concerned, so that there is an aptitude to 
 repetition of the same activities whenever appropriate 
 stimuli are present. 
 
 5. A revival of the record, or repetition of the 
 original nervous behavior, and its perception by the 
 mind, thus producing that condition known as a 
 recollection. 
 
 We may, therefore, still more briefly state the 
 stages or parts in Recollection, as being: 
 
 (1) An original impression of the nervous me- 
 chanism concerned. 
 
 (2) A permanent modification and adjustment 
 of the same to the impression. 
 
 (3) A revival or repetition of the original be- 
 havior of the same nerve particles concerned. 
 
 The possibility of Recollection depends upon an 
 acquired tendency of the nerve-particles to repeat a 
 former mode of action, because there cannot be 
 represented to mind what was not previously pre- 
 
OB PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 21 
 
 sent to it, and it cannot be represented without 
 the original nerve commotion being first revived. 
 
 The student will find that the following pages 
 will make the foregoing chapter clear to his mind. 
 
 He is now to begin the more practical part of 
 my subject. I therefore earnestly beg of him to 
 proceed only as fast as he is able to verify to himself 
 the naturalness and effectiveness of my methods. 
 
 All questions asked by mail concerning parts that 
 may not be clear, I will take great pleasure in answer- 
 ing, and without cost to the student, excepting postage. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 TJecollecttoe ^gntfyesis. 
 
 IN this chapter I desire to present, not a device, 
 or plan, or invention, or series of tricks, by which 
 the student may do some astonishing things, but 
 nature's method, the method pursued instinctively 
 by all until they are led from it by some of the arti- 
 ficial tricks of teachers — or by the almost certain 
 tendencies of learning from books and at second hand, 
 generally. 
 
 The first stage in the process of coming to know, 
 and in being able to recollect is (for I hold that all 
 we know is possible of recollection), 
 
 I. A condition of impression. 
 
 This is a phase of consciousness, but in its first 
 stage very indefinite. It is simply consciousness that 
 one is impressed or thrown into a condition of nerv- 
 
 22 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 23 
 
 ous action along the nerve-tracts of one or more of 
 the special senses. 
 
 This nerve commotion is a kind of alarm-bell to 
 the mind, and leads to investigation of the cause by 
 the latter. 
 
 The cause or stimulus is always a sense-object 
 acting upon the appropriate special sense. 
 
 I call attention here to the fact that there are two 
 kinds of sense-objects. 
 
 1. Those that are in nature, correlated to the 
 special senses — as sights, sounds, odors, etc. 
 
 These naturally and directly impress the corre- 
 sponding senses. 
 
 2. Those which, though sense-objects in them- 
 selves, are but signs of other sense-objects which are 
 not now present to the senses, such as words, spoken 
 or written, also sentences, figures, scientific formulae, 
 etc. They have no existence for their own sake, but 
 are intended to represent to mind that for which they 
 are used as signs. At this stage of the subject how- 
 ever it is sufficient to treat word-signs as we do real 
 objects in nature, i. e., as things that are capable of 
 producing nervous impression, e. g. A mountain is 
 
-4 MENTAL CALISTHENICS: 
 
 an object to be seen, so is the word mountain^ or if 
 spoken, it is heard and becomes a sense-object to 
 the hearing. Although the first phase of conscious 
 impression is very indefinite it serves to — 
 
 II. Arrest attention, and at this point begins the 
 process of record-making, so important to (after) 
 recollection. 
 
 Let ns try to get a clear understanding of what 
 attention is, and how we exercise it. 
 
 1. Attention is to special sense and mind what 
 tension is to the muscles. If I grasp and hold 
 a weight steadily at arm's length, there is tension of 
 muscle, an application of the strength of certain 
 muscles to the weight. So, too, in attention, certain 
 nerve particles and tracts are impressed. They are 
 then held steadily in an attitude suitable to the con- 
 tinuance of the impression, until the mind clearly 
 perceives. 
 
 Attention is to future recollection what the act 
 of taking a negative is to the future picture to be 
 taken from it. If the negative is defective, so will 
 the picture be. 
 
 The negative is prepared by exposing a sensi- 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 25 
 
 tire plate to light and shadow reflected from the 
 original object. The plate and object must be held 
 in such relation to one another that the lines of 
 light and shade fall steadily in the same places upon 
 the sensitive plate. If there is movement in either 
 the negative will be blurred, and the picture imper- 
 fect and perhaps unrecognizable. 
 
 So if attention is unsteady, turning from one 
 object to another, the impression will be dim and 
 confused. ' This • is why mind- wandering makes 
 recollection almost, if not quite, impossible, because 
 the negative, or record in the nerves concerned is a 
 combination, — a mixture, very much as if I were to 
 write a dozen letters upon the same place. 
 
 Attention, then, may be said to be the fixation of 
 the sense concerned upon the stimulating object, and 
 the undivided direction of the mind towards the 
 impression then present to consciousness. 
 
 2. Attention in its process is both Analytic and 
 Synthetic. 
 
 There is no such thing as attention in general — 
 it is always particular, if it is attention at all. 
 
 The limit of one act of perfect attention is very 
 
26 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 small. This you may verify by placing a few mar- 
 bles on a table, then try how many you can perceive 
 by one act of attention, and you will find that five 
 or six is the utmost limit. Even with these num- 
 bers you will find yourself grouping into two, and 
 three, three, and three, etc. 
 
 Or if you study a landscape, or any large collec- 
 tion of objects, you take them one at a time. There 
 is first a general impression of the whole, or a con- 
 siderable part of it, but the moment that attention 
 begins, it fixes upon particular features to the exclu- 
 sion of all others, e. g., A landscape may be the 
 study. It contains a number of objects. You 
 immediately begin to analyze the scene by fixing 
 upon some prominent object. Suppose it is a tree. 
 You observe that it is a green tree, perhaps the kind 
 of tree — its shape — where in the landscape it is 
 situated, etc. Having completed the study to your 
 satisfaction, your eye falls upon something else near 
 the tree which you now study to the exclusion of 
 every other object. Having acquired a distinct 
 perception of the latter, you have now a scene of 
 two objects distinctly perceived. You know them 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 2'i 
 
 individually and unitedly — that is, in the particular 
 relation in which you observed them to exist. 
 
 You have therefore two perceptions in one. The 
 union of the two into one (complex perception) has 
 been effected by fixing the attention upon their rela- 
 tion, which has also become a matter of perception. 
 This relation can have no existence apart from the 
 objects related. It is no part of the objects, and yet 
 is a part of the general effect of the scene, and with- 
 out it there can be no certain recollection. (I shall 
 have occasion to refer to this matter again, so drop 
 it for the present.) 
 
 In pursuing the process of attention the next 
 object is taken up in a similar way with its relations 
 to the one just previously present to mind, and so 
 throughout the whole landscape. Hence, as I have 
 said, attention is both analytic and synthetic. It 
 severs a whole into parts, and again rebuilds, as it 
 advances. 
 
 I have used an illustration of sight-objects — but 
 the student will readily see that the same principles 
 apply in relation to all kinds of sense-objects although 
 they may be ever so much mixed. 
 
28 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 3. Attention is of two kinds — 
 
 (1) Involuntary or spontaneous. ■( 2) Voluntary. 
 
 In the former the interesting nature of the objects 
 of attention is such that they compel attention. In 
 the latter, they are so uninteresting that you must 
 compel attention, if you pay attention at all. 
 
 In the former the process of attention is sure to 
 be perfectly natural — in the latter it will almost cer- 
 tainly be artificial. Indeed, these two have been 
 called respectively natural and artificial attention, 
 which is incorrect, however, unless it can be shown 
 that man does not possess the power of volition in 
 attention. If man is to "get wisdom, and with all 1 ' 
 his getting to "get under standing, 1 ' as Solomon ad- 
 vises, he certainly must exercise some will power and 
 2^ay attention where he is not compelled to do so 
 by the very nature of the subject. 
 
 It has been said that in voluntary attention we 
 " clothe our subject with an interest that it does not 
 naturally possess." This is not so. If it were it 
 would be a process of attention to the matter in ques- 
 tion and something else. In other words it would 
 be putting sugar in the coffee to make it palatable, 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 29 
 
 then declaring that the taste was that of pure 
 coffee. 
 
 During the process of Voluntary attention we add 
 no new feature or element to the subject, nor do tee 
 adopt any artificial methods, unless through ignor- 
 ance. What we do is to pursue the analytic and 
 synthetic method already described. 
 
 Voluntary attention is not only superior to the 
 involuntary, as a power of the mind, but also as 
 regards utility, and results. Yet the two are ever in 
 conflict — producing that bane of most persons, called 
 mind-wandering. There are two phases of mind- 
 wandering. Mind-wandering proper, in which the 
 suggestive character of the matter of voluntary 
 attention has revived a recollection with which the 
 attention begins involuntarily to engage itself to the 
 exclusion of the other. This is very likely to be the 
 case with brainy people of an active nervous temper- 
 ament, and the more they know, the more likely this 
 is to be the case. The other phase of mind wander- 
 ing may more correctly be called mind-balking. It 
 is simply a cessation of attention, a dropping into a 
 condition of listlessness. It is usually due to weari- 
 
30 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 ness — nervous derangement, indigestion or heredi- 
 tary influences. The latter is the more hopeless 
 type. 
 
 In such cases there should be wise and persistent 
 efforts to restore normal physical conditions, then 
 follow the directions set forth in this book. 
 
 4. The act of voluntary attention is two-fold. 
 
 (1) Directive, (2) Inhibitory. 
 
 Even in cases where the will is strong and the 
 physical forces in a normal condition, there will be a 
 constant tendency to mind-wandering, resulting from 
 the suggestive nature of the matter with which the 
 attention is being engaged. As previously suggested, 
 the nature of memory is such that recollections are 
 being continually awakened by what is present to the 
 senses and mind in attention. 
 
 That is, voluntary attention drops into the involun- 
 tary mood, and the will is led in the course of atten- 
 tion, instead of firmly holding control, and directing 
 attention where it chooses. 
 
 The Directive force is engaged in compelling 
 attention along the line of a certain series of impres- 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 31 
 
 sions as thev are made by their corresponding sense- 
 objects. 
 
 But who has not found that the mind has often 
 been 8 ide- tracked, and that attention has broken 
 down? e. g., in reading a book attention has been 
 diverted by a suggestion, and although one may have 
 gone on reading mechanically, nothing is remem- 
 bered of the page. 
 
 How to direct attention has already been sug- 
 gested, and the method will be more fully explained 
 and applied in a later part of this book. 
 
 The inhibitory power as applied in attention is 
 the act of resisting and keeping back the thoughts 
 that come involuntarily to mind as suggested by the 
 train of Voluntary attention. 
 
 It is probably impossible voluntarily not to 
 think. Hence the only successful way to prevent 
 wind- wandering is to know how to make the train of 
 voluntary attention fill the whole time occupied 
 without a break. 
 
 This will be the more apparent from the fact that 
 mind-wandering alwavs begins after some suggestive 
 perception has been acquired, but before attention 
 
32 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 has fully passed on to the next link in the series to 
 be voluntarily perceived. 
 
