A Wonderful Memory

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 47.

A Wonderful Memory

Lord Macaulay had a most wonderful memory, and he tells us in his own words how he cultivated it:—

When a boy I began to read very earnestly, but at the foot of every page I read I stopped and obliged myself to give an account of what I had read on that page. At first I had to read it three or four times before I got my mind firmly fixed. But I compelled myself to comply with the plan, until now when I have read a book through once, I can almost recite it from beginning to end.

This is a splendid method. To this plan the Christian Advocate adds the following: “He [the reader] should form his own opinion of the value of the matter. If this plan seems too troublesome another is almost as good, and that is, to review mentally each chapter. Even then, if one wishes never to forget, he would do well to mark the passages that most deeply impress him and reread them carefully when he finishes the book; and under all circumstances remember the name of the author, and distinguish between quotations and his own matter.” This is good advice in the light of recent and frequent charges of plagiarism.