 There is a natural pause after each new percep- 
 tion gained (as in breathing), and this is the point 
 of danger. Pass it safely into the next object of 
 attention, and you are safe until another acquired 
 perception suggests another departure by bringing 
 some interesting thought -object vividly into the field 
 of mental vision. Therefore busily and methodically 
 engage the mind with every possible phase of the 
 matter in hand. 
 
 It is very suggestive of an effective method of 
 doing this, that the mind- wandering seldom troubles 
 one while attention is engaged with nature, i. c. with 
 sense-objects as they directly impress us through 
 the end-organs of sense. We can study a landscape 
 passing from one part of it to another without a 
 break in attention; so too in listening to music, etc. 
 
 Why this is so, is plainly this: that we receive 
 impressions which are usually much stronger, and 
 more vivid than any that can be revived in recollec- 
 tion. 
 
 The reader will remember my reference to thought 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 33 
 
 objects, which should not only be clearly revived in 
 voluntary acts of recollection, but also in reading 
 or listening. 
 
 What I mean here, I can best explain by using 
 an illustration. 
 
 Suppose I have been traveling for the sake of 
 sight-seeing, and after coming home I decide to 
 write a book of travels, and in it fully describe all I 
 saw, experienced, etc. 
 
 I begin by representing to mind, not the thoughts 
 I had, but the objects originally present to it, etc., 
 i. e., I mentally repeat my traveling, seeing, hearing, 
 feeling, — all that occurred while actually making the 
 journey. 
 
 I begin to write, but however charming my style 
 and language, there is nothing in the printed page. 
 that looks at all like that which was present to my 
 mind when writing the book. 
 
 What I wish to convey to the mind of the reader 
 of the book is not so many words or sentences, nor 
 thoughts (primarily), but a mental view of my 
 travel, exactly such, if possible, as I had of it — in 
 recollection, as I wrote. And so, to read or listen 
 
84 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 with perfect attention, what is being read or heard, 
 should enable one to produce, or re-produce before 
 the mind that which would have been present to it 
 if he had actually been personally concerned, and 
 have afterwards re-produced it in recollection. 
 
 It will be seen from the foregoing pages that I 
 hold the theory that we think objectively, and recol- 
 lect in the same way. 
 
 I know that from some quarters this theory will 
 meet with opposition. There is a natural literary 
 pride that causes men to cling very tenaciously to 
 old theories, which have been taught and believed for 
 ages, as being true. 
 
 Let him who can have an idea present to mind 
 without its corresponding thought-object being pre- 
 viously and simultaneously present, hold to his old 
 theory of ideas, but if this is impossible, then let 
 him be open to a better hypothesis — which in prac- 
 tice will be found a fact. 
 
 Early in my study of this subject two remarkable 
 facts arrested my attention. 
 
 First I observed that young children generally 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 35 
 
 have good memories, and that what is learned in 
 childhood is readily recalled in after years. 
 
 Second. That the entirely illiterate, whether 
 civilized or savage, have as a class better memories 
 than the educated. 
 
 I have known men who could neither read nor 
 write, who managed quite an extensive business for 
 a whole year, or longer, with no records but those of 
 memory. 
 
 Again, an illiterate person, other things being 
 equal, will generally remember more of what he sees 
 and hears than the educated will. 
 
 The Cause of this difference, I find in the fact 
 that the one class pays attention, and recollects natur- 
 ally, while the other does so more or less artificially. 
 
 The wise Creator has adapted man to his envi- 
 ronment, and that environment is one of objects — 
 sense-objects, which impress eye, ear, tactile nerves, 
 taste, smell, etc. Hence the original matter of all 
 attention is composed of sense-objects. But it was 
 not enough that he should be impressed by these, 
 but that he should have the power to recognize them 
 when again present to consciousness. Still more, 
 
36 MENTAL CALISTHENICS: 
 
 to be fully fitted for bis wonderful home, and the 
 employments, etc., for which he was designed, he 
 must have the power to make these things present to 
 mind in their relative order of time and place. Other- 
 wise, the moment he left the door of his wigwam, 
 he would be like the Indian, who, when asked if he 
 were lost, replied, "No, Indian not lost, wigwam lost. ir 
 
 Thus, he has the power first to perceive objects^ 
 etc., as associated, and afterwards to recall them in 
 recollection, in the same order of place and time. 
 
 As atteDtion would not be perfect if it did not 
 attend both to the sense-objects and their relations 
 of time and place, so recollection would be only 
 partial and imperfect if it did not represent them in 
 the same order. By this I do not mean that a person 
 will have the power to begin at the first and recite 
 parrot-like to the end, but that being started at any 
 point whatever, and by any means that may serve to 
 revive the recollection of any one perception of a 
 given series, he will be able, readily, from that point 
 of view to recall the adjacent perceptions, both 
 preceding and succeeding it. This is a feat that 
 astonishes and perplexes most people, but is accorn- 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 3V 
 
 plished with almost equal ease by all, when they 
 understand and practice nature's simple method. 
 
 It would be impossible, to most persons, to learn 
 a list of words in this way, without making each one 
 a means of reviving vividly before the mind, the 
 Thought-Object corresponding thereto, but by so doing, 
 and at the same time voluntarily associating them in 
 time or place, if the words or sentences do not imply 
 some special association ; in the latter the implied or 
 expressed association must be a matter of attention. 
 To illustrate — suppose you have two words, patience 
 and monument, in the phrase "patience on a monu- 
 ment:" here the phrase presents a complex object, 
 a statue of Patience and a monument, the former upon 
 the latter. 
 
 Now, in the recollective act we will suppose that 
 the monument is recalled; you mentally see it, and 
 as the eye rises towards its top, the statue appears in 
 exactly the same position originally perceived. This 
 law of association of Sense-Objects or Thought-Ob- 
 jects may be simply illustrated by the following 
 formulae. Let X, N, Z, be three Sense-Objects pre- 
 sented to mind through one or more of the senses. 
 
38 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 Then, attention seizes upon X, and holds it steadily 
 under view until distinctly perceived, then N simi- 
 larly, then X N together as one complex impression, 
 X at the left hand and N at the right. Now Z is 
 dealt with separately, then as associated with N, i. e., 
 at the right of N, thus N Z. 
 
 Now in memory you have three simple impres- 
 sions, X, N, Z, either of which being revived in 
 recollection will be recognized as a recollection, and 
 not as a creation of imagination. But each of these 
 is a component part of a more extended record in 
 memory, and acts as a stimulus to revive the other 
 part next it; e. (/., if Z is present to mind there is a 
 sense of completeness to the right, but of incomplete- 
 ness to the left, which nothing will satisfy but N, 
 and again X is necessary to complete the record 
 of N. 
 
 Let us now suppose that X, N, Z, are not Sense- 
 Objects, properly so called, but signs to represent 
 some other and real Sense-Objects, as follows: 
 
 X is the 4th of July, N a white elephant and Z a 
 balloon ascension — both of the latter seen on the -4th 
 of July. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 39 
 
 Here, what attention originally laid hold upon 
 were the 4th of July, ivhite elephant and balloon 
 ascension. These I express to a second person by 
 the arbitrary and artificial signs X, N, Z, while there 
 are vividly present to my mind the originals, and in 
 the proper order of time and place. 
 
 The person addressed pays little attention to the 
 signs X, N, Z, but has brought into the field of his 
 mental vision the same sense-objects as are present to 
 me, and in the order in which the signs present them. 
 
 But in what do X, N, Z differ from so many 
 words or sentences which present to mind three 
 distinct, yet related Sense-Objects? In nothing 
 whatever. (See exercises.) 
 
 If man were intended for an isolated existence 
 he would need no language nor other means of com- 
 municating to another that which is present to his 
 own mind. But his social nature and relations make 
 a means of communication imperatively necessary. 
 
 To make my subject the more lucid, I will sup- 
 pose that the first human pair had no word-language, 
 but had to invent or discover means of expressing 
 their thought. 
 
40 MENTAL CALISTHENICS: 
 
 Suppose that they first used gestures to express 
 pleasure, fear, want, etc., or to tell what they had 
 seen, heard, or felt, somewhat as the deaf-mutes 
 do. 
 
 Circumstances would arise such that gestures 
 would not do, the eye could not be impressed by 
 them. Then sounds might be used, at first only to 
 gain the eye, by means of the ear, then the gestures 
 would be made. 
 
 Subsequently certain sounds or combinations of 
 sounds would come to express, or convey to the 
 listener certain notions, and back of the notions their 
 corresponding thought-obj ects. 
 
 These sound-signs would gradually become a 
 language, a means of presenting, or re-presenting to 
 the mind Sense, or Thought-Objects, without the 
 presence of their corresponding originals. 
 
 All unlettered people use language that is highly 
 picturesque and descriptive. The early languages 
 of all nations have been so: take the ancient Hebrew 
 as an example. That language is rich in illustra- 
 tions and figures of speech, because the people them- 
 selves had not departed from nature's method, but 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 41 
 
 distinctly brought the Thought -Objects into the field 
 of mental vision. 
 
 For the same reason Jesus Christ used parables. 
 
 Why is it that we can easily remember a book or 
 a discourse, that is full of illustrations, but would 
 scarcely remember a single thought, if the illustra- 
 tions had been absent? The answer is plain, viz: 
 that the illustrations made every thing stand out 
 before the mental vision in an objective way, and in 
 following the descriptions we build up before the 
 mind that which was conveyed by the words; but 
 without the illustrations, we did not so build it up. 
 
 In the two cases the nervous, as well as the men- 
 tal effect was vastly different. In the former they 
 were much as if we had read from nature, instead of 
 from books ; in the latter there was the form of words, 
 or their sound, present to the senses, but little more; 
 while the vivid association of objects, remarkably 
 clear in the former case, was lost in the latter, in an 
 effort to associate words and sentences. 
 
 My position respecting thinking, and recollecting 
 in Objects finds further confirmation in the earliest 
 attempts at written language. 
 
42 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 The earliest of these was by the use of Hiero- 
 glyphics, which were at first a somewhat faithful 
 picture of the original. After these, ideographs 
 were used, which however had their origin in an 
 attempt to picture the thought or object. The charac- 
 ters employed were called Cuneiform, on account 
 of their wedge-like shape. 
 
 This primitive picturing denoted either objects 
 or ideas. "Life," for example, was expressed by the 
 picture of a growing flower. A month by placing 
 the numeral XXX. in the circle of the sun, which 
 symbolized the day. But the same picture might 
 denote more than one idea, or object. Thus the 
 circle of the sun represented not only day, but also 
 light and brilliance, xlnd a pair of legs represented 
 the idea of "going," "walking," and "running." 
 
 By combining two or more of these ideaographs 
 together fresh ideas might be symbolized to an 
 almost infinite extent. (See Encyclo. Brit., page 
 120.) 
 
 Finally, elementary sounds of the human voice 
 came to be represented, as well as things, and later 
 we came to have alphabets representing all the sup- 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 43 
 
 posed elementary sounds of the spoken languages to 
 which they belonged. 
 
 I have made this reference to early written 
 languages to show that the first attempts were to 
 present the actual objects of thought more or less 
 faithfully to mind by the use of pictures. 
 
 This evidently shows that ancient man thought 
 in objects, i. e., he thought either because the sense- 
 object was actually present to mind through the 
 senses, or because it was represented by a sign 
 which enabled him to revive the mental vision of it, 
 or because the thought-object had been revived by a 
 simple recollective process. (I use the term mental 
 vision, although the term is not suitable to recollec- 
 tions of sounds, feelings, etc. Mental sense would 
 probably be more appropriate in the latter. ) 
 
 That the most elaborate and intricate thinking 
 and reasoning is conducted in this way is demonstra- 
 ble. But of course the rapidity of thought is such 
 that we are not likely to be conscious of the fact 
 unless the mind is specially called to it. 
 
 Our methods of study have generally been such 
 that the fall from nature's method into an artificial 
 
44 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 one has been gradual and unobserved, but none the 
 less actual and disastrous. 
 
 We begin school life by learning letters, sylla- 
 bles, words. Weeks and months are employed in 
 mastering the spelling, pronunciation, etc. Then 
 come sentences, paragraphs, pages, which the pupil 
 by this time supposes are to be learned in the same 
 way. And so he learns to read and tries to retain 
 the lines in memory. 
 
 I shall have occasion to show that many public 
 speakers have fallen into this blunder, and being 
 unable to memorize the whole of their discourses 
 have resorted to manuscripts, or extensive notes. 
 
 All perfect attention must engage itself with the 
 Sense-Object, or Thought-Object, of which the 
 words are but arbitrary signs. 
 
 But this is precisely what most persons do not 
 do, whether they are children or adults. How com- 
 mon it is to find people running rapidly over the 
 words they wish to memorize, without any effort to 
 realize to mental consciousness the Thought-Objects 
 they represent. 
 
OK PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 45 
 
 This is wrong— a violation of nature's method, 
 and weakening to the natural powers. 
 
 Objecfs are the basis of all knowledge, and the 
 nervous organism, represented by the special senses, 
 is the physical basis of all mental operations. 
 
 The sense-object stimulates nervous action, and 
 the mind interprets the action. Hence the recollec- 
 tion must be a representation to mind of that which 
 was the stimulating cause. 
 
 But if the stimulus is only a series of sounds, or 
 written word-signs, the labor of learning must be 
 great and the recollection a matter of much difficulty. 
 Perception follows the course of attention, and like 
 it, is limited to a small area. It must be a perception 
 of particulars. General perception is an impossibil- 
 ity. The objects of perception are the same as those 
 of attention, while with the relations, qualities, etc.. 
 it is even more concerned. You see an object, you 
 perceive its qualities, relations, etc. You hear a 
 sound or series of sounds, and you perceive their 
 ■volume, pitch, harmony, etc. 
 
 You feel a pain, you perceive its nature, locality, 
 cause, etc. An acquired perception is an acquired 
 
46 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 power to reproduce before the mind the same notions, 
 thoughts, objects, relations, etc., as those formerly 
 made present by the presence and stimulus of the 
 original sense-Object, through the end-organs of 
 sense. 
 
 To perception we may add what is called ap-per- 
 ception, which is a turning of attention and percep- 
 tion inward, upon the nature of our acquired percep- 
 tions. It is a perception of our perceptions, and in 
 the acquisition of knowledge, enables one to de- 
 termine whether or not he really knows, and is able 
 to reproduce in mind that which he originally per- 
 ceived. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Reciprocal Prebication. 
 
 / HE subject of the following chapter is of vital 
 I O importance in the recollective process. 
 
 The term Reciprocal Predication may be 
 new to the reader, bnt is the best term I could find 
 to convey to the mind what I mean thereby. 
 
 The old philosophers have said a great deal about 
 the association of ideas, and have contended that 
 recollection was accomplished by the (so-called) 
 laws of association and representation. 
 
 I think the reader will agree with me in taking 
 the position that memory proper is not an uncon- 
 scious retention of ideas in the mind, that when we 
 cease to consciously think a thought it no longer has 
 any place in mind. Hence recollection by a law of 
 
 association of ideas is impossible, there being none 
 
 47 
 
-±8 MENTAL CALISTHENICS: 
 
 in mind to associate together, or to be represented 
 by one another. 
 
 I have elsewhere shown that memory is the reten- 
 tion by the nerve-particles of an acquired mode of 
 behavior. 
 
 This is an effect of which a sense-object was the 
 original cause. 
 
 But these sense-objects were associated in time, 
 or place, and their association or relation was also a 
 matter of attention and perception. 
 
 The original cause was therefore an association 
 of causes, a complex cause, composed of several 
 simple ones, whose separate impressions joined one 
 another, so to say. 
 
 Hence the acquired mode of behavior of the nerve- 
 particles was an association of nerve-commotions, 
 following one another in close connection. It is a 
 habit of nervous action — a kind of Calisthenics in 
 which the last act is a point of starting for the suc- 
 ceeding one. Or in a word, all the nerve-particles 
 originally concerned in a series of perceptions have 
 the power to stimulate one another to a repetition of 
 their former associate mode of behavior, and thus 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 49 
 
 there is brought to mental consciousness and per- 
 ception the very same nerve-commotion ( only less 
 strong ) that resulted in the original perception. But 
 that perception was one of various sense-objects in a 
 certain relation to one another. 
 
 Hence, for all the practical purposes of memory. 
 and recollection, it is admissable to say that Recol- 
 lection is a re-perception of the original sense-objects 
 — without their action again, upon the end-organs of 
 sense. And each one of these has the effect of sug- 
 gesting or predicating the one next in order. To 
 illustrate: You have learned that Abraham Lincoln 
 and Jefferson Davis sustained certain relations to 
 one another and to the late war. Either of these has 
 power to predicate the other — Lincoln in this group 
 predicates Davis his opponent, or the war which 
 occurred during his presidency — so too of Davis. 
 or the war. 
 
 Or you may recall some familiar place of child- 
 hood — you seem to be there and see it — and all about 
 you are the old associate scenes — not all together but 
 one after another comes into the field of mental 
 vision, and you find that each object has the effect of 
 
 4 
 
50 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 reviving some other adjacent to it— whether similar 
 or otherwise. 
 
 Another phase of the same thing is found in the 
 fact that sounds, words, feelings, objects, odors, 
 tastes, etc., having some feature or element in com- 
 mon will predicate one another. 
 
 But sense-objects that reciprocally predicate one 
 another must both have become records of memory. 
 At least the predicated one must. A common expe- 
 rience of this kind is found in similar names. Saturn, 
 may predicate Satan. Dover, may predicate An- 
 dove)-. 
 
 A new acqaintance may remind you of an old 
 acquaintance, because they have some feature, or 
 manner, or voice peculiarity in common. Or having 
 met two persons together at some time, when again 
 one of them is met, almost the first question you ask 
 is, "How is our mutual friend?" etc. 
 
 Now, underlying all this reciprocal predication is 
 the fact that nervous activities are begun, which were 
 present when the sense- objects of your present recol- 
 lections were actually present, and that which first 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 51 
 
 comes to mind is not a thought or idea, but a flash, 
 so to say, of the original object. 
 
 This sometimes leads to ridiculous blunders of 
 expression. Here is an illustration: You intend to 
 ask a caller to lay his hat on the table, but say, 
 to your own annoyance, and his amusement, "Lay 
 your table on the hat, please.*' 
 
 This kind of blunder will sometimes occur, when 
 the lirst words spoken have been associated in mem- 
 ory with both the terms that you have transposed. 
 Thus in the above sentence you may often have 
 heard the terms "lay your hat down" and "Jay the 
 table:" so in the blunder referred to, the revival of 
 the record of Jay has stimulated the revival of both 
 hat and table, but the latter most distinctly, i e,, it 
 lirst arose distinctly into the field of mental con- 
 sciousness, and so was first mentioned. The above 
 and similar occurrences, indicate two things — The 
 law of Reciprocal-Predication, and that it has a 
 physical basis. 
 
 A great deal might be written, and many phe- 
 nomena of recollection presented, confirmatory of 
 the fact of this law of Reciprocal-Predication, but 
 
52 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 I forbear, as my purpose is not to present an exhaus- 
 tive treatise of a theoretical character, but presently 
 to engage the student with the purely practical side 
 of the subject. 
 
 I shall now content myself with a brief statement 
 of some of those cases in which the law of Kecip- 
 rocal-Predication applies. 
 
 1. All sight-objects that have been perceived as 
 grouped together in place or time, whether similar 
 or unlike. 
 
 (The same is true in regard to the other special 
 senses). 
 
 2. All sense-objects [i. e., of sight, hearing, taste, 
 etc.,) perceived as associated in the same time or 
 place. 
 
 3. Those having some feature in common but 
 otherwise different, both as to themselves, and time 
 or place. 
 
 4. Extremes, as light and darkness, vice and 
 virtue, high and low, etc. 
 
 The recollective act is in this regard like a pen- 
 dulum — starting at one extreme it swings to the 
 other. 
 
OK PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 53 
 
 This is always the case when the notion revived 
 in recollection is relative, as beanty, deformity. We 
 judge of the one by comparison with the other. 
 
 It is exceedingly important to understand this 
 law. and to bear it in mind, or rather work in har- 
 mony with it, when first paying attention, because 
 it is by this law that your original perceptions are 
 to be brought back in recollection. 
 
 That one's power to recollect depends upon the 
 "frequency of repetition" is not wholly true. 
 
 I admit that readiness, or speed in speaking, is 
 acquired by it, but to fully know a book, for 
 instance, or a series of objects, etc, requires but that 
 we fully perceive the Sense- Objects presented and 
 their connecting relation, so that each is inseparably 
 fixed with its associates immediately next, before and 
 after. 
 
 While this law is of paramount importance to a 
 good recollection, it is also the cause of mind- 
 wandering, so common when we are trying to 
 acquire some new perceptions. The new matter 
 predicates the old already stored in memory. 
 
 I See Attention.) 
 
54 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 But for the law of Reciprocal Predication we 
 should never be able to learn, or use a language, 
 nor call things, persons or places by their names. 
 
 The misapplication of the law in learning a 
 language makes it almost impossible to converse 
 in it even after one can read and translate correctly. 
 
 This indeed is the only reason why some find it 
 difficult to learn languages. I will more fully treat 
 this subject under " How to learn a language." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 MOST persons find it comparatively easy to 
 remember detatched statements — verbal 
 or written, whether in prose or poetry. But almost 
 universally there is difficulty in recalling what came 
 next in order, and so reciters have had to employ 
 prompters- -and speakers, notes. 
 
 They realize that there is a missing Jink, a break 
 in the chain, even when the subject is the same, and 
 the author glides easily out of one expression into 
 another. There comes a feeling of blankness, 
 distressing in the extreme. 
 
 What, then, is this Missing Link? 
 
 I. It is the mind's perception of its own tran- 
 sition from one point of view to another, during the 
 process of attention and perception, as 
 
56 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 1. Direction in time. Tims we may note that a 
 certain event took place before or after the Wars of 
 the Roses. Then, in recollection the mind looks 
 forward or backward from that point or event. The 
 direction became a record in memory connecting 
 "Wars of the Roses" and the other event, and as in 
 recollection there is an exact repetition, in the nervons 
 and mental functions concerned, of that which took 
 place during the original process of attention and 
 perception, this record of direction makes the chain 
 continuous, and a blank in recollection becomes im- 
 possible, unless, of course, from nervous derange- 
 ment, in which there can be no absolute certainty. 
 
 All recollection refers to past time; ordinarily we 
 recall particulars of the past by making great leaps, 
 and touching only a few points until we reach the 
 time desired, when the events belonging thereto 
 come up as formerly fixed in memory by the process 
 of attention. 
 
 A point in time is treated very much as if it were 
 a point in space. It becomes to the mind a locality 
 very much as the home of one's childhood or any 
 other familiar spot does, and the events, etc., asso- 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 57 
 
 ciated with, or belonging to it, bear relations to it 
 similar to those belonging to familiar localities. 
 Hence we may speak very properly of Direction in 
 time of one event from another, and so doing we 
 satisfy what may be called a strong mental instinct — 
 the tendency to cast abont one, from certain stand- 
 points of time, as if one expected actually to see the 
 events grouped around in certain directions from the 
 point of view, and in some fixed position in respect to 
 one another. 
 
 2. Direction in space. 
 
 This will probably be clearer to the reader than 
 the former, as it has frequent illustrations in every- 
 day life, i. e., in so far as the principle has been 
 observed at all. 
 
 If you undertake to recall the notable places you 
 have visited, you will probably discover that so far 
 as you do it successfully, you seem to take direction 
 from one point to another. An illustration will proba- 
 bly make my meaning clearer to the reader than any- 
 thing else can. Try the following: Select fifty 
 names of cities, places, rivers, mountains, or any 
 other objects whose locality you know. Mention the 
 
58 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 first name, then note the direction you take in pass- 
 ing to the next place mentioned in your list, then 
 speak the name, go in the same way through the 
 whole list only once. Then go over them from 
 memory again taking the direction as when you first 
 read the names. Begin either at the first, last, or 
 any other word in. the list, and you will recite every 
 word with ease. 
 
 Here, by the way, is a good illustration of the 
 fact that the true ultimate object of attention and 
 recollection is an object really instead of its name, the 
 latter being only a sign. 
 
 If I mention the name Chicago — I name a city 
 belonging to a certain locality. The mind lays hold 
 of the locality, then names it, then passes to another 
 locality, etc. But a part of the original process is 
 the passage, or transition from one point to another. 
 
 3. Like and unlike. 
 
 The process of thought in passing from one word 
 or sentence to another, whether similar or dissimilar 
 in meaning, is quite similar to that under Nos. 1 
 and 2. 
 
 Opposites, as light and darkness — virtue and vice, 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 59 
 
 are the utmost extremes, the one at this extreme 
 swing of the pendulum — the other at that. 
 
 The student will readily perceive that this is so 
 when he comes to practice my directions and exer- 
 cises. 
 
 Attention given to the Missing Link will prevent 
 mind-wandering — and will insure recollection when 
 desired. 
 
 It is a kind of natural bridge over what would 
 otherwise be a mental chasm, or an unknown wilder- 
 ness. It is no part of any two associated objects of 
 memory, and yet it is united with both, thus making 
 them one whole. 
 
 This Link, unlike the tricks and devices employed 
 by Mnemotechnists, is natural, and is found among 
 the objects to be remembered, not imported from 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The following pages are given to various exer- 
 cises, intended to illustrate the principles referred to 
 in the foregoing pages. 
 
 It will matter little whether the student has fully 
 grasped my meaning thus far or not, if he will but 
 
60 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 follow the directions and do the exercises given or 
 suggested in the remaining pages of this book. 
 
 His mind will readily adopt the method — for, in 
 reality it is true to every principle and law of the 
 mind which acts normally. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Gxercises. 
 
 «<^5 EFOEE beginning the following exercises it 
 
 ' * wonld be well for the student to try to 
 
 memorize a long list of, say, fifty words, by his old 
 
 method. After doing this, let him do each of the 
 
 following exercises, and devise similar ones for 
 
 himself. 
 
 1. Lay twenty-five to one hundred articles on a 
 
 table, without paying any particular attention to 
 
 them. After this is done, begin at some point on 
 
 the table, and observe the article nearest or at that 
 
 point, as the case may be, then speak its name, if 
 
 you know it: if not, note the fact. Then take the 
 
 next in order — notice its direction from and relation 
 
 to the first article noticed. This has the effect of 
 
 producing in memory a complex record composed of 
 
 61 
 
62 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 the two objects and their relation to one another. 
 Now take the third, or next to the second in a similar 
 way, observing the relation of the third to the 
 second, but paying no more attention whatever to 
 first. 
 
 In this way go through the whole group of 
 objects, after which turn your face in the opposite 
 direction from them, and beginning at the starting 
 point on the table, mentally see and then name each 
 one in the order in which you observed it. 
 
 Now begin at the last and retrace your course 
 until you reach the first. 
 
 You will be able to recite the articles in this way 
 after once going over them as I have suggested, and 
 if so disposed you can awaken a great curiosity and 
 gain the reputation of having a wonderful memory 
 by doing similar exercises in the presence of friends, 
 asking them also to try. They may remember ten 
 to twenty, possibly, but you can remember almost 
 any number after a little practice. 
 
 Do not give your secret away, but keep it and 
 use it. 
 
 2. Take a landscape or picture containing a 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 63 
 
 large number of objects, and begin at some point 
 and take the objects as yon did in Exercise 1. Then 
 mention them from memory — beginning with the 
 last — mentally looking at the place where it is 
 located, and at it, then the next, and so on nntil yon 
 have mentally seen and then named each one in 
 order. 
 
 Yon will find a great deal of amusement and 
 profit in studying every picture and landscape you 
 see in this way. 
 
 If you would puzzle and astonish your friends, 
 study some of their pictures of landscapes, or other 
 scenery or objects, then ask them to describe the 
 picture from memory, yourself perhaps asking ques- 
 tions that will be likely to represent before the mind 
 visions that are not in the picture at all. e. g., A 
 friend of mine did this in the house of one of his 
 friends after having learned my method. A square 
 picture hung on the wall. He asked them to de- 
 scribe it. First the frame; was it round or oval? 
 They thought it was oval — more oval than round. 
 Now about the picture; were there any trees in it? 
 They thought so. Where, etc. ? So he went through 
 
64: MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 a series of questions, and every answer given was 
 incorrect. 
 
 If you are an artist, or studying art, you will find 
 this series of lessons will wonderfully develop your 
 powers to reproduce from memory and to observe the 
 smallest detail and in the right place. 
 
 The object of the lesson is to cultivate the natural, 
 power of vividly representing (or picturing, if you 
 prefer the term) the objects of p^dous perceptions 
 before the mind. 
 
 3. Take now a long list of words ; we will begin 
 with names of concrete things. Bear in mind that 
 these words are only written signs, or if spoken, 
 sound signs, of the things they name. You must 
 therefore revive the mental image, or Thought-Object 
 clearly before the mind. 
 
 You must also have these Thought -Objects pre- 
 sented in some relation to one another, if you would 
 memorize in one reading. 
 
 I will try to illustrate the method clearly in the 
 following exercise: 
 
 Mountain ; a great hill, mentally see it 
 Tree ; see a tree, perhaps on mountain side. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 65 
 
 Cow ; see her, perhaps under a tree. 
 
 Wagon ; see it passing between you and cow. 
 
 Eagle ; see it flying over wagon. 
 
 Book ; beside you on table as you look at eagle, etc. 
 
 Dog ; under table. 
 
 Hat ; lying beside dog. 
 
 Surplice ; in the hat. 
 
 Steamboat ; on which you now see the hat and surplice. 
 
 Brooch ; on deck, yoxisee it lying there. 
 
 Shore ; seen from bow of boat. 
 
 Stars ; arrest attention as you look landward. 
 
 Steeple ; rises against the sky as you look. 
 
 Pavement ; at base of steeple, you see it. 
 
 Goat ; up in the belfry. 
 
 Cart ; hitched to goat; may be in street. 
 
 Pencil ; back of goafs ears. 
 
 Esquimaux ; using same pencil. 
 
 Iceberg ; ice mountain rises in vicinity of Esquimaux. 
 
 Canoe ; at base of iceberg. 
 
 Garden ; on shore. 
 
 Mansion ; in garden. 
 
 Bicycle ; leaning against mansion. 
 
 Maiden ; sitting near bicycle. 
 
06 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 Now close the book, and recall the last object, 
 the maiden seated just as you had her placed in first 
 going through the list of words. Make no attempt 
 to recall the word, but only try to revive the repre- 
 sentation of the girl herself — when you have accom- 
 plished this, speak the word or name. 
 
 Now, mentally look in the direction of the next 
 object, and you will instantly revive the image of the 
 bicycle — then name it. Now, what next to bicycle? 
 That against which it leans — mansion, etc. 
 
 Go thus through the whole list. Then take it in 
 the opposite order. Now start at some central point 
 and go either way — thus take Brooch as the point 
 of starting. What next before it? Steam-boat, on 
 whose deck you saw it. What after it? Shore, for, 
 as you stood on deck when you saw the Brooch, you 
 looked off upon the shore. 
 
 Go thus through the list as your own mind may 
 dictate, and you will be delighted to find that you 
 can recall every word, and in any order, after only 
 one reading. 
 
 Make occasional lists for yourself, as a pastime, 
 and learn in the same way. 
 

 OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 67 
 
 You will find it almost equally easy to learn for- 
 eign words in this way, and when learned you will 
 use them as readily as your mother tongue, so far as 
 the meaning is concerned. Of course you may find 
 a little difficulty with the pronunciation, but even 
 this will be quickly overcome. 
 
 Be careful to observe the exact form of the words 
 as to spelling, syllables, etc. Notice, also, how the 
 sounds are formed by the linguistic organs. 
 
 When learning a foreign vocabulary, or indeed 
 any new word even of your own language, always 
 get the definition first, and from it revive before the 
 mind the Thought-Object When this is satisfactorily 
 accomplished, turn attention upon the foreign word, 
 and speak it. Now, fix the mental vision upon the 
 object and speak its foreign name, but do not again 
 refer to the definition of the word — because the 
 object is the only definition you need. The following 
 example will illustrate my meaning and the value of 
 the method. 
 
 Take the German word Baum. If you do not 
 understand German, this word means nothing to you, 
 but if I point at a tree and say the German name is 
 
68 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 Baum, you instantly understand the word. It is in 
 this way that the English word tree was learned. 
 
 Vocabularies are mostly learned from books — the 
 foreign word followed by the English definition ; and 
 so you would have it thus — Baum, a tree. Now, by 
 the law of Reciprocal-Predication, Objects that are 
 perceived in immediate association of place or time, 
 predicate one another. Hence these two words Ba u m, 
 and tree, which are in themselves two objects of sight, 
 irrespective of their meaning, and the tendency is to 
 recall the other whenever one of these words is 
 present to mind, so the student has to translate into 
 his own language to get the meaning. This accounts 
 for the strange fact that most persons can translate 
 correctly long before they can speak the language. 
 
 To a student who blunders into this false but very 
 common method, Baum (the word) means tree (the 
 word), which is not at all true; but baum means 
 the same object as tree does, just as fox and reynard 
 mean the same animal; and so either word should 
 enable the student directly to revive the appearance 
 of the object. 
 
 In learning the following or any list of foreign. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 69 
 
 or other words, be careful to revive the Thought- 
 Object, then speak the corresponding word. 
 
 I have put the definitions first as they should 
 always be placed, that you may get the Object clearly 
 presented to mind before attention becomes at all 
 engaged with the foreign word. If possible, never 
 refer to the definition a second time, but engage 
 yourself only with the Objects and the corresponding 
 foreign words. 
 
 The following is a list of German words, and 
 definitions : 
 
 Horse (see him) Pferde. 
 
 Eye (see eye of horse) Auge. 
 
 Face (in which eye is set) Gesicht. 
 
 Head (belonging to above face) Haupt. 
 
 Leg (of same animal) Bein. 
 
 Leaf (on ground by leg) Blatt. 
 
 Street (in which the leaf lies) Strasse. 
 
 Mansion (across the street) .... Wohn-haus. 
 
 Window (one in mansion) Fenster. 
 
 Room (Just inside the window) .... Zimmer. 
 
 Boy (in the room) Knaben. 
 
 Money (boy counting it) Geld. 
 
70 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 Coat (worn by the boy) Rock. 
 
 Chair (under coat) Stuhl. 
 
 Stove (near the chair) Oven. 
 
 Picture (on wall beyond stove) Bildniss. 
 
 Woman (sitting below picture) Frau. 
 
 Dog (by woman's side) Hund. 
 
 Now. if you have got the objects properly asso- 
 ciated, you can pass them before the mind without 
 mentioning any word. Run over the list in this way 
 forward and backward. Then begin either with the 
 first, or last object of the list, as you may fancy, then 
 speak the German name, then take the next object, 
 and so on to the end. 
 
 Be careful not to allow yourself to try to recall 
 the word before the corresponding Object is clearly 
 before the mind. 
 
 Be careful also not to allow yourself to think or 
 speak the corresponding English word, in connection 
 with the foreign word, under any circumstances. If, 
 for any reason, it becomes necessary to use corre- 
 sponding words of different languages in close con- 
 nection with one another, always make the corre- 
 sponding Thought -Object intervene; e. g.. if you wish 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. <1 
 
 verbally to explain a foreign word, first revive the 
 Thought-Object before the mind — then call it by the 
 corresponding English name. This method may 
 appear at first thought to be cumbersome, and round 
 about, but it is really the direct, and shortest road to 
 the best results. It is, indeed, the only way to make 
 the wonderful law of Reciprocal-Predication per- 
 fectly serve the purposes of Recollection. 
 
 The principles employed in learning, and recol- 
 lecting words are also applicable to figures. But it 
 must be borne in mind that figures, for the most part, 
 are to be treated simply as objects without any refer- 
 ence to how many individual things they indicate. 
 In the Arabic notation the signs are entirely arbi- 
 trary, and bear no resemblance to that which they 
 indicate, 1. perhaps excepted. In the Roman notation 
 there is some suggestion of the number meant, by the 
 character used, thus, III means three, V, five, then 
 IY, four, VI, six, etc. 
 
 To learn a long series of Arabic numerals, treat 
 them just as you would as many toys, or other objects, 
 arranged in a line; i, <?., observe the first character, 
 then the one next it, then take these two together, 
 
72 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 etc. Thus, in the number 897,654, you have first 8, 
 the S-like figure, then 9, a cipher head with a tail; 
 now you have 89 ; next is 7, one with a straight head 
 to left; now you have 97, two figures with heads; 
 now 6, etc., to end. Learn the following numbers, in 
 this way, by one reading. Then recite forward and 
 backward. 
 
 You have probably observed that you have always 
 been able to easily remember the first of a series, but 
 could not clearly recall the following ones. This is 
 due to the fact that attention is generally fully fixed 
 upon the first character, but as soon as you begin to 
 take up the following figures, attention is dissipated 
 by seeing dimly several figures at a time, which is 
 similar, in its effect, upon the recording property of 
 the nerves engaged therewith, to that produced upon 
 vision by writing a dozen characters on the same 
 half inch of paper, and upon one another. 
 
 But the method just described enables the stu- 
 dent to confine attention to the character desired, 
 and to so connect it, in a combined record, with 
 the preceding one, that recollection becomes a cer- 
 tainty. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 
 
 73 
 
 Carefully learn the following exercises by this 
 method, taking half of them at one reading. 
 
 (1) 724389562043582 4. 
 
 (2)7A90XW. 4B5N13 K+4— 1+3. 
 
 The following diagram represents a Chess Board 
 with the squares numbered, and the numbers fol- 
 lowing it indicate the moves of the knight, beginning 
 with any square, and by the ordinary way of moving, 
 placing him once in every square, and finally ending 
 where you began. 
 
74 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 This is supposed to be quite a feat of memory, 
 but it is very easy and simple, as you will see. 
 
 The figures indicate the moves, from square Xo. 
 1, back to 1 again, but you will see that having 
 learned the moves in this order you can begin at any 
 one of the numbers, and move either in the forward 
 or backward order. 
 
 The moves of the knight from 1, placing him 
 once in every square on the board and ending at 1, 
 are the following: 
 
 1, 
 
 11, 
 
 5, 
 
 15, 
 
 32, 
 
 47, 
 
 64, 
 
 54. 
 
 60, 
 
 50, 
 
 35, 
 
 41, 
 
 26, 
 
 9, 
 
 3, 
 
 13. 
 
 7, 
 
 24, 
 
 39, 
 
 56, 
 
 62, 
 
 45, 
 
 30, 
 
 20. 
 
 37, 
 
 22, 
 
 28, 
 
 38, 
 
 21, 
 
 36, 
 
 19, 
 
 25. 
 
 10, 
 
 4, 
 
 14, 
 
 8, 
 
 23, 
 
 40, 
 
 55, 
 
 61. 
 
 51, 
 
 57, 
 
 42, 
 
 59, 
 
 53, 
 
 63, 
 
 48, 
 
 31, 
 
 16, 
 
 6, 
 
 12, 
 
 2, 
 
 17, 
 
 34, 
 
 49, 
 
 43. 
 
 58, 
 
 52, 
 
 46, 
 
 29, 
 
 44, 
 
 27, 
 
 33, 
 
 18,- 
 
 You will find this easy to learn, and can use it to 
 surprise your friends. 
 
 The following may also be used, as an exercise. 
 It represents the ratio of the circumference to the 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 75 
 
 diameter of a circle carrried out to two hundred 
 places. 
 
 3.141592653589793238402643383279502884197 
 1693993751058720764944592307816406286208998 
 6280348253421170679821480865132823066470938 
 4460955058223172535940812848111745028410270 
 193852110555904462294895493038-h 
 
 Make occasional exercises for yourself or get 
 your friends to do so ; then have a contest with them 
 in learning the figures. Do not give away the secret, 
 and you can have lots of fun of this kind. 
 
 It is important to have a good recollection of 
 numbers as they are so frequently used. In book- 
 keeping it is very important to be able to remember 
 the pages on which certain accounts are written, 
 without having to look at the index book, and this 
 you can do by my method. 
 
 It also enables one to remember the page of a 
 book; number of hymn; chapter of Bible; text, etc., 
 with ease. 
 
 The above method might be employed with suc- 
 cess in remembering dates, but as a date means a 
 definite point in time, it is better to remember the 
 
76 MENTAL CALISTHENICS. 
 
 point according to the Time Measure given else- 
 where, and then name it by giving the appropriate 
 figures. 
 
 The student will readily see that all kinds of 
 signs and formula? can be learned in the manner 
 described herein. 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 ^ates. 
 
 [ TOW to remember dates is worthy of some 
 \ J. special attention in a work of this kind. 
 Most students of history find it difficult to 
 remember dates, and have resorted to all sorts of 
 devices to aid the memory in retaining and Recol- 
 lection in reproducing them. Mnemotechnists have 
 expended all their arts and trickery to this end, but 
 with little or no real benefit to those using their 
 schemes. 
 
 It is very evident to me that they have failed to 
 grasp the real import and use of a date, and until we 
 understand their true import no device can be of 
 much service. Most students of history hitch the 
 date on to the end of a sentence and try to fix the 
 
 number in memory simply as a number, and so the 
 
 77 
 
78 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 mind and basis of memory (the nervous system) are 
 not impressed with what we may call the Sense- 
 Object, or Thought- Object represented by the date. 
 
 What is a date? It is a number composed of one 
 or more numerals, and indicating a particular year 
 before or after some other one which is taken as a 
 starting point of the numeration, as the supposed 
 date of creation, and the birth of Christ, — or, in a 
 word, a date directs the mind to a definite point in 
 Time. But if a point in time can be represented by 
 a date or any other means, then Time itself should 
 be represented in some way to the mind, and also to 
 sight. 
 
 If a date is a point — time as a whole is length, 
 and such is the general conception of it. We say 
 "A long time — a short time." So long before or 
 after a given date. 
 
 Elsewhere will be found my Time Measure, 
 which represents twenty centuries following the 
 Birth of Christ. Each section of the measure rep- 
 resents 1,000 years. The central point of each 
 represents 500 years. I have drawn a perpendicular 
 line through them to assist the eye. Then the 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 79 
 
 hundred-year points have lines reaching entirely 
 across the measure. The fifty-year points have lines 
 extending a little below the central horizontal line, 
 and the ten-year points in each century are indicated 
 by shorter lines. 
 
 This is sufficiently minute for all ordinary pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Study the measure a little until you can readily 
 represent it before the mind in recollection, i. e. until 
 you can mentally see the two 1,000-year measures; 
 also their central points, and the century points. 
 
 This device will be found very satisfying to the 
 mind, being in harmony with the notion of length 
 and enabling the student of history to refer to a 
 definite point whenever a date is presented to sight 
 and mind. Thus the date of the Dark Ages, A. D. 
 •476. means a point on the Time Measure just a little 
 before the 500-year point, or in the 5th century and 
 3d decade after the 50-year point, 
 
 Again, the Dark Ages ended A. D. 1076, or at the 
 same point in the 11th century, i. e. in the first 
 century space of the second thousand-year measure. 
 
 The discovery of America by Columbus A. D. 
 
80 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 1492, in the space just after the 15th century point 
 and in the last decade. 
 
 Now if asked one of these dates, you will recall 
 the particular point in time of the event, and will 
 then express it by the corresponding numerals. 
 
 What is the date of the beginning of the Dark 
 Ages? Let the mental eye fall upon the point in 
 your measure where they began, and you see that it 
 is A. D. 476. You will pursue the same method 
 with all dates. 
 
 Another advantage in the use of the Time 
 Measure will be found in the study of contempo- 
 raneous history. 
 
 It will be presented to mind as lying between 
 two extreme points. All the dates will therefore lie 
 between these extremes. Thus the study of French 
 and German history, for the same space of time, 
 would engage the mind with date points all lying in 
 the same section of the Time Measure. 
 
 Again, the relative position of dates more or less 
 remote from one another will be instantly grasped. 
 
 I need not multiply words respecting the utility 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 
 
 81 
 
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 Z 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 V 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 M 
 
 
 
 
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82 MENTAL CALISTHENICS. 
 
 and naturalness of the Time Chart. The intelligent 
 reader will readily understand and use it. 
 
 I have given only a measure for Time subsequent 
 to the Birth of Christ, but the student can readily 
 make a similar measure for himself to be used for 
 dates prior to the Birth of Christ. Or, indeed, he 
 need not even make such a measure on paper, as he 
 will fmd after using the one given in this book for a 
 while, but can mentally perceive the whole 4,000 
 years thrown into four sections, like the two given 
 herein, then he can number either from creation or 
 from the Birth of Christ. 
 
 I submit the Time Measure with the confidence 
 that others will find in its use as much pleasure and 
 profit as I have done. 
 
 Elsewhere I give suggestions regarding how to 
 fix fads of history in memory. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 ^emoranba, etc. 
 
 WHO has not had difficulty in remembering 
 items of business, errands, etc? The 
 slip of paper containing the items is 
 almost universally employed, and even then how fre- 
 quently does a "devoted husband," for instance, slip 
 his memo, into his vest pocket, and never think of 
 it again until his wife asks him if he brought the 
 beefsteak, etc. "O, my poor memory!" Poor non- 
 sense! His memory did not contain the business at 
 any time, first or last. He simply heard his wife 
 speak certain words, then perhaps he wrote them; 
 then to more utterly rob memory of anything that 
 it might hold, and revive in recollection, he stuck 
 the slip in his pocket, hoping to remember it. 
 
 Now I shall show that he has violated even the 
 
 83 
 
84 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 simplest law respecting memory. That which he 
 was to remember was a matter of business, i. e. the 
 doing of some business; but he turned attention 
 from it, to the words on paper, and the paper placed 
 in his pocket. 
 
 Let us analyze this matter of business. Suppose 
 it is to go to Jones', on leaving his office and get a 
 pound of tea, to Brown's for a beefsteak, and to 
 White's for a spool of silk. Observe: This 
 business is to begin just as he leaves the office ; from 
 the office door he goes in a certain direction to 
 Jones', where he asks for, and sees put up, a pound 
 of tea. Thence he goes to Brown's, orders and sees 
 beefsteak put up, and so with the next item. 
 
 Now, as these are the things to take place when 
 he recollects and does the business, how can he so 
 fix the matter in memory that there will be certainty 
 of recollection? If it is true (and it is) that 
 recollection is an exact repetition before the mind of 
 what took place when attention was first engaged 
 with the matter in question, it is therefore plain 
 that in receiving the orders at home in the morning, 
 you must mentally do the business ; i. e. , as one item 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 85 
 
 after another is mentioned, you mentally attend to it 
 with the lightning speed peculiar to thought, 
 beginning at the point of departure from your office, 
 or whatever you may be last doing, or going to do 
 before going home. 
 
 All kinds of business or other items can be fixed 
 in memory in this way, then entirely dismissed from 
 mind; but when the moment in the day's proceed- 
 ings arrives, or you reach the place where they 
 should be attended to, they will come to mind like a 
 flash. An illustration of this was given me by one 
 of my pupils, as follows: he was to bring a certain 
 paper with him to the class in the evening, but had 
 left it at the office, which he had to pass in coming 
 to the class. He had fixed it in mind as above 
 described by mentally going into the office as he 
 passed, opening his desk and getting it. On his 
 way to class he went into the office involuntarily and 
 opened his desk before he realized what he had 
 done, then took up the paper desired. Thus he had 
 involuntarily exactly repeated what he had pre- 
 viously done mentally in fixing it in memory. 
 
 The necessity of fixing matters of business, etc, 
 
86 MENTAL CALISTHENICS. 
 
 in memory in this way, and the certainty of recol- 
 lection, depend upon the fact that memory has a 
 physical basis in the nerves, and that the nerve par- 
 ticles of the special senses concerned, must be made 
 to act appropriately, so as to acquire the proper 
 modification, or adjustment, or mode of behavior, 
 which when again stimulated to revival will cause 
 the whole series of Thought- Objects to become 
 vividly present to mind. 
 
 And this is accomplished by the mental process 
 above described, i. e., the process of mentally seeing 
 the whole matter done and in its proper connection. 
 
 I have probably said enough to enable the intel- 
 ligent reader to apply the method. Try it, and by 
 degrees test the method by the severest trials, 
 and you will be convinced of its naturalness and 
 effectiveness. 
 
 You will dispense with the everlasting memo, 
 and be proud of your reliable memory. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 listening, Reabing, Recitation. 
 
 / O students and the professions, and to all who 
 I O wish to be well informed, and to be able to 
 have their knowledge at ready command, this 
 chapter will be of great importance, not that they 
 cannot succeed without it, but that they will do 
 better with it; not that they cannot learn without 
 it, but that they will become more learned with it. 
 They will know better and know more of all that 
 they engage Attention with, according to the 
 following instructions. 
 
 A desire for brevity forbids the writing of much 
 that might be said, or the use of extended exercises 
 and examples. I shall aim at giving only enough to 
 insure a clear comprehension of the subject, know- 
 
"88 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 ing that the best exercises will be found in the sub- 
 jects which ordinarily engage the mind. 
 
 How to Listen or Eead. 
 
 There are two ways of listening. The more 
 common is that of following the words of the speaker, 
 simply as words without any accompanying effort to 
 present before the mind that which is being spoken 
 about. 
 
 The other, and less common method, yet more 
 effectual, because it meets the needs of our percep- 
 tive faculties, is to treat the words simply as arbi- 
 trary signs for things not present to the outer senses, 
 but by a natural process, presentable to inner sense. 
 In other words, it is a process of constructing or 
 picturing before the mind of that which is indicated 
 by the words. 
 
 The latter is the only method of either listening 
 or reading that fully supplies the material for mem- 
 ory. This process of making the different features 
 of the subject objective to mind makes them also 
 tangible to the faculty of memory (considered as a 
 nervous mechanism). It requires a nerve-commo- 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 89 
 
 tion, an adjustment of nerve particles of the special 
 sense concerned, such that an aptitude to repeat the 
 same is acquired, so that when the recollective pro- 
 cess is about to begin, and the will seems to search 
 for a re-perception of the original object through 
 the corresponding, or, more properly, the correlated 
 special sense, a stimulation takes place which results 
 in its representation to mind; and this as a matter 
 of knowledge is not a recall of the words in which 
 the Thought-Ohject was originally presented to mind, 
 but a re-perception of the thought-object itself. 
 
 A sentence is only an extended word, a sense- 
 word, so to speak, which presents not only a sense- 
 object, but also its peculiarities, relations, qualities, 
 etc., each of which is in itself a sense- or thought- 
 object. Thus in the sentence — The apple I hold in 
 my hand is sweet. Apple, I hold apple in my hand, 
 and sweet, are all word-signs of sense-objects. You 
 mentally see the apple. You see me holding it — in 
 hand — i, e., the apple is so related to my hand. 
 
 The sense of taste finds an object in the sweet- 
 ness of the apple. You determine what sweetness is 
 by taste, a kind of mental taste, and yet it results 
 
90 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 from nervous action, as indicated by the well-known 
 fact that in the recollection of very delicious or 
 disagreeable tastes there is a decided sensation in 
 the mouth — the "mouth waters." 
 
 Carefully follow instructions in doing the follow- 
 ing exercises. 
 
 Barbara Frietchie. 
 
 (J. G. Whittiee.) 
 
 Up from the meadows rich with corn, 
 Clear on the cool September morn, 
 The clustered spires of Frederick stand, 
 Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. 
 
 Get the imagery as you proceed, also its associa- 
 tion. As I read these lines I seem to see the low 
 lands covered with rich waving corn, from which 
 the ground rises in a gradual ascent; the time is a 
 September morn, bright and clear. As I look up the 
 ascent, I see the clustered spires of the city, and just 
 back of them the green hills rising like a wall. 
 
 Now, after this first reading I can recall the 
 scene without the aid of book — cornfields in the low 
 lands — the ascent and appearance of the morning — 
 the spires and the mountain wall behind them. 
 Now, to master the author's words, I recall the first 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 91 
 
 Thought-Object — the meadows covered with corn; 
 i, e., I mentally look down in that direction, and 
 mentally see them ; then I get the words of the book 
 by reading them with this picture before the mind. 
 Then state the next Thought- Object in a similar way. 
 The ascent and kind of morning — then the words 
 " Clear on the cool" etc. I now look along up the 
 ascent and see the spires, and read " The clustering 
 spires," etc. Then the mountains are seen back of 
 spires, and I read " Green- walled," etc. 
 
 Now, let - the student recite these four lines, 
 beginning with the last. First recall the vision of 
 the hills back of spires, now give the words " Green" 
 etc. Now the Thought-Object next to the hills. 
 Now speak the words, " The clustered spires," etc. 
 Now the next part of the scene, and so to the 
 beginning; pursue the same method also from first 
 to last. 
 
 Now take the next stanza in a similar manner, 
 and so to the end. You must be careful not to 
 break the connection or association of the stanzas. 
 
 The second verse begins, " Bound about them 
 orchards sweep." Your last object was the green 
 
92 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 hills, from which your eye must drop at once upon 
 the orchards all about them. This connects the 
 parts of the scene and makes recollection a certainty 
 by the law of reciprocal predication. 
 
 Learn the remaining stanzas as the first, and all 
 the other exercises, whether poetry or prose. 
 
 Round about them orchards sweep, 
 Apple and peach tree fruited deep, 
 Fair as the garden of the Lord, 
 To the eyes of that famished rebel horde 
 On the pleasant morn of that early fall, 
 When Lee marched over the mountain wall, 
 Over the mountain winding down, 
 Horse and foot into Fredericktown. 
 
 Forty flags with their silver stars, 
 Forty flags with their crimson bars, 
 Flapped in the morning wind; the sun 
 Of noon looked down and saw not one. 
 
 (Pulled down by the inhabitants when they saw the army approaching.) 
 
 Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, 
 
 Bowed with her four score years and ten, 
 
 Bravest of all in Fredericktown — 
 
 She took up the flag that the men hauled down, 
 
 In her attic window the staff she set, 
 To show that one heart was loyal yet. 
 Up the street came the rebel tread, 
 Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 9& 
 
 Under his slouched hat, left and right 
 He glanced, — the old flag met his sight. 
 " Halt!" The dust-brown ranks stood fast, 
 " Fire!" Out blazed the rifle blast. 
 
 It shivered the window pane and sash, 
 It rent the banner with seam and gash. 
 Quick as it fell from the broken staff, 
 Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf T 
 She leaned far out on the window sill 
 And shook it forth with a royal will, 
 "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head r 
 But spare your Country's flag," she said. 
 
 A. shade of sadness, a blush of shame, 
 Over the face of the leader came; 
 The nobler nature within him stirred 
 To life at that woman's deed and word. 
 " Who touches a hair of yon gray head 
 Dies like a dog! March on!" he said. 
 All day long through Frederick street 
 Sounded the tread of marching feet, 
 
 All day long that free flag tossed 
 
 Over the head of the rebel host. 
 
 Ever its torn folds rose and fell 
 
 On the loyal winds that loved it well ; 
 
 And through the hill gaps sunset light 
 
 Shoue over it with a warm good-night. 
 
 Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, 
 
 And the rebel rides on his raids no more. 
 
94 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 Honor to her! and let a tear 
 Fall for her sake on Stonewall's bier. 
 Over Barbara Frietchie's grave, 
 Flag of freedom and Union, wave! 
 Peace and order and beauty draw 
 Round thy symbol of light and law; 
 And ever the stars above look down 
 On thy stars below in Fredericktown. 
 
 The following is very easy if the student will but 
 make it objective to the mind. The objects are in 
 contrast throughout. 
 
 Cleon and I. 
 
 By Chas. McKay. 
 
 Cleon hath a million acres, ne'er a one have I; 
 Cleon dwelleth in a palace, in a cottage I; 
 Cleon hath a dozen fortunes, not a penny I; 
 But the poorer of the twain is Cleon, and not I; 
 Cleon, true, possesseth acres, but the landscape I; 
 Half the charms to me it yieldeth, money cannot buy ; 
 Cleon harbors sloth and dullness, freshening vigor, I. 
 He in velvet, I in fustian, richer man am I. 
 Cleon is a slave to grandeur, free as thought am I; 
 Cleon fees a score of doctors, need of none have I. 
 Wealth surrounded, care environed, Cleon fears to die; 
 Death may come, he'll find me ready, happier man am I; 
 Cleon sees no charms in nature, in a daisy I; 
 Cleon hears no anthem ringing in the sea and sky; 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 95 
 
 Nature sings to me forever, earnest listener I; 
 
 State for state, with all attendants, who would change ? Not I. 
 
 Now kindly recite backwards and forwards. 
 
 Apply this method of learning to both poetry 
 and prose, whether you read it or hear it spoken, 
 and the results will be beyond your anticipations. 
 
 These exercises are simple and easy. I haye 
 selected them because they are so. 
 
 Drill yourself for a while with such exercises as 
 are vivid and easily pictured, then you can pass on 
 to that which is more difficult. 
 
 The following will be a pleasant exercise: 
 
 Memory Bells. 
 
 " Memory Bells are ringing — ringing 
 Tn the distance far away; 
 Do you hear them singing — singing ? 
 Do you hear their silver chiming? 
 Do you hear their mellow rhyming? 
 Do you hear the dear sweet story 
 Of your childhood's far-off glory? 
 Do they take you back to years 
 Clouded by no haunting fears ? 
 Do they speak of sunny hours 
 When your path was strewn with flowers ? 
 When a rainbow arched the skv 
 
96 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 And when Faith stood smiling by? 
 They are tolling — tolling slowly, 
 Hear the echoes die away, 
 lender, lowly, sad and holy, 
 Will you tell me what they say ? 
 Do they tell of manhood's dreaming ? 
 Do they tell of bright eyes beaming? 
 Do they tell of fond words spoken ? 
 Do they tell of young hearts broken? 
 Do they tell of hopes you cherished ? 
 Do they tell how faith has perished? 
 Do they tell how night and day 
 Cruel Hate has tracked her prey ? 
 Do they tell of proud hopes blasted, 
 And of life's sweet treasures wasted? 
 
 Memory bells are pealing — pealing, 
 O'er the ruins by the way, 
 Through the mind's dim chamber stealing- 
 Will you tell me what they say? 
 How your heart lost all its lightness ? 
 How your lif e lost all its brightness ? 
 Has your day-star set in gloom? 
 Do you hear the voice of Doom 
 Mocking every groan that bursts 
 From the aching heart that thirsts, 
 For the love it ne'er may share 
 And the joys it ne'er may wear, 
 For the light by clouds o'ercast, 
 For the glories of the past ? 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. y< 
 
 Memory bells, memory bells, softly you're ringing. 
 Through years of long silence I hear you to-day, 
 Soothing to rest by the notes you are winging. 
 O, memory bells, shall I tell what you say ? 
 Over long years you are bringing me back. 
 Over each step of the desolate track ; 
 Over temptation, and yielding, and sin, 
 Over the hurry, and whirl, and din, 
 Of a life that is dark, and I kneel once more 
 At my mother's knee, as I knelt of yore, 
 While she tells me the story, sweet and brief, 
 Of u the Man of sorrows acquainted with grief,'" 
 And I hear the lips that have long been clay 
 Pray for her boy as she prayed that day. 
 
 O, memory bells, with your weird strange power. 
 You have brought back my mother to me this hour* 
 And brought what you hoarded with faithful care, 
 Her fervent love and her faithful prayer; 
 You have stilled in my bosom the tempest wild. 
 And made me again "as a little child." 
 
 Let us give an example or two in learning prose. 
 
 Here is a passage from Nathan ShepparcTs 
 "Before An Audience," page 39: "Straighten up 
 and keep yourself straight. Walk upright. The 
 'shoulder braces' are of no use except to suggest 
 bracing yourself up. They will not keep your 
 shoulders back, but they will make you keep your 
 
98 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 shoulders back. They jog the will. When you 
 straighten up for the first time you will find that 
 your clothes do not fit you. Your trousers are too 
 short, and your coat won't button. The tailor meas- 
 ured you at your greatest shrinkage. This physical 
 discipline will suggest and promote physical self- 
 respect, and that in turn will promote moral self- 
 respect. The attitude of dignity dignifies the feel- 
 ing. Straightening the spine stiffens the moral 
 vertebra." 
 
 After what has been said in previous pages, the 
 first sentence of the above quotation has the imme- 
 diate effect of presenting to your inner senses a 
 straightening up, and keeping straight, and you 
 stand before yourself in a more erect attitude than 
 before. "Walk upright" — as a straight man must. 
 This is equally objective. Here you will observe 
 the golden link of association — standing straight; 
 then his moving, walking, is upright. This latter 
 sense -object readily leads to an observation of 
 shoulders — "the shoulder braces — see them. "No 
 use,' 1 "except" one thing: to "suggest bracing 
 yourself up." And here you brace up and throw 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 99 
 
 the shoulders back as if to relieve the pressure of 
 the "braces." 
 
 Go so through each sentence, letting yourself 
 feel or act as suggested by the lines, being careful 
 to note the transition from one sentence to another, 
 and you will be able to give the substance of the 
 whole paragraph after one reading, or of the whole 
 of any ordinary book so read. 
 
 The reader may find a little difficulty at first to 
 make his reading objective to the mind, but the 
 effort to do so will amply repay him. 
 
 It will certainly take a little more time to read 
 in this way than would be spent in reading simply 
 for pastime, but what is so read will be retained. 
 
 I think I have given sufficient illustration to 
 make my meaning clear, and I will therefore con- 
 clude this chapter by the request that you will not 
 criticise, but practice what I have suggested in the 
 foregoing pages. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 I CANNOT forbear in closing to make a few 
 general suggestions to those of my readers who 
 have to speak publicly, whether as reciters of plays, 
 or speeches, or sermons — whether borrowed or 
 original productions. 
 
 1. Make the matter of your subject objective to 
 yourself — know it in that way. Guard against the 
 slavish tendency to engage yourself with the words 
 alone. 
 
 2. Having prepared for your public perform- 
 ance, dismiss the subject from thought, and become 
 thoroughly rested before your public effort. 
 
 3. Be fearless, as you will soon learn to be by 
 using my method. 
 
 -4. Come before your audience without any 
 
 anxiety — i. <?.. do not work yourself into a frenzy by 
 
 100 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 101 
 
 conning the words of your discourse over and over 
 immediately previous to your public appearance. 
 Amuse yourself or engage the mind with something 
 else, so that there will be neither undue excitement 
 nor lassitude of the physical organism that is to be 
 engaged in the reproduction of your discourse. 
 
 5. Kely confidently upon the law of Keciprocal- 
 Predication, in the recollection of your speech. 
 
 6. In beginning, stand erect before your audi- 
 ence, with lungs expanded. Let the will put a little 
 extra firmness into the muscles, — this promotes the 
 flow of magnetism and produces a feeling of personal 
 strength. 
 
 7. Now bring up your first Thought-Object 
 before mental vision. Then address yourself in a 
 full, firm voice to the last person in your audience, 
 and in such a pitch and volume of voice as you think 
 will be heard by him. You will instinctively use 
 the right pitch of voice. Engage thought entirely 
 with the thought-objects about which you are speak- 
 ing, and do not allow others to intrude upon you 
 until you actually need them. Have no fear about 
 
102 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 the recollection of the next point to be made. It 
 will come when you need it. 
 
 This method will improve your manner, style of 
 speaking, impressiveness. It will enable you to hold 
 the attention of your audience simply because you 
 are interested by seeing and feeling your whole 
 subject. 
 
 Students and Examinations. 
 
 I feel that I should, in closing, say a few words 
 specially to students. 
 
 It was during my life at college that the possi- 
 bility of such a work as I have aimed at doing was 
 first presented to mind. 
 
 Lay it down as an axiom to be religiously 
 observed, that your first duty to self — your fellowmen, 
 and God, is to keep your physical organism in a 
 normal condition, because the mind is dependent 
 upon the physical mechanism. 
 
 Eat moderately; exercise your muscular powers 
 in order to maintain the proper balance between the 
 motor and sensient nerves, otherwise you may become 
 an illustration of what Nathan Sheppard has said, 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 103 
 
 "that the human plant sometimes goes all to top." 
 When this is the case it is sure to wilt soon or late. 
 
 Use no stimulants, or if you will, do so very 
 moderately. 
 
 Banish narcotics . Many a bright mind has dis- 
 appeared in a cloud of tobacco smoke. 
 
 Study. 
 
 There are many methods of study, and some are 
 better suited to some minds than others, but for 
 economy of time and strength, and for availability 
 in recollection, I think it will be generally admitted 
 the topical method is best. 
 
 Choose your subject, making it as objective as 
 possible to the mind to begin with, then gather from 
 all sources until you have a great store of knowledge 
 so correlated in memory, that beginning at any point 
 you can go right, left, or in any direction of time, 
 place or quality, etc. 
 
 To Leaen a Text-Book. 
 Read according to the foregoing instructions, and 
 as you proceed reduce it to the briefest possible out- 
 line. Then do your supplementary readings under 
 
104 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 these heads. After a little practice you will be able, 
 if you wish, to quote title, page and author. 
 Examination. 
 
 Many of the brightest students fail in examina- 
 tions, from nervous weakness or exhaustion, or con- 
 stitutional nervousness, bat the greater number of 
 failures result, 1, from not knowing how to lay hold 
 of knowledge, and 2, ignorance of how to recall all 
 one knows of a subject. 
 
 Some have phenomenal word-memories and 
 "cram" themselves with the words they read, then 
 spin them out by the yard, but these are not the men 
 who make life a success. 
 
 They are frequently failures in the professions 
 and elsewhere, simply because they have learned the 
 word- clothing of subjects, but not the subjects them- 
 selves. 
 
 Nothing w T ill so perfectly insure the mastery of 
 your subject as the method I have presented in 
 these pages. 
 
 If your subject comes to you, not in nature's 
 form, but at second hand, so to say, in an artificial 
 form of book, sentence, word or other characters. 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 105 
 
 then translate it back to the natural form, as nearly 
 as possible ;e. g., if you are studying human anatomy 
 you will do it best by having a body or a manikin 
 before you. If this is not convenient, remember 
 that you possess a natural power to do this mentally, 
 and to refer to every part almost, if not quite, as 
 well as if the body were really present. You will 
 also rind it so with all other subjects. 
 
 If the student will faithfully pursue my method 
 he will more than double the amount of his work in 
 a given time, insure good memory and ready recol- 
 lection, develop all his powers more evenly, live 
 longer, and have more real life crowded into each 
 year, and instead of dwindling down into imbecility 
 in old age to bemoan a lost memory and shattered 
 mind, he will have a "green old age," full of mental 
 activity. 
 
FACE-ALPHABET 
 
 BEIXG A DEVICE BY WHICH TO 
 
 CERTAINLY REMEMBER 
 
 FACES and NAMES 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. G. A. SCHRAM. 
 
 COFYRIG-HT 1892. 
 (Ail rights reo e rvod. ) 
 
face $Upfyabet. 
 
 / HIS is a device to aid those who have poor 
 I O memories for faces and names, and these 
 classes are very common. 
 
 Nothing can be more humiliating to a person than 
 to be unable to speak the name of one whom he 
 knows very well, and quite frequently people are 
 insulted by finding you cannot speak their names 
 readily. 
 
 This question has given me a great deal of 
 annoyance. For years I often found myself unable 
 to speak the names of quite familiar friends if they 
 suddenly appeared, and what was still more annoy- 
 ing, once when out making pastoral calls, and being 
 asked by a strange lady what my name was, I could 
 not tell her for probably a minute, and possibly I 
 
 should not have been able to do it at all at the time, 
 
 109 
 
110 MEXTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 had I not imagined another person addressing me. 
 and speaking my name. 
 
 Apart .from the fact that general forgetfnlness. 
 or failure to recollect arising from mental weariness, 
 indigestion, poor blood and nervous impairment, a 
 poor memory for faces or names, arises from 
 inattention, and a failure to connect both in one 
 inseparable record of memory so that one will 
 predicate the other. L e. if you see the face again or 
 revive it in recollection, the name instantly comes, 
 and vice versa. 
 
 I need not refer to the many pitiable tricks and 
 devices adopted to aid the memory in these matters. 
 but will at once say that the only association to be 
 made in order to remember faces and names, is an 
 association of the two in one complex record. This 
 will be apparent if we consider the relation of the 
 two in thought and language. The name like any 
 other substantive is evidently intended to be a word- 
 sign of the face. i. e. the face not being present I 
 use the name to indicate which particular counte- 
 nance it is of which I speak, I say the name is a 
 sign for a particular countenance, because it is the 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. Ill 
 
 countenance that specially differentiates one person 
 from another. Yon always look into the counte- 
 nance to recognize a man. 
 
 For some time it puzzled me to devise some 
 means of associating the countenance or features and 
 name in such a way that one would always be. not 
 only a sign of the other, but would also revive the 
 recollection of the other, just as the appearance of a 
 word revives the pronunciation, and its pronuncia- 
 tion also revives the form of the word in recollection. 
 
 Finally it became evident to me that the nature 
 of this particular case was such that I must find or 
 create something that would be common both to the 
 name and the face. 
 
 Accordingly I created an alphabet of such a 
 nature that I could so nearly spell the name with it. 
 that having done so. I could readily speak the name, 
 and that whenever the face was before me. or revived 
 in recollection, it would instantly give me these 
 letters or elementary sounds of the name. 
 
 In making this alphabet I kept in view the facts 
 that things associated together in the original per- 
 ception would prediccde one another, that the mind 
 
112 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 perceived locality, and that it also perceived the direc- 
 tion taken in the process of original attention: and 
 again, that in recollection exactly the same process 
 was repeated in the nervous elements and mental 
 operations, as when these were originally engaged 
 with the original sense-object, with the exception that 
 the nervous activities were less intense and generally 
 less prolonged. 
 
 Basing my invention upon these principles — I 
 grouped all the consonant sounds that were cognates 
 of one another as they do in stenography; by this 
 means I could represent them all with sufficient 
 clearness by fourteen characters. Then instead of, 
 inventing characters I took such as were already in 
 existence, viz., the features of the face. 
 
 Thus for the cognates F, V, I used the middle of 
 the forehead a little above the nose. For P. B, the 
 brow. For T, D, the bridge of the nose. S, C, Z, 
 the eye. For J, G, the jaw. For K, Q, and C, G, 
 hard, the throat. For N, the end of the nose; M, 
 the mouth; L, lip; the sound of Ch, Sh, the cheek; 
 W, the line from nose ; Y, lines from corner of eye ; 
 H, color of hair. Any other arrangement might be 
 
OH PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 113 
 
 made to answer the purpose, but this is best, because 
 First, thes^ features are usually plainly in sight, 
 when looking at a person's face during the first 
 meeting and introduction: Second, because the names 
 of these features suggest the letters I make them 
 represent. Thus the word forehead begins with F ; 
 Brow with B. T is suggested by the nose and the 
 brow crossing it. S is suggested by sight. X is 
 sounded through the nose. H is in hair. B is the 
 prominent sound in car. The hard sounds. K. Q y 
 C. G. are produced in the throat, etc. 
 
 The first thing to be done is to look at the face 
 given on another page. See where the letters are 
 placed. Begin with the forehead and call it F. Y: 
 then bridge of nose, brow, etc. Then lay aside the 
 picture and go through the list from memory — 
 recalling first the face, then the features in order, 
 calling them by their new names as given in the 
 Face Alphabet. You will learn it very readily, and 
 in a few days will use it with great dexterity. 
 
ill 
 
 Face Alphabet. 
 
 COPYBIGHT 1889. 
 
 {All rights reserved.) 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 115 
 
 How to Use the Face Alphabet. 
 
 Take my own name to illustrate. Supposing we 
 have met, and are introduced by a third party, who 
 speaks my name. You speak the name after him, 
 looking into my countenance. You catch the con- 
 sonant sounds of the name Schram, which are 
 sh-r-m, and these in your Face Alphabet are cheek 
 — ear — mouth. Without being detected by me, you 
 notice these three features in the order represented 
 by the consonants of the name, and if attention has 
 been perfect (although it need not be of long dura- 
 tion) you will be able to describe these features of 
 my face and head after I have gone ; and every time 
 I am revived in your recollection these three features 
 are prominent and in their original order — on the 
 well-known principle that the best known arises first 
 into the field of recollection. But these features 
 mean to you Sch (or Sh, phonetically,) r-m, which 
 being pronounced in close connection almost per- 
 fectly give the name. 
 
 Always treat the letters phonetically, dropping 
 one of doubles, and all silent letters. Any name 
 
116 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 cnn be fixed in this way. Be careful for a time to 
 always revive the appearance of the face, when 
 trying to recall the name. In so doing the eve will 
 naturally fall upon the features which originally 
 engaged attention, and these being signs for certain 
 sounds, you will be able to speak the name readily. 
 
 If your memory for names has been unreliable 
 before learning and using this device, you need not 
 hope to be cured all at once, nor without a little 
 purposeful attention. And will it not amply repay 
 you if. by putting a little voluntary attention into 
 the use of my device you shall be able to speak the 
 names of persons at will ? 
 
 The great difficulty to be overcome is your 
 confirmed habit of inattention to names, which is 
 perhaps of life-long standing. This, however, can 
 easily be accomplished. Try it faithfully. 
 
 But your special difficulty may not be in remem- 
 bering names, but faces. It is rarely that the mem- 
 ory is bad for both. I have observed that without 
 exception, if the memory of faces is poor, that for 
 names is fairly good, and often phenomenally so, and 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 117 
 
 t'icc versa. Occasionally, however, the memory for 
 both is good. 
 
 If face memory is unreliable pursue exactly the 
 same method as that employed in the former case. 
 This so engages attention with the features," or some 
 of them, that they will afterwards be recognized, 
 and besides this a habit of observation of faces will 
 be developed, which will be astonishing in its 
 results. 
 
 I have observed in my own case that it has 
 developed a power to draw a face from memory after 
 seeing it only once, and at any time after seeing it. 
 Artists could have no better help in drawing either 
 faces, or any other object from memory, than the 
 instructions given throughout this book. 
 
 Practice the above suggestions on every person 
 vou meet, and when alone trv to revive the linage of 
 the face, and the particular features representing the 
 name, and you will be amply repaid. 
 
 There is another case that demands a little 
 attention here, that is the names of persons asso- 
 ciated with literature, or important events, etc., but 
 whom you have never seen, and probably never will. 
 
118 MENTAL CALISTHENICS; 
 
 In such cases the name must be associated with 
 the event, etc. You must connect the word, both 
 spoken and written, with the event. Get the event, 
 or whatever it may be, clearly represented before 
 the mind. Then speak the name, observing the 
 sounds of the syllables, how they are produced by 
 the organs of speech, also the appearance of the word 
 as written. This process results in several associate 
 records in memory, either of which will revive the 
 others in recollection. 
 
 You will probably find that you will generally 
 have to recall the event, etc., with which you origi- 
 nally associated the name, before you can recall 
 the latter, and when the name comes up first in 
 recollection you will instantly think of the associate 
 event. To illustrate: Suppose you have associated 
 the name of the "Iron Duke' 1 Wellington, with the 
 battle of Waterloo. You attend to the sound, syl- 
 lables — form of word, etc., as associated with the 
 field of Waterloo. Afterwards Waterloo vividly 
 represented to mind will also represent a victorious 
 general leading his army, and therewith will be 
 
OR PHYSIOLOGICAL MEMORY. 119 
 
 repeated the remainder of the original process, which 
 will represent to mind the name. 
 
 Should you afterwards see and become acquainted 
 with a person whose name had been so fixed in 
 memory, you would probably be unable readily to 
 speak his name without recalling it as originally 
 fixed in connection with an event of his life. I 
 recently read an article in a leading review, by a 
 distinguished writer and scholar, in which this 
 matter was discussed, and he said that he found diffi- 
 culty in readily recalling names he had learned in 
 literature, when he afterwards became personally 
 acquainted with them, without recalling first the 
 event with which he originally found them associated. 
 
 This difficulty can, however, be overcome very 
 readily by changing the association from the event 
 to the features of the face, by using the face alphabet. 
 
 Then when the face appears before you it predi- 
 cates the name just as if it had been originally so 
 fixed in memory. 
 
 I cannot furnish a proper exercise on the Face 
 Alphabet without taking up too much space, as it 
 
120 MENTAL CALISTHENICS. 
 
 would need to be a number of different faces called 
 by different names. 
 
 These faces and names the student would have to 
 fix in memory, just as if real persons of different 
 names were before him. 
 
 You will, however, find the best of exercise in 
 the faces of the persons you meet each day. 
 
 Let me guard you against forgetting to use the 
 Face Alphabet, when forming a new acquaintance. 
 Your old habit of inattention to face or name, or 
 both, as the case may be, will cling to you unless you 
 resolve to overcome it by using the Face Alphabet. 
 
